WE, THE PEOPLE

In the April 1940 issue of FORTUNE, Wendell Willkie, then a New York utilities executive not widely known to the U.S. people, published a declaration of principles, in the form of a petition to the platform makers of both parties. The declaration, widely reprinted, had an electric effect. Around him rallied almost overnight, thousands of Americans, most of them political amateurs, who had suddenly found a spokesman. Among them were young Oren Root Jr., who promptly formed the Willkie Clubs, and, FORTUNE Editor Russell Davenport, who resigned his editorial job to direct the Willkie campaign, begun just two months before the Republican convention.

This Willkie declaration, articulating the feelings first of thousands, then of millions, became a historical document which has obvious implications for today.

In the decade beginning 1930 you have told us that our day is finished, that we can grow no more, and that the future cannot be the equal of the past. But we, the people, do not believe this, and we say to you : give up this vested interest that you have in depression. Open your eyes to the future, help us to build a New World.

In this decade you have separated "business" and "industry" from the ordinary lives of the people and have applied against them a philosophy of hate and mistrust, but we, the people, say: business and industry are part of our daily lives; in hurting them you hurt us. Therefore abandon this attitude of hate and set our enterprises free.

In this decade you have undertaken vast new obligations, which we sup port. But because you have not applied to these obligations the ordinary standards of business judgment, you have lost our money by the billions and we, the people, say: give us a businesslike administration that will act as the steward of our prosperity; that will ensure the social progress that is now threatened; and that will manage our affairs at least as intelligently as we manage our own enterprises.

In this decade, under the banners of reform, you have usurped our sovereign . power by curtailing the Bill of Rights, by short-circuiting the states, and by placing in the hands of a few men in executive commissions all the powers requisite to tyranny; and we, the people, say to you: we do not want monopolistic government, any more than we want monopolistic industry. Give us back the powers that our forefathers declared to be ours; liberate us to govern ourselves by law.

Because you have concealed from us the amount of our real taxes, and because you have hidden from us the real nature of our expenditures, you have specifically usurped our power over the public monies, and we, the people, say: give us as much information concerning our government as we expect to get concerning our own enterprises, so that we may control the vast sums that it has become necessary to spend.

You -- the politicians of both parties -- have muddled our foreign affairs with politics; with vague threats and furtive approvals; with wild fears and inconsistent acts; and we, the people, say: give us a foreign policy that we can trust and upon which we can build toward the future. We are against aggressors; we are for foreign trade; and we recognize that our own stand ard of living can be improved only by raising the standard of the other countries of the world.

This declaration will not interest those who regard the United States as a laboratory for social experiments.

It will not interest those who regard the United States as a free-lunch counter.

It will certainly not interest those who regard the United States as a some what impoverished gold mine out of which they can still scrape a nugget or two for themselves, It will interest only those who think of the United States as their land -- a land they know and love -- a land that became rich through the industry, thrift, and enterprise of its people, and will never regain its prosperity in any other way.

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