I Vote for Willkie

THE platform on which Mr. Roosevelt was nominated in 1932 consisted in the main of what had long been the party traditions of the true Democratic attitude.

The candidate was brilliant, convincing, devoted to American institutions, confident, of the ability of the people to surmount the disasters of 1929-1931, a believer in the nation’s long and expanding future.

After he was elected he immediately gained the wholehearted support of the nation by his dynamic approach to the problems then confronting us. Many were ready to acknowledge their mistake in not supporting him.

In 1936 I opposed the President’s reelection.

I thought Mr. Roosevelt had departed from the platform on which he had been nominated, and had turned from Democracy towards State Socialism.

He seemed to have entered upon a period of extreme nationalism at a time when I thought we must coöperate economically with the democracies of Europe to save them from new, oppressive forms. Examples were provided by his destruction of the London Economic Conference of 1933, with its repudiation of Secretary Hull’s policies. I was opposed also to the social-economic proscriptions of NIRA; the policies which tended to array class against class in the United States; the attacks on business and the profit system; what seemed unsound fiscal and budget policies; and admission to the government service of inexperienced people and of some who were vengeful and of low public standards.

My apprehension about the trend of Mr. Roosevelt’s government policy was increased, after his reëlection, by the scheme to pack the Supreme Court on the ground of enlarging it to increase its productive capacity; and by the approved first draft of the Reorganization Bill which would have put every independent commission and agency under the power of the executive.

But after certain Congressional chastenings of this Second New Deal had been administered, I accepted the view of friends of the President that he had seen a new light. They said he had merely been attempting to pay political debts and, this done, now intended to devote himself to recovery. He would, they said, encourage business, discourage class consciousness, and prepare the country to pass prosperously into the hands of a successor as President in 1941.

‘We want you to come to Washington and help do this,’ they said. ‘Instead of grousing about what’s wrong, assist the President in putting things right. It is your duty.’

Accordingly I went to Washington as a member of the Securities and Exchange Commission. From this, after several months, the President transferred me to be Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, then Under Secretary. In the latter capacity I served until January 1940.

With what ability I possess, and certainly with earnestness and devotion, I applied myself to my assigned tasks in the spirit defined by those friends of Mr. Roosevelt who had approached me. I attempted to set up a good-will liaison between business and government, drafting some of the ablest citizens in the country from industry and finance for that purpose. I sought a realistic approach to the question of taxation, fiscal policy, and the budget. I put recovery first — I had been told this was the new watchword — and everything else afterward.

On every front I failed to accomplish the major things which I had been informed the administration sought to achieve. The insurmountable obstacles were all erected by the administration itself. They were the work of some in the public service whom I have called inexperienced, vengeful, and possessed of low public standards. They were also the work of New Dealers of high public standards who do not believe in the American system.

These men within the administration refused to coöperate with business, and continued to harass it. They said that business was all for privilege and nothing for progress. They wished taxation to be punitive, to be an instrument to stifle free enterprise and individual talent and to force a dead level of profit. They put their ideas of social change before recovery at all points.

And finally I was persuaded that they intended to perpetuate themselves in power through contriving a third term for Mr. Roosevelt. Tax the few, spend for the many, and win elections through that process, was clearly to be their continued political course.

When these experiences multiplied, and this persuasion became a certainty, I resigned as Under Secretary of the Treasury and looked about for some means to restore a progressive, constructive government in Washington. The answer came unexpectedly and incredibly at Philadelphia when the people nominated Mr. Willkie.

He was a supporter of the Democratic platform of 1932, and even through 1936 an affiliated Democrat. He was a business man of the patriotic, able type I had been encouraged to bring together in cooperation with the government. In addition to these things, I found on acquaintance that he was able, sound, neither erratic nor impulsive, and — above all — a staunch believer in the nation’s long and expanding future and in the genius of the American people. He does not think we are through expanding, or that in any crisis we can produce only one man to deal with it. He knows the nation’s problems and those of the world through experience, reading, and observation, and he has calm remedies and solutions.

So I shall support Mr. Willkie for President, believing that he will bring to government what Mr. Roosevelt could have brought to it in 1932, and what I again hoped he would bring to it in 1937 and 1938.

Specifically I oppose: —

The executive incompetence of the New Deal.

The static economic philosophy of the New Deal.

The political uses of the social philosophy of the New Deal.

The cynical and corrupt alliance of the administration with the worst political bosses and city-hall and courthouse gangs in the United States.

The fake ‘draft’ at Chicago by means of which many able Democrats were denied an opportunity to present their claims to be President.

The fake ‘acclamation’ of a convention bought by patronage.

The collectivism which has crept further and further into government.

The ‘smearing’ tactics against honest critics which, under a cloak of piety and fact-finding, are familiar tactics in Washington.

The lack of candor of government with the people on matters which affect their property and, more recently, their lives.

A confused and highly political foreign policy tinged with drama for the headlines, and often based on bluff, which has left us almost isolated in a world of enemies. We waited to help the Allies until France had collapsed and Great Britain was in a last ditch. Meanwhile we spoke harshly to the world and carried a very small stick which we did not begin to replace with a large one until our situation had grown perilous.

A third term, which would forever threaten that rotation in office which Jefferson called the chief safeguard of democracy in this country, on the very pretext of indispensability which-Jefferson foresaw as the pretext that would be used.

A third term, which would embed in power a governing group that, judging from first-hand experience, I believe plans a social and economic system foreign to our own.

These are some of the reasons why I shall vote for Mr. Willkie.