OCR Text |
Show By PaulMallqn yf' Released by Western Newspaper Union. HONEST DIFFERENCES NEW YORK. Luckily the nonsense non-sense of American political campaigns cam-paigns generally evaporates as fast as the ballots themselves, which, once counted, lose their value and become waste paper. Only substance sub-stance survives. Falseness cannot endure the calmer atmosphere of reasoning and acquire permanence. In the, closing of the campaign some hasty people on the radio, for instance, suggested Dewey or Roosevelt should" be impeached for something or other which was not clear in the speakers excited minds, and at the other extreme I heard the all too reasonable suggestion that now the election is over the losers should give in their viewpoints view-points to the winners. "The issues are decided" and now "we must all work together." Neither course is likely to be followed this time. The frenzied few will quiet down gradually gradu-ally from impeachment thoughts as they come face to face with new developments. It is equally inevitable in-evitable that the genuine faith of people in certain truths and ideals at the moment I am writing this, is not going to be turned around for the espousal of opposite ideals after election. But there was a surviving substance sub-stance developed during this campaign cam-paign a substance which could be as important to the future of the country and the world as the outcome out-come of the election. BOTH PROMISED Both sides promised the same things in great instances. This agreeable residue of the debate is what the country has the right to expect from the victor, indeed what it must insist upon. The mutual promises were basically these: Jobs. Dewey promised them to all and Roosevelt promised 60,000,000. Indeed they both promised the method of furnishing them free enterprise. en-terprise. Both promised against the Communist and Socialist way of furnishing fur-nishing them (free enterprise clearly clear-ly disavows socialistic methods). Both promised a high-wage, high-priced economy with fair employment practices and Mr. Roosevelt even defined his living liv-ing wage as applying only to "a full work week" in rejection of previous trends toward less work. Both promised quick victory vic-tory and a sound peace, and nearly agreed on how. They said they would continue existing military leadership for war, and would seek peace through the Dumbarton Oaks arrangement for a new League of Nations. On one league point only did they differ, and then not as much as advertised. The most fervid Rooseveltian internationalists (the Ball-Davenport minority) said they wanted the American agent in the league council to - vote for war only by constitu- -tional means, and that is actually what Dewey insisted upon. Behind these generalized agreements, agree-ments, there now lies of course, great prospects of change and sharp irreconciliable differences on both sides. On the Roosevelt side, or rather the inside, it became evident evi-dent State Secretary Hull's health might eliminate his sound search for unity on foreign policy, and the administration's economic director James Byrnes definitely made arrangements ar-rangements to quit before election. elec-tion. If someone like Sumner Welles happened to get Hull's job, you can readily see how the measure of unity so far achieved would fade away. If the radicals took control of Byrnes' place, the change in domestic policies would be equally sharp. The changes through a new administration leadership by Dewey were more obvious and fully presented. No. doubt the various self-seeking classes will be interpreting the general result for their own purposes by the time you read this, so it may be well to get the truth in first: A Roosevelt victory would not be a victory for the purposes of any of the minority groups which took leadership lead-ership in seeking his election, because they do not control enough votes to accomplish such a result. Such a class victory was not promised. Roosevelt declared the winner, it was solely sole-ly because so many people were afraid of the war and thought he could conclude it sooner or better. A Dewey victory would have reflected a demand for a change. There is less cause for the quad-renniel quad-renniel metamorphosis this time. I Of course, the frenzied few man-i man-i aged to call each other liars, but not many proved it, and after all anyone in politics is supposed to be I a liar these days, so the charge is hardly sensational. As a matter of fact I achieve the ' distinction of being called a liar by ' four or five of my 20.000.00C readers (circulation going up) for having quoted Mr. R. as saying in his Boston speech that he would never send our boys abroad in foreign for-eign wars. |