Show GENERAL aj HUGH S sl JOHNSON washington D 0 WILLKIE three days of observe observation tion of wendell d ell winkle willkie have hav e been eye openers ope ners to me well as I 1 thought I 1 knew him this column going to make mak e the mistake it made in 1936 and take a strong partisan position but it feels a certain sense of responsibility for insisting on the availability of this man for almost two years and getting a good many rasp berries for or its alleged goofiness goodness the eye opener was this guys st sturdy independence I 1 think he is another but a pleasanter plea santer grover cleveland I 1 sensed and sometimes saw the strongest kinds of pulls and pressures applied to him in these few flays days some of them were from the mightiest of po political lotical leaders others were of the modern telegraph barrage variety speaking for farmers we urgil urge speaking for catholics we demand As representative ot of negroes we ask if you wont do so and an so ds you will lose new york state and the whole atlantic seaboard the candidate answers genially and courteously he checks facts from every source he can command H he e continues to pursue the even tenor of his way and thought with a smiling urbanity that seems a miracle to me I 1 know only one other man who could take such pushing pulling and yawing with as good nature as little disturbance of his convictions and as little loss of ale sleep p his name is franklin roosevelt I 1 do not lor for a moment mean to suggest that wendell willkie la Is a stubborn dogmatist he is just the reverse of that he has the usual business habit of 0 putting up an alert defensive Ie to any professional sales talk but he also uses the efficient business mans practice of overlooking no promising proposition and of getting every tact fact and expert opinion available before he decides there has been a good deal of speculation about why I 1 went to colorado springs mr willkie asked me to come to give my opinion on certain aspects of the farm labor and defense problems with all of which 1 I have had some experience and have expressed strong views well he winnowed win whatever brains I 1 have with a fine tooth comb so far as I 1 know accepted nothing put up as able and well informed debate as I 1 have yet encountered and left me in complete ignorance as to his final filial judgment to me all this seems a good sign the greatest blunder in a recent government has been I 1 think a sort of trout like snapping at and swallowing whole of any attractive brainstorm brain srm with little or no attempt to get an objective analysis or hear any worthwhile contrary opinion of one thing I 1 am sure nobody is going to shove this shaggy hoosier around sell him any gold bricks or push him off of any important moral position for the sake of any expedient political advantage the latter has to my knowledge been vainly attempted with dire threats of defeat it if willkie did not instantly knuckle ile he just laughed he has another quality of franklin roosevelt nobody rejected ever goes away mad but while the president accomplishes this by saying yes yes yes you ar are L perfectly right and then acts just as he pleases mr winkle willkie somehow manages to keep them cheerful with something like yours received and contents noted I 1 will study it carefully just now it looks lou attractive as the case may be I 1 still say he would be a great president THOSE 50 destroyers NEW YORK the fight to sell 50 of our destroyers to britain is led by the two whirling dervishes of the third term assault on american tradition the glamorous senators josh lee and claude pepper each has a right to be as fanatical as he pleases as pepper is tor for old doe doc townsends Town sends cruel deceit of the aged as josh is tor for the uncompensated confiscation of property both schemes would wreck beyond repair the economic strength of this country to in a time ot of great danger during our civil war great britain permitted swift confederate commerce destroyers to be fitted out in british ports they gave the final push to our once supreme merchant marine a blow from which it never recovered our protests continued for years the british finally admitted that for this sort of illegal participation in undercover war the offending country is responsible in damages for every loss its unlawful act has imposed apart from any such quibbling as josh lee is doing to make a mockery of statutory and treaty obligations lets not overlook the alabama claims they involved in the main only two wooden ships what would 50 destroyers involve there are some vital factual questions which should be c considered onside red against all this third term hokum are these vessels obsolete it if so bow can it be urged that the life odthe of the british navy depends on them |