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From Socialist Appeal, Vol. IV No. 27, 6 July 1940, pp. 1 & 3.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghanfor ETOL.
With Wendell Willkie, labor-hating utilities czar, Big Business and the Republican party offer an open challenge to American Labor.
Roosevelt has been used for eight years to wheedle, to bamboozle, to deceive, to outflank and cut off the marching legions of American workers.
Now, unless American entry into war makes retention of the Roosevelt method advisable for a time, the reform-weary bosses and their middle-class satellites are going to try to put in a man wild won’t “coddle” labor and whose sole interest as president will be to assure the profits of the bosses.
For the working class, the nomination of Willkie is not something that can possibly be regarded as something to support as against Roosevelt. It has to be looked upon as the maneuver of an enemy. Don’t forget that Roosevelt and Willkie both are part and parcel of the boss system.
For reasons that can best be explained by a psychiatrist, John L. Lewis appeared before the platform committee of the Republican Party, creating the impression that disgusted with Roosevelt he was turning to the Republican party as a possible champion of labor.
It is safe to say that not even Lewis will resurrect his old Republicanism and support the Republican party. If he should be insane enough to do so his followers in the world of labor will be few indeed. For if there is one thing recognized by the great mass of organized workers it is that the Republican party represents the most reactionary section of the capitalist class.
The two problems concerning which there was a serious difference of opinion in the Republican convention were the question of the policy of the party to the European war and of the person to carry its banner as presidential candidate.
Reactionary intellectual figures like Walter Lippmann were seriously disturbed at the attitude ,of the majority of the delegates toward the problem of foreign affairs. It is evident that the majority of delegates represented the “isolationist” tendency – using that term to designate those modest imperialists satisfied with control over the Western Hemisphere.
It is clear that most of the delegates, anxious to get votes rather than to formulate correct policies, were of the opinion that they could garner a lot of votes if they would only come out of the convention parading as a “peace” party. They knew that the masses did not want to go to war and were willing to give the masses a chance to vote the Republicans into power in the expectation that the Republican party would keep the country out of war.
The dramatic phase of the convention consisted of the nomination of a presidential candidate. The mediocre character of the available candidates among the old-line politicians was obvious and gave serious concern to the capitalists who really run the party. The responsible people behind the party were in a real dilemma. They are all for Roosevelt’s pro-war policy and could not. trust a second-rate politician in the presidential chair at a time when momentous decisions will have to be made daily.
On the other hand their hostility to Roosevelt for his social reformism is still smoldering. They were in a panic lest the nomination of a Dewey or a Taft would compel them to support Roosevelt for a third term.
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