National Affairs: Five-Dollar Billkies

A new high note in unconscious irony was struck last week by Scripps-Howard’s New York World-Telegram, which editorialized: “Money is still needed to finance the Willkie campaign. . . . Greatly increased numbers of contributors mean a significant and healthy broadening of the base. … All over the country smaller contributors are acting in the lively spirit of the man who pinned to his gift: My candidate’s name’s Wendell Willkie, His tones are not honey or sillkie; He’s the first man in years To call forth my cheers, So—good luck with this $5.00 billkie….

“Too much is at stake to let the Willkie campaign falter toward the finish for mere lack of expense money.”

Actually the base of the Willkie campaign had been broadened so far that some observers thought more might finally be spent on the Willkie campaign than had been forked up for Landon or Hoover. Yet G. O. P. Chairman Martin could honestly insist that the Hatch Act ($3,000,000 limit) was being observed with pharisaic strictness by the National Committee—for outside the National Committee were scores of organizations, uncontrolled and uncontrollable, collecting and spending money for the man they want to win. From coast to coast there were anti-Roosevelt or pro-Willkie organizations, maintaining extensive paid staffs, with hundreds of telephones in use, tons of literature fluttering off presses, thousands of costly billboards, huge electric signs. Democrats called them “a masterpiece of disorganization.” Besides the Associated Willkie Clubs and the National Committee of Democrats-for-Willkie, both operating under the Hatch Act’s limitations, these groups helping to raise money to balance the Roosevelt advantage from eight years of Government spending included :

> Anti-Third Term Association, with offices in Manhattan, which collected funds for billboards, literature.

> Citizens Information Committee, headquarters in Chicago, a nationwide organization of business executives and professional men who started a “prairie fire” for Willkie with pep-&-money-raising luncheons and a barrage of chain telegrams to their friends & associates. They were responsible for numerous radio programs, newspaper ads, campaigns in various racial groups, miscellaneous expenses.

> People’s Committee to Defend Life Insurance and Savings, headed mostly by bankers, with headquarters on Philadelphia’s Locust Street, creators of much anti-Roosevelt propaganda.

> In Manhattan alone were such groups as: Women Workers for Willkie; American Writers for Willkie; Non-Partisan Willkie League of New York, Inc. (Jewish Division); Democratic Businessmen for Willkie; Garment Workers for Willkie; We The People; First Voters League (Willkie committee); Committee of 10 Million Businessmen, Professionals and Farmers.

With such amateur and zestful groups multiplied a thousandfold across the U. S., with Franklin Roosevelt’s campaign worse managed State by State even than Alf Landon’s had been in 1936. small wonder that many a Democrat was jittery. They did have new and bountiful billions for defense spending, but in crucial New York, Manhattan’s Tammany (like Jim Farley, who gave only lip service) shrugged its shoulders and took a back seat. In Albany, the O’Connell family, bosses of one of the nation’s tightest but least-known machines, were even more indifferent about getting out the Democratic vote.

(Letting sleeping dogs lie, Candidate Willkie in his speech there did not mention the O’Connells.) As working organizations the Democrats had those of Jersey City’s Frank Hague and Chicago’s Ed Kelly (both operating in an unaccustomed and hampering spotlight), the amateurish National Committee of Independent Voters, headed by Mayor LaGuardia and Senator George Norris, sparked by Tommy (“The Cork”) Corcoran.

Thus Democrats, who in 1936 had more millions of dollars than they could use, were now strapped for ready cash, while the Administration was hampered by the Hatch Act—a law passed by Democrats.

They still had the enormous credit of a Government that had had eight years of spending; but observers, watching the uncertain electorate, could not help wondering how good that credit was.