"Freedom is an indivisible word. If we want to enjoy it, and fight for it, we must be prepared to extend it to everyone, whether they are rich or poor, whether they agree with us or not, no matter what their race or the color of their skin."—Wendell Willkie, One World (1943)Wendell Willkie, born of humble origins on this day in 1892 in Indiana, was one of the great meteors of American political history—a man with no prior elective or appointive office who (with some help from Time Magazine publisher Henry Luce) took the Republican Convention by storm in 1940. In the subsequent election, this lawyer and utilities executive presented the most serious challenge that Franklin Roosevelt had faced up to that time, a real alternative for Americans with serious qualms about the President’s bid for a third term. Four years later, he was a spent political force. His fate illustrates much about the perils of bipartisanship, as much now as then.
After the 1940 election, something extraordinary happened: FDR called on his erstwhile opponent to act as his “special representative” to Great Britain, the Middle East, China and the Soviet Union. One World, a result of these indefatigable travels, urged America to join international peacekeeping efforts in the postwar world.
Willkie, who left the Democratic Party because of what he saw as the New Deal’s anti-business approach, had not yielded one iota in these beliefs. Yet, when he saw a mortal threat to the nation in the form of Fascism, he (like fellow Republicans Henry Stimson, William J. Donovan and Frank Knox) was prepared to make common cause with FDR in urging Americans away from isolationism. His willingness to see eye to eye with the President even on this one subject proved too much for many in the GOP, who voted for Thomas Dewey in the 1944 primaries. Willkie died that fall after a heart attack, but his days as an influence among Republicans was already over as quickly as it began.
In contrast to today’s politicians, Willkie demonstrated that it was possible to oppose a President on ideological grounds—even to engage, at points, in sharp attacks indeed (he accused FDR toward the end of the 1940 campaign of warmongering)—and not stoop to pettiness. Policy provided ample opportunity by itself for disagreement, as well as occasions when human rights and the national interest bound normal foes together. It's inconceivable that he would have engaged today in nonsensical smears involving the President's father or anti-colonial beliefs.
As talk has grown louder of a brokered GOP convention, it’s inevitable for a student of history to wonder what would Wendell think of all of this? No matter what one’s political leanings, it’s not too far a stretch to suspect that someone with his corporate background would have serious misgivings about Obamacare. Even if it became known to today’s voters, the secret of Willkie's mistress, New York Herald Tribune book editor Irita Van Doren, would not by itself prove an insuperable barrier to GOP evangelicals who are inexplicably making googoo eyes at twice-divorced, who-knows-how-often-adulterous Newt Gingrich.
But the man who wrote the quote above would be appalled by a party that still reaps the benefits of the cynical “southern strategy” begun by Richard Nixon in 1968. That same party, now as it did then, would regard as anathema a lawyer—indeed, a dyed-in-the wool capitalist—nevertheless prepared to defend the civil liberties of a Communist before the Supreme Court. His response then was as sharp and true as it would be in 2012: “Those who rejoice in denying justice to one they hate, pave the way to a denial of justice for someone they love.”
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