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PARTISAN REVIEW
nate Willkie instead of the isolationist candidates, Dewey and
Taft, favored by the Party rank and file. (The Party's machine
bosses, more concerned about their following than about world
politics, were almost to a man against Willkie.) Willkie cam–
paigned on a platform which was almost indistinguishable from
Roosevelt's both as to foreign policy
coul
social reform at home.
That summer Roosevelt further signalized the neo-imperialist trend
by incorporating in his cabinet at the crucial army and navy posts
two right-wing Republicans, Knox and Stimson. The last stand of
the still isolationist Republican rank and file, with some big busi–
ness support, was the America First Committee, which, significantly
enough, (
l)
notably lacked trade union support, and (2) despite
the efforts of liberals like Norman Thomas and John T. Flynn,
took an increasingly reactionary and even fascist direction. But
America First vanished overnight after Pearl Harbor.
This April the Republican National Committee, under pres–
sure .from Willkie,
for~ally
signalized its conversion to the neo–
imperialist doctrine by adopting two resolutions. One declared
that the Party must recognize that "after this war the responsibility
of the nation will not be circumscribed within the territorial limits
of the United States; that our nation has an obligation to assist in
bringing about understanding, comity and cooperation among the
nations of the world." The other called for an end of the present
racial segregation policies in the U. S. armed forces, thus putting
the Republicans actually to the left of Roosevelt on the Negro issue.
The recent change of editors and editorial policy on the
Saturday
Evening Post,
house-organ of the American middle classes, is the
latest step
in
the process.*
4.
There are unquestionably differences between the Lucian and
the Wallacian dreams of the post-war world, just as there are
between Wallace's Board of Economic Warfare and Hull's State
*The exigencies of conducting the war may reverse this liberal trend. Up to now,
organized labor has politically supported the war almost
lOOo/o
and has voluntarily
submitted to considerable State control. Roosevelt's policy has taken this into
account. Business, furthermore, has been able to
afford
up to now a fairly liberal
policy. As war production eats up more and more of the national income, labor will
increasingly feel the economic pinch, and will have to fight harder for its share
in
the
dill)inishing total product.
If
the war is prolonged by Allied defeats, Roosevelt and
big business may have to meet a disaffected labor movement with openly repressive
measures. But if America wins the war and dominates the peace, a liberal home policy
would be again
possible-an
"exporting" of fascism, so to speak.
