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Understanding 9/11tv The Contenders Wendell Willkie CSPAN October 14, 2020 4:35am-6:41am EDT
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>> i stand before you without a single pledge or promise or understanding of any kind except for the advancement of your costs and that -- your cause and that of democracy. [applause] i expect --
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>> the republicans -- wendell willkie ran for president in 1940. these are some damages -- some images of him on the campaign trail. we are here with david willkie. i want you to introduce the cabinet -- audiences of some of the fervor. your grandfather ran for president and try to defeat franklin delano roosevelt, who was seeking a third term.
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grew up in elwood. when they married, this was the place they generally call home. in the family, my great great grandfather had lost his shirt during the depression. instead of giving his father in law a handout, when the willkie and bought a farm land. he asked his father-in-law if he would manage it. >> how much time did he spend>>t
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substitute for the proxy of distributed scarcity and the philosophy of unlimited productivity. i stand for the restoration of full production and reemployment by private enterprise in america. [applause] on new deal's effect business has had the inevitable results. investor has been afraid to invest his capital. the businessman has been afraid to expand his operations. many at hands have returned to the unemployment office. errors console -- irresponsible experiments in the country as deprive the former of this market. for the first time in history,
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american industry has remained stationary for a full decade. i charge that the path of this administration is following will lead us to the end of the road. i say that this course will lead us to economic disintegration and dictatorship. i say that we must substitute for the philosophy of spending, the philosophy of production. you cannot buy freedom. you must make freedom.ident rool
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office from october 1940 as president roosevelt discusses the challenge. >> one of the things that struck me as i was driving up the streets of hoboken, why is the average store window -- why does the average store window have pictures of my opponent and his running mate on the new deal ticket? i do not know of any more appropriate place to put those pictures. [applause]
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conventions of 2012. >> the outcomes were less certain than now. we seem to be more settled in a primary system. >> ron is starting us from
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maryville, washington, to talk about the provincial campaign of wendell willkie. >> thanks for taking my call and for having this series. it is outstanding. i want to could
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have seen this advertisement put together by the republican national committee for wendell willkie. >> whether you are in oregon or florida, new jersey are california, you have a right to know how well your republican candidates for breton and vice- president understand agricultural problems and their personal an interest in farming. for this purpose, this motion picture has been produced. the two most talked-about men in american life today are the
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central figures of this picture. wendell willkie of indiana and charles mcnary of oregon. mr. welty visits a family of one of his former split -- mr. willkie but it's a family of one of his formfarmer. they does not let anything stand in his way. these are practical corn belt farmers. his interest in america's young people is
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this another from the republican national committee, a series of films. >> the doctrinaires of the opposition have attempted to picture me as an opponent of liberalism, but i was a liberal but for many of those men heard the word and i fought for the reforms of theodore roosevelt
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and woodrow wilson before another roosevelt stopped it and distorted the word liberal. american liberalism does not consist merely of reforming things. it consists primarily of making things. we must substitute for the philosophy of distributed scarcity, the velocity of unlimited productivity. i stand for the restoration of full production and reemployment in american private enterprise. present administration has spent $60 billion. the new deal stands for doing what has to be done by spending as much money as possible. i propose to do it by spending as little money as possible. this is one issue in this campaign that i intend to make crystal clear before the conclusion of the campaign so that everybody in this country
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all wendell willkie. i believe he was far ahead of his time on many issues. first of all, civil rights. he was a great advocate of civil rights. if the country had followed his lead, we would have avoided a lot of the strife and dissension we had in later decades. during the war, he was a great advocate of ending colonialism. he wanted to prevent the european countries from reestablishing their empires in theilliam willkie.
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>> wendell willkie, born 48 years ago, emerges in response to the greatest demonstration of support and our country has ever known. his grandparents, like the ancestors of many americans, fred project fled europe to find liberty in this country. here in elwood, his parents practiced law. wendell willkie was born in a modest home like many americans. he went to public high school just like many americans. his hard-working parents moved
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conversation we had a few weeks ago dick lugar on wendell willkie and his brand of republican politics. >> people of america, i accept the result of the election with complete good will. i know that they will continue to work as i shall for the unity of our people in the building of a national defense, in aid to britain, and for the elimination from the america of antagonisms of every kind to the and that the free may of life -- way of
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life may survive and spread throughout the world. >> after that, he really became an ambassador for the united states. he had a friendship with franklin roosevelt. he certainly seemed to prosper from that. he was not a bad loser. he was a winner in terms of our country and his outlook. his ability, really, to influence public use in other countries about the united states or correspondingly,he got
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and not antagonists. >> in 1941, wendell willkie travels to london. how unusual is it for a democratic president to select his republican opponent? >> he carried a letter of introduction from roosevelt to churchill.
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at a time when it has already been badly battered by the germans, he sees canterbury cathedral. he gets a real sense of what this war really is for england and what the british people are doing to stand against hitler alone. he brings that message back. he brings it back to the senate and he makes a very fat -- very powerful case for helping england. >> here is wendell willkie before congress. >> if we are to aid britain effectively, we should provide her with 5-10 destroyers a month. we should be able to do this directly and swiftly rather than through the rigmarole of dubious legal interpretation. i am as much opposed as any man in america to undue
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concentration of power in the chief executive. and may i say that i did my best to remove that power from the president -- from the present executive. personally, i would have preferred to see congress, whether through this bill
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to rise up and begin the chant of, "we want willkie." television had just come on the scene. from a national standpoint, and particularly for the delegates, to hear this raucous crowd from the gallery stampeding a convention, it put them in the mid, although it did take a number of ballots -- in the mood, although it did take a number of ballots to ultimately nominee wendell willkie. it was fun. i have never forgotten the experience. >> we should also point out a 26-year-old young republican from
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generated in the 1940 convention? >> i think we're done with that topic. >> we will go again, this is a g
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with president roosevelt on the relationship, and the fear the wendell willkie was having with rita van doren. ffair that wendell willkie was having with rita van doren.
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why wendell willkie's relationship with madam chiang has not been discussed. >> you have brought it up, so we will talk about it. >> leave that to the international hoosier scholar and. >> i think the answer is we do not
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we know that at one point in the evening, when the whoopi and the woman left by themselves and -- wendell willkie and the woman left by themselves and were gone often to places that were also a little bit tricky, close to the battlefield.
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he rolled around in an american jeep in russia. with the russian general, he said what are you all defending here, sir, and the russian general said we are not defending, we are attacking. he was trying to send an expression of hope and support from the u.s. to these countries at the time. china was a big country in play at the time. the book he wrote, "one
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this is the same home where wendell willkie came back and talked about his one world tour. >> but i want you to remember that we can only have one president at one time and one foreign policy at one time. it does folks could -- good to
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say i am not the president of the united states, that he acts through hypocrisy. no man in charge of the united states at this critical moment could act from such motives as that. they expose the expansion of our nation, of our army, of the bill. they oppose the passage of the selective service act. if the policies which they advocate had been adopted, the united states today would be facing a victorious
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best to defeat franklin roosevelt. and i could not do it. he apologized to the nation for not doing so. i just wanted to make a comment that i was an actual
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modest about his grandfather's position on civil rights. he was well ahead of everyone in this country with the exception perhaps of eleanor roosevelt. it comes out of some of the same things better in one world about democracy, anti-colonialism. he was strongly opposed. he insisted that colonialism had to disappear in the name of democracy. he insisted that equality around the world could only be achieved if there
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accept a wendell willkie and his brand of politics. we asked that question of dick lugar, republican from indiana? >> i doubt that wendell willkie could win today because he was a moderate. he was a person who was looking out for the good of the whole country. there was not the same sharp partisan fever attached to his candidacy or to his rhetoric. he had a very sound business attitude, and that is why he was successful. he understood the american free enterprise system and job
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>> he died -- he is buried just a few miles from where we're located. >> a beautiful cemetery that is described as being looking out over the prairie, although we are not quite prairie here. he has a stone granite book lay
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open and talking about his life and his view of what the world should be, equality, that america was the place to be. na, renewing his
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strong faith in a unity of all people. a great american and world citizen who will be sorely missed in the critical years ahead.
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