Home
Search transcripts:    Advanced Search
Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 915

1940 CAMPAIGN

The campaign was already under way when we got back from Alabama. October is the strong month in a campaign, but Willkie had begun his campaign very early. I remember that the professionals, including the President, said that he began too early. It's not a good idea to begin quite so early. You run out of material. You find yourself being caught by the enthusiasm of different groups for some special project, or special program. You make promises with regard to that program, which you perhaps wouldn't have done if you hadn't had so many speeches to make. If you only made ten speeches, you couldn't have gotten mixed up in certain projects which would alienate as many people as they attracted at the local level. I remember they said that, “He started too early and he started on too high a pitch.”

I remember also during this campaign the unctiousness with which Mr. Willkie and his supporters went out to the small town in Indiana where he had been born, Elwood, Indiana. I remember being told, and I don't know whether it was true or not, but I was told by somebody who vowed it was true, that after he was nominated and knew he was going to run they hastily put up a gravestone





© 2006 Columbia University Libraries | Oral History Research Office | Rights and Permissions | Help