“You sound like Willkie,” Mr. Wilson said bitterly.
“What’s the matter with Willkie?”
“What was the matter with Benedict Arnold?”
“He was a traitor to his country,” Mr. Corinth said amiably.
“In my opinion, Willkie betrayed his party, his country, himself, and the dignity of being a man!”
“Because he was loyal to the truth?”
“Because he sold himself out to Roosevelt.”
Mr. Corinth scratched his head. “I don’t get it. I do remember, though, Wilson, the last election. I recall you out haranguing the state with your customary cold eloquence. I remember you in the parade—and I remember when Willkie stopped here. You were damned near as hoarse as he was, at the time! I must confess, I didn’t think much then of the frog-voiced prophet of your party. I believed he was going to undo the things that Roosevelt did for his countrymen because they had to be done. The expedient things.
There’s nothing wrong with expediency, as I was saying, as long as the underlying motive for it is okay. I thought Willkie lacked it. Anyway, Wilson, he wasn’t deceiving you about foreign policy at that time, was he? He said he was for aiding England, didn’t he? He told you he was against Hitler, didn’t he? And he hasn’t changed, has he? He went over there and saw for himself, in spite of the bombings, didn’t he? Have you been in England lately? Do you pretend to talk with authority about England? Well, Willkie does pretend to—and he has the right. He still disagrees with the New Deal, and says so with brilliance and violence, doesn’t he? Just what the devil has he betrayed?”
“He was supposed,” said Mr. Wilson acidly, “to be a Republican. The Republican party is the opposition party. Willkie’s thrown in with everything the Democrats are doing—every main thing.”