Mr. Roosevelt Remains

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 282, 17 November 1944, Page 5

Mr. Roosevelt Remains

can politics to say that most New Zealanders must have been relieved to hear the result of the Presidential election. Nor is it a criticism of Mr. Dewey. It means simply that in the situation in which the world is to-day most of us prefer the known to the unknown. For it means nothing at all to us in New Zealand that a fourth term is in itself an innovation. That means a good deal in America — so much that millions of Mr. Dewey’s votes would be votes against it. But it is an academic question here that we are happy to leave to historians and lawyers. The precedents, the parallels, the complications, and the risks ejther do not occur to us at all or we are prevented by distance from worrying about them. We do worry about personalities whether our knowledge of them is intimate or sketchy. The war is not yet won; but we know how it is going and will continue to go if the present leaders remain. The peace has not yet been drafted; but here again, though we know less, we know enough to feel sure of the general shape if there are no new draughtsmen. In particular our thoughts linger longer than they have ever done before on our own ocean environment; but we have confidence that solutions will be reached. in Washington, Wellington, Canberra, and London, if the same man remains in the White House, that will keep us safe for another generation. So it did not matter much last week whether we were ourselves Right or Left at home: we were for the man in Washington whom we knew and trusted and regarded as an essential member of the international combination to whose music most of us are marching. Nor did it matter either if we identified the political divisions in the United States with those with which we are ourselves familiar, supposing that the Republicans were Right and the Democrats Left. Though it is desirable in general to call things by their proper names, a shovel and a spade are both agricultural implements. : i is not taking sides in Ameri-