On one level, One World is a travelogue of the 49-day trip Willkie took around the world in 1942 as Roosevelt’s personal envoy. But the book was also Willkie’s astute analysis of the difficulties the Allies, and in particular America, would face as the world’s post-war superpowers. In the book, Willkie condemns the usual evils that had contributed to the war, namely fascism, nationalism and dictatorships. But he also made a strong case for ending the colonial system, saying that emerging nations of the Middle East and elsewhere would never tolerate it.
There are no distant points in the world any longer. I learned by this trip that the myriad millions of human beings of the Far East are as close to us as Los Angeles is to New York by the fastest trains. I cannot escape the conviction that in the future what concerns them must concern us, almost as much as the problems of the people of California concern the people of New York.
Egypt is saved. Rommel is stopped and a beginning has been made on the task of throwing the Nazis out of Africa.
-- Willkie’s statement (cleared with Gen. Montgomery) to the British press announcing a turning point in the Allied campaign in northern Africa: the first decisive defeat of German General Erwin Rommel’s forces near El Alamein.
Brilliant victories in the field will not win for us this war now going on in the far reaches of the world ... only new men and new ideas in the machinery of our relations with the peoples of the East can win the victory without which any peace will be only another armistice.
Four things, it seemed to me, these peoples [in the Middle East] need, in varying degree and in different ways. They need more education. They need more public-health work. They need more modern industry. And they need more of the social dignity and self-confidence which come from freedom and self-rule.
We must face the fact that the [colonial] system is completely antipathetic to all the principles for which we claim we fight. Furthermore, the more we preach those principles, the more we stimulate the ferment that endangers the system.
In spite of being young, and comparatively weak, and small, Turkey looked good to me. ... It looked good to me because I thought I saw, in Turkey, a nation which had found itself -- a sign that the ideas of increasing health, education, freedom, and democracy are as valid in the oldest portions of the world as they are in the newest.
Interestingly enough, although nationalism in Turkey has been the slogan under which so much has been acomplished, Turkey and its officials have more receptiveness to the necessity of international co-operation beyond and outside its own immediate needs than any other country I visited.
Russia’s farms, just as much as its factories, have been mobilized for total war, and their capacity to support a fighting nation has been one of Hitler’s most profound miscalculations and one of the world’s surprises.
The best answer to Communism is a living, vibrant, fearless democracy -- economic, social, and political. All we need to do is to stand up and perform according to our professed ideals. Then those ideals will be safe.
Ifound in Yakutsk evidence of one of the Soviet Union’s greatest achievements and one which the best and most progressive Americans must applaud: its handling of the terrible problem of national and racial minorities.
Ibelieve it is possible for Russia and America, perhaps the most powerful countries in the world, to work together for the economic welfare and the peace of the world. ... And so deep is my faith in the fundamental rightness of our free economic and political institutions that I am convinced they will survive any such working together.
If we are to win a true victory in this world war in which we are now engaged, we must have a clear understanding of the people of the Far East. ... We shall need to know those which are friendly to us, and we shall need to be honest enough to back them, no matter what this may mean to many of our conventional prejudices about the world.
If we are wise, we can direct forces which are in being throughout the East toward world co-operative effort for peace and economic security. These same forces, however, if they are flouted or ignored, will continue to disturb the world.
This economic struggle in which China is now engaged has been less written about in America than China’s military struggle against the Japanese invaders. But everything I saw made me believe that it has been no less heroic.
The opening up of this new China compares only, in modern history, with the opening up of our own West. We know the struggle of those people. We know the hope. And in some significant measure we know what the fulfillment can be.
Icame home from China convinced that we must avoid at all costs giving the Chinese the idea that we are going to disregard them for another year and concentrate our fighting in other theaters of war.
In China, just as in Russia, this is truly a people’s war.
We must decide whether or not we can ever find a better ally in eastern Asia than the Chinese, and if the answer is negative, as I predict it will be, then we must be prepared to fulfill the obligations of an ally.
Chinese faith in noble phrases and protestations is wearing a little thin.
If we permit ourselves to become involved in the machinations of Old World intrigue and religious, nationalistic and racial blocs, we will find ourselves amateurs indeed.
If we stand true to our basic principles, then we shall find ourselves professionals of the kind of world toward which men in every part of it are aspiring.
It has become banal to say that this war is a revolution, in men’s thinking, in their way of living, all over the world. It is not banal to see that revolution taking place, and that is what I saw.
It is the utmost folly -- it is just short of suicide -- to take the position that citizens of any country should hold their tongues for fear of causing distress to the immediate and sometimes tortuous policies of their leaders.
The world is awake, at last, to the knowledge that the rule of people by other peoples is not freedom, and not what we must fight to preserve.
Not all the peoples of the world are ready for freedom, or can defend it, the day after tomorrow. But today they all want some date to work toward, some assurance that the date will be kept.
Freedom is an indivisible word. If we want to enjoy it, we must be prepared to extend it to everyone, whether they are rich or poor, whether they agree with us or not, no matter what their race or the color of their skin. We cannot, with good conscience, expect the British to set up an orderly schedule for the liberation of India before we have decided for ourselves to make all who live in America free.
Our nation is composed of no one race, faith, or cultural heritage. It is a grouping of some thirty peoples possessing varying religious concepts, philosophies, and historical backgrounds. They are linked together by their confidence in our democratic institutions as expressed in the Declaration of Independence and guaranteed by the Constitution for themselves and for their children.
We must win not only the war, but also the peace, and we must start winning it now.
It is also inescapably true that to raise the standard of living of any man anywhere in the world is to raise the standard of living by some slight degree of every man everywhere in the world.
Original content Copyright © 1999-2002 
Timothy D. Walker Your comments are appreciated
HOME
TOP