The success of Mr. Willkie's book has been tremendous, to put it mildly. Within a month after publication, the successive printings of the book have topped one million copies, and "One World" at present heads all lists of non-fiction, surely a record to cause all other publishers to glower greenly at the Publishers S. As one critic put it, the vogue of the book lies in the fact that Willkie decided to write it himself, instead of employing a "ghost" writer. Mr. Willkie writes easily; he has a journalist's eye for the significant details of a situation, the image that crystallizes and reinforces impression and opinion alike. Most important of all, Mr. Willkie has a message--a message about which he is infinitely earnest, a message meaningful for all of us.

Willkie might have called his work "The Education of Wendell Willkie," for it marks the second phase of the rise to fame of the gentleman from Indiana. The first stage of his development came after Philadelphia, when the erstwhile corporation lawyer was introduced to the problems of public concern via a hard fought political campaign; it is significant to note that, as the time of his political education progressed, his political and economic liberalism ever increased. The 31,000 mile trip around the world via the Liberator bomber, "Gulliver," has begun a further stage of Mr. Willkie's growth--the expansion of his international ken and consciousness. Unlike the education of Henry Adams, Wendell Willkie's experience has taught him the ever growing oneness of the world, the unity which economic and political interdependence force upon the future progress of the world. Willkie declares that the advance of one nation is the advance of all nations, that the United States and Britain must turn their attention to China, the Middle East and those undeveloped regions, wherein Willkie, with business acumen and political insight, sees the great possibilities for world progress. Willkie calls for a truly global council to replace narrow Anglo-American planning. And Willkie, impressed and reassured by the spectacle of the U. S. S. R., praises Russia because "it works" and urges cooperation with the Soviets.

Willkie's concern is ever for principles, for building up the vast reservoir of international good will which the United States already enjoys; hence he vituperates the Tunisian-dead. Impracticality might be charged, but it is at least a healthy impracticality. A more serious irrationalism occurs when he attempts to represent the Republican Party as equally internationalist as the Democratic Party; gut the vital statistics of Congressional balloting should show such a statement to be an indulgence of wishful thinking. Mr. Willkie's Republican colleagues are mostly sterile or poisonous so far as international thinking is involved. Nevertheless, Willkie's breadth of thought may influence the G. O. P. to a greater wisdom. In any event, he is their only candidate.

Willkie's sincerity cannot be doubted, despite an over-recurrence to the scenes of Rush County, Indiana, he is earnest and impeachably honest. His stature and wisdom has measurably increased since the last campaign; his education is an unending process. We like you, Mr. Willkie. But Wendell--why did you ever leave the Democratic Party?