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How rapidly had democracy awakened to the totalitarian challenge? Had it actually awakened at all? Five years ago polls of public opinion showed that most U. S. citizens cared little about foreign affairs, had few opinions about other countries. In 1935 the FORTUNE Survey found citizens least friendly toward Germany (17.3%) and most friendly toward England (28.6%) but 51% made no distinction among foreign powers. Two years later 31% listed Germany as the country they liked least. When the Munich crisis shifted the course of European history, it shifted the course of U. S. public thought. When it was past 56.3% answered Yes when asked: "Should democratic powers now stand firm together at any cost? . . ."
Belief that the U. S. should aid neither side went down as fast: 65.6% in September 1939; 24.7% the next month. As the war went on (although 40.1% believed that Germany would win, and 30.3% thought the Allies would), U. S. public desire to give more aid to Britain increased, despite the greater peril. At the time of the Republican Convention, 34.2% wanted the U. S. to give more aid; 57.4% believed that the U. S. should do no more. Three weeks later 53% wanted the U. S. to give more.
As public sentiment mounted by stages, so William Allen White was drafted by stages to take an active part in converting opinion into action. When the Congressional debate on repeal of the Neutrality Act was at its height, his old friend Clark Eichelberger, director of The League of Nations Association, called him from Manhattan, asked him to head a committee to advocate repeal of the embargo. Editor White steadfastly refused, but Eichelberger induced other friends to press him, and White finally made several speeches. In Emporia when repeal was certain, he received a two-word telegram from Franklin Roosevelt: "Thanks, Bill."
When Adolf Hitler moved his troops into Norway, U. S. public opinion welled up again. Republican White, Kansas delegate to three Republican Conventions, hustled to Manhattan to try to keep an isolationist plank out of the Republican platform. On May 1, when the Allies were still struggling in Norway, he sat in his favorite Manhattan haunt—the venerable National Arts Club on Gramercy Park—debating ways & means of converting pro-Ally sentiment into increased Allied aid. On May 6—when Chamberlain was on his way out over the Norwegian failure—White drafted a brief statement, left it with Eichelberger, returned to Emporia.