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THE EDUCATION OF AYN RAND, 1905–1943
Her coat emblazoned with Willkie campaign buttons, she joined the
ranks of the city’s soapbox preachers. On promising street corners she
would begin an anti-Roosevelt, pro-Willkie diatribe, quickly drawing
crowds attracted by the novelty of a woman campaigner with a Russian
accent. When a listener jeered at her for being a foreigner, Rand jeered
right back. “I chose to be an American,” she reminded him. “What did
you do?” 43
These spontaneous sessions began to shake Rand loose from her preconceived
notions about American voters. Before campaigning, Rand
had been suspicious of American democracy. Instead of government of,
for, and by the people, she thought the state should be “a means for
the convenience of the higher type of man.” 44 Her earliest fi ction, heavy
with contempt for the masses, refl ected this sensibility. Now she found
herself impressed by the questions her working-class audience asked
and their responsiveness to her capitalist message. She said of her time
in the theaters, “[It] supported my impression of the common man,
that they really were much better to deal with than the offi ce and the
Madison Avenue Republicans.” 45 It seemed that the faceless crowds she
condemned, rather than their social and intellectual betters, understood
the dangers of the Roosevelt administration.
Most questions she fi elded were about the war in Europe, however.
Every voter wanted to know whether the candidate would involve the
United States in the confl ict. Most dreaded the idea of sending their boys
overseas, even though the situation in Europe was deteriorating rapidly.
Germany, Italy, and Spain had gone fascist, and Britain remained the
lone outpost of liberal democracy. Britain’s prime minister, Winston
Churchill, beseeched Roosevelt for money and material. Roosevelt’s
hands were tied by restrictive neutrality acts, but he was increasingly
convinced that the United States must play a role in the European war.
Still, there were powerful pressures against any involvement. Neither
candidate wanted to risk alienating the isolationists or the equally powerful
internationalists. Both charted a careful course between the two. 46
On the front lines of the campaign Rand sought to gloss over Willkie’s
equivocation. She herself doubted Willkie was sincere when he spoke
out against the war, but she did her best to convince voters otherwise,
walking the thinnest line between truth and falsehood. “[I]t would have
been much better if he had come out against any help to the allies,”
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