FDR, Dewey, and the Election of 1944 0253356830, 9780253356833

Table of contents :
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication Page
Table of Contents
Preface & Acknowledgments
Prologue An Evening at the Statler
1: A Nation at War
2: Politics in Midwar
3: The Republicans
4: The Democrats
5: Willkie Pushes Hard
6: President and Congress
7: Wendell in Wonderland
8: The Bandwagon Rolling
9: It Looks Like Dewey
10: The Republican Convention
11: Meanwhile, the Democrats
12: The Ailing President
13: Will Roosevelt Run?
14: Who Runs with Roosevelt?
15: The Democrats Arrive in Chicago
16: Democrats in Convention
17: Campaign on the High Seas
18: The Republicans Go to Work
19: Dewey Heads West
20: The Battle Is On
21: The October Campaign Kicks In
22: Death in October
23: Dewey on the Offensive
24: FDR Strikes Back
25: Down to the Wire
26: Bricker’s Campaign
27: The Man from Missouri
28: The Last Days
29: Election Day
30: Summing Up
Epilogue: The Fourth Term
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

FDR, DEWEY, and the ELECTION of  1944

F DR

DE W E Y

and the E L E C T ION of 1944

D AV I D ★ ★ M. JORDAN

India na Univer sit y Pr ess Bloomington & Indianapolis

This book is a publication of Indi a na U ni v er sit y Pr ess 601 North Morton Street Bloomington, IN 47404–3797 USA iupress.indiana.edu Telephone orders 800–842–6796 Fax orders 812–855–7931 Orders by e-mail [email protected] © 2011 by David M. Jordan All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses’ Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition. ∞ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for

Information Sciences–Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, A NSI Z39.48–1992 . Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jordan, David M., [date] FDR, Dewey, and the election of 1944 / David M. Jordan. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-253-35683-3 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-253-00562-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Presidents—United States—Election—1944. 2. Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882–1945. 3. Dewey, Thomas E. (Thomas Edmund), 1902–1971. 4. United States—Politics and government—1933–1945. I. Title. E812.J67 2011 973.917092—dc22 2011015425 1 2 3 4 5  16 15 14 13 12 11

To Jean





CONTENTS

· Preface & Acknowledgments  ix

Prologue An Evening at the Statler 1

1 A Nation at War 7



2 Politics in Midwar 15



3 The Republicans 22



4 The Democrats 42



5 Willkie Pushes Hard 59



6 President and Congress 65



7 Wendell in Wonderland 77



8 The Bandwagon Rolling 92



9 It Looks Like Dewey 101



10 The Republican Convention 110



11 Meanwhile, the Democrats 122



12 The Ailing President 128



13 Will Roosevelt Run? 136



14 Who Runs with Roosevelt? 141



15 The Democrats Arrive in Chicago 153



16 Democrats in Convention 163



17 Campaign on the High Seas 200



18 The Republicans Go to Work 209



19 Dewey Heads West 223



20 The Battle Is On 234



21 The October Campaign Kicks In 243



22 Death in October 255



23 Dewey on the Offensive 261



24 FDR Strikes Back 272



25 Down to the Wire 279



26 Bricker’s Campaign 293



27 The Man from Missouri 298



28 The Last Days 306



29 Election Day 317



30 Summing Up 321

Epilogue The Fourth Term 330

· Notes 335



· Bibliography 359



· Index 371

PREFACE & ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

When people think of  the 1944 presidential election, they usually think two things: that everybody knew Franklin D. Roosevelt was dying; and that victory was a given for FDR. The thing they usually don’t know, or can’t quite remember, is who the Republican candidate was. Walter Trohan, the longtime Washington correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, summed it up in his memoirs: “The 1944 presidential campaign was a foregone conclusion even though all the politicians knew FDR was a dying man.”1 But Trohan was writing his book thirty-one years after the election took place, and he was simply reflecting the received wisdom of  that day. If  the reader could go back in time to a moment about a week before the ’44 election and talk with Dr. George Gallup in his office at Princeton, New Jersey, where Gallup received his reports of  polling around the country and put the results all together for his newspaper clients, the reader would get a far different picture from Trohan’s in 1975. According to Gallup shortly before the election, it looked almost like a toss-up, with the result depending on how several key states, rated 50-50 by the pollsters, broke on Election Day. If  they went one way, Roosevelt would win his fourth term; if  they edged into the other camp, as Gallup thought they would, Thomas E. Dewey could become president. As to Roosevelt’s health, it can safely be said that Dr. Howard Bruenn, Admiral Ross McIntire, and several physicians with whom they ix

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consulted were aware that the President had a very serious heart condition. No one else really knew, and McIntire, Roosevelt’s personal physician, kept the rest of  t he country as much in the dark as possible with his misleading announcements to the press and public. There were whispers, of  course; the frustrated Republicans were always circulating rumors about FDR and his family. He was dying of  cancer, he was really Jewish, he’d undergone a secret operation, his wife was organizing black maids to rise up against their employers, and so on. Roosevelt’s day-long drive through the streets of  New York in a downpour on October 21, 1944, effectively put an end to the health whispers for that election. Of  course, the fact that Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, on the eighty-third day of  his fourth term, seems to validate the theory that everyone knew he was dying. On the contrary, such history-by-hindsight should be guarded against, because it does not accord with what really took place. Lots of  people (mostly Washington insiders) had suspicions, but no one knew, and it appears that very few voters made their decision on the presidency thinking that the incumbent was dying. They thought he looked tired after handling the war effort for three grueling years. The biggest issue in the campaign was who was better suited to bring the war to a conclusion and handle the issues of  peace thereafter, and the widely discussed choice was between Dewey and Roosevelt, not between Dewey and Harry Truman, the Democratic vice presidential candidate and putative successor to a dying man. One of  the most interesting aspects of  the 1944 election is that, long before they went after each other, each party had a major internal problem. For the Republicans, it was how to get rid of  Wendell Willkie, their 1940 standard-bearer, who was regarded as poison by the party bigwigs; for the Democrats, it was disposing of  Henry Wallace, the incumbent vice president, who was unwanted by sizable elements of  t he party. Willkie, of  course, was a former Democrat who had made inroads into the GOP representing corporate America’s fight against the New Deal; to the astonishment of  the party leaders, he had parlayed this notoriety into the capture of  the 1940 Republican presidential nomination. Wallace, deeply unpopular with party regulars when Roosevelt forced his

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xi

vice presidential selection in 1940, had developed a following in the left wing of  the party but was loathed by many other Democrats. How the parties solved their separate problems with these two men occupies the first part of  this story. Once the two party tickets were set, the normal routine of  a presidential campaign got under way. Except that 1944 was far from normal. The nation was deeply involved in the greatest war in its history, and the war effort was the great shadow that fell over all the activities of  the campaign. The Democrats chanted “Don’t Change Horses in the Middle of  the Stream,” while a Republican slogan, not as widely used, was “Win the War Quicker with Dewey and Bricker.” The GOP claimed that it could do better in fighting the war and in providing for the peace to follow; besides, the Republicans said, the Democrats had sold out to the Communists. How these varying efforts played out constitutes the climax of  the story. I have a few personal recollections of  the ’44 election, as a 9-year-old boy who was interested in politics. My parents loathed Franklin Roosevelt, so my childhood memories are colored slightly by the fact that everything I heard around the house was slanted in one direction. Still, I read the magazines and newspapers about the campaign (the Phila-­ delphia Inquirer and Bulletin were pretty solidly Republican, and the Record was never allowed in our house) and listened to reports over the radio. It all whetted my interest, and I’ve been happy to get back to it for this work. Along the way I have had much help from a lot of  people, many of  whose names I failed to record. I do want to express my thanks to Jim Cross in Special Collections, Clemson University Library; Sharon Sumpter at the University Archives, Notre Dame Library; Mark Renovitch, Robert Parks, and Karen Anson at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library at Hyde Park; Mary Huth and Melissa Mead at the University of  Rochester Library; Dan Linke at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscripts Library and Donald Simon at the Firestone Library at Princeton University; Randy Sowell and Dave Clark at the Truman Library in Independence; Jan Grenci at the Library of  Congress; Edith Prout at the Jenkintown Library; Bill Harper at the Ohio Historical Society; Sue

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Stuard; and Michael Hamilburg. Thanks also for editorial assistance to my wife, Jean, my daughter, Diana Jordan Born, and my good friend the late Max Silberman, who had the foresight to be born on January 20, 1945, the day of  FDR’s fourth inaugural. Any factual errors or questionable conclusions, of  course, are mine. David M. Jordan

FDR, DEWEY, and the ELECTION of  1944

PROLOGUE

An Evening at the Statler

The night was clear and cool, a lovely early autumn Saturday evening, as the leaders of  the Teamsters Union gathered at the Statler Hotel in Washington for their annual dinner. They looked forward to this gathering each year, but they especially anticipated this one. The President of  the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was coming. He was going to make the main speech, to them and to a nationwide radio audience. Saturday, September 23, 1944, looked like an exciting night. Roosevelt, in office since March 4, 1933, was the Democratic candidate for an unprecedented fourth term in the White House, nominated to run against the Republican hopeful, Governor Thomas E. Dewey of  New York. Dewey had been campaigning hard for several weeks, scoring points on a western swing while Roosevelt took care of  the many burdens of  r unning a world war (with a trip to Hawaii and Alaska concerning the war in the Pacific mixed in). Democratic Party leaders were becoming a little nervous about the campaign, and they looked forward to FDR’s talk with even more anticipation than did the Teamsters in the Statler ballroom. Indeed, Drew Pearson’s nationwide column appearing that day had said that Roosevelt himself  was “less confident of  w inning than he was at the same time in 1940.” The President admitted privately that Dewey had “been hitting pay dirt” in the West and that the election was far from being in the bag.1 1

2

Prol ogu e

In his speech accepting the Democratic convention’s nomination, on July 20, 1944, Roosevelt had donned his commander-in-chief’s hat and said, “I shall not campaign in the usual sense, for the office. In these days of  tragic sorrow, I do not consider it fitting. Besides, in these days of  global warfare, I shall not be able to find the time. I shall, however, feel free to report to the people the facts about matters of  concern to them and especially to correct any misrepresentations.” Now, though, he acknowledged that his speech would be political—it would have “a tinge” of  politics, FDR playfully told his press conference—in order to correct some of  what he felt were misrepresentations.2 Columnist Marquis Childs wrote that Roosevelt’s talk was “going to have to pull his campaign out of  the slough of  apathy, indifference and confusion into which it has fallen.” While the Republicans had been out on the hustings, attacking Roosevelt’s New Deal for administrative incompetence and for its “tired old men”—a not very hidden reference to the rumors they were busy circulating about the President’s worsening health—Democrats indulged in the customary Democratic pastime of  fighting each other. Bourbon Democrats from the South complained about outsiders threatening Dixie’s time-honored racial practices, while old-line party bosses feared the inroads that labor leaders were making into their fiefdoms, in what Childs called “a rivalry for power and position that could hardly be called good-natured.” The President’s task was a stern one. 3 The union leaders started getting together early in the evening, gathering in the bar to renew acquaintances and to discuss the affairs of  the day. At the appointed hour, after everyone had moved into the ballroom for dinner, President Roosevelt arrived, accompanied by his ever-present Secret Service escort; his appointments secretary, General Edwin M. “Pa” Watson; and Steve Early, his press aide. Early’s secretary had sent a memo to the Secret Service and to Dave Beck, who was running the dinner for Daniel J. Tobin, the Teamsters’ president, that Watson and Early would “go into the dining room with the President and then ‘mosey’ from the head table down to their table (which they hope will be nearby).” 4 There were a thousand people at the dinner, seven hundred of  them Teamsters leaders and their wives and the rest appointed government officials, representatives of  the various agencies like the National War

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3

Labor Board, U.S. Maritime Commission, and the Office of  Defense Transportation with which the Teamsters did official business. At the head table next to the President were William Green, president of  the American Federation of  Labor (of  which the International Brotherhood of  Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers of  A merica, to give the union its full title, was a part), and West Coast shipbuilder Henry J. Kaiser. Once the meal was finished, the program for the evening began. The Roosevelt radio time, purchased by the Democratic National Committee, began at 9:30 (Eastern War Time), so at the appropriate moment, union president Dan Tobin introduced his friend the President “as a great world leader of  courage, experience and real statesmanship” attacked by “a band of  avaricious manipulators of  wealth.” A noisy fourminute demonstration followed, after which the President began. 5 He gave his address sitting down. The steel braces that the polioafflicted President used to hold himself  upright had in recent times become more and more painful to him. A week and a half  earlier, talking to his cousin Daisy Suckley and his political confidant Harry Hopkins, FDR referred to the upcoming speech and said, “I just can’t stand up to make that speech,” and both of  them said there was no reason why he should have to stand up.6 Roosevelt beamed down at his audience and began, with a reference to the critics of  his age and health and a crisp reminder of  Herbert Hoover: Well, here we are together again—after four years—and what years they have been! You know, I am actually four years older, which is a fact that seems to annoy some people. In fact, in the mathematical field, there are millions of  A mericans who are more than eleven years older than when we started in to clear up the mess that was dumped in our laps in 1933.7

FDR’s great New York–patrician speaking voice, the voice that had beguiled, attracted, and infuriated Americans since 1932, was un­ changed. He talked about the Republicans who attacked labor for three years and six months and then “discover that they really love labor and that they are anxious to protect labor from its old friends.” He said he got “quite a laugh” from the plank in the Republican platform adopted at its July convention claiming that the party “accepts the purposes”

4

Prol ogu e

of  the National Labor Relations Act, the Wage and Hour Act, the Social Security Act, and “all other Federal statutes designed to promote and protect the welfare of  A merican working men and women.” He went on: You know, many of  t he Republican leaders and Congressmen and candidates, who shouted enthusiastic approval of  t hat plank in that convention hall, would not even recognize these progressive laws if  t hey met them in broad daylight. Indeed, they have personally spent years of  effort and energy—and much money—in fighting every one of  t hose laws in Congress, and in the press, and in the courts, ever since this Administration began to advocate them and enact them into legislation. That is a fair example of  t heir insincerity and of  t heir inconsistency. The whole purpose of  R epublican oratory these days seems to be to switch labels. The object is to persuade the American people that the Democratic Party was responsible for the 1929 crash and the depression, and that the Republican Party was responsible for all social progress under the New Deal.

That, he went on, as his audience guffawed, was not imitation as a form of  flattery but “the most obvious common or garden variety of  f raud.” He said there were “enlightened, liberal elements in the Republican Party,” but they were “not able to drive the Old Guard Republicans from their entrenched positions.” “Can the Old Guard pass itself  off  as the New Deal?” Roosevelt asked. “I think not,” he answered, with a twinkle in his eye; “we have all seen many marvelous stunts in the circus but no performing elephant could turn a hand-spring without falling flat on his back.”8 He spoke about Republican opposition to preparedness measures in the years before Pearl Harbor, and he quoted Dewey, without naming him, for his claim that Lend-Lease “would bring an end to free government in the United States.” He said the Republican leaders promised to make the peace “so skillfully” that they “won’t lose a single isolationist vote or a single isolationist campaign contribution.” Roosevelt looked dolefully out at his audience and said, “I think there is one thing that you know: I am too old for that. I cannot talk out of  both sides of  my mouth at the same time.” His listeners rocked with laughter.9 Talking about the fine job the nation’s military leaders were doing, the President chided Dewey, again without mentioning him by name, for his suggestion that Douglas MacArthur’s forces in the Pacific were being

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shortchanged on resources. He scored what he called “labor-baiters,” who picked on labor for the occasional strikes that had taken place during the war, “strikes,” he went on, “that have been condemned by every responsible national labor leader.” Then he added, “all but one,” who each listener knew was the mineworkers’ John L. Lewis, Roosevelt’s bitter enemy. He described the massive output of  labor and management for the war effort, with a nod to Henry Kaiser for the 19 million tons of  cargo ships a year. He pointed out that since Pearl Harbor “only one-tenth of  one percent of  manhours have been lost by strikes. Can you beat that?”10 The President suggested that the opposition in 1944 had imported into the campaign the “big lie” technique set out in Adolf  H itler’s book, Mein Kampf, which called for repeating the big falsehood over and over again. “For example,” he said, “although I rubbed my eyes when I read it, we have been told that it was not a Republican depression but a Democratic depression from which this nation was saved in 1933.” He paused, then said: Now, there is an old and somewhat lugubrious adage which says: “Never speak of  rope in the house of  a man who has been hanged.” In the same way, if  I were a Republican leader speaking to a mixed audience, the last word in the whole dictionary that I think I would use is that word “depression.”11

The audience loved it. He talked about the Republican leaders, still largely in control of  the party, who had fought “nearly every attempt that this Administration made to warn our people and to arm our Nation.” And then he took note of  a story that had been recited in the House of  Representatives by a longtime isolationist congressman from Minnesota named Harold Knutson. “These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons,” he began. “No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala,” he said, as smiles started to spread through his audience. Well, of  course, I don’t resent attacks, and my family doesn’t resent attacks, but Fala does resent them. You know, Fala is Scotch, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers in Congress and out had concocted a story that I had left him behind on the Aleutian Islands and had

6

Prol ogu e sent a destroyer back to find him—at a cost to the taxpayers of  t wo or three, or eight or twenty million dollars—his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since. I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself—such as that old, worm-eaten chestnut that I have represented myself  a s indispensable. But I think I have a right to resent, to object to libelous statements about my dog.

Roosevelt’s audience roared with appreciative laughter. One enthusiastic listener beat a silver bread tray with a soup ladle, while another, two tables away, applauded by smashing glasses with an empty wine bottle, sending showers of  glass around him and to the floor. The President finished up his speech, setting forth his vision of  the task ahead, particularly to ensure postwar prosperity and employment. “Much has been done,” he asserted. “Much more is under way. The fruits of  v ictory this time will not be apples sold on street corners.” He concluded to a thunderous ovation, with most of  his listeners still chuckling about Fala as the Secret Service wheeled the President away. Dewey would answer, the pundits would have their say, Congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce would deplore the President’s use of  humor in such serious times, and the editorials would roll out, pro and con. There could be no doubt, after the Teamsters speech, that the 1944 campaign for the Presidency was on in earnest now.

1

A Nation at War

1944 was an election year in the United States. For the first time in eighty years, the country would go through the whole presidential electoral process while in the midst of  a war. In 1864, incumbent president Abraham Lincoln outpolled the Democrats, defeatism, and General George B. McClellan to win election to a second term, but it was no sure thing for old Abe until Sherman’s capture of  Atlanta early in September 1864. In 1944, it was the Democrats who were in power, with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt nearing the end of  his unprecedented third term. As 1943 came to a close, the American war effort appeared to be going well, but there was still much hard fighting ahead against Adolf  H itler’s Nazi Germany and militaristic Japan. Eleven years of  a turbulent presidency had generated considerable opposition to Roosevelt and his New Deal, while recent elections and public opinion polls seemed to indicate a nationwide swing toward the conservative Republicans. Leo Crowley, high in the administration and in the Democratic Party, told Harold Ickes, Roosevelt’s Interior secretary, he believed “the political situation, as it affects the President, to be very gloomy indeed.” The 1944 election, the shape of  which was very clouded as 1943 drew to a close, was up in the air.1 Much had happened since Roosevelt shattered the two-term tradition with his victory over Wendell L. Willkie in 1940. The undeclared 7

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war in the North Atlantic, American destroyers playing a deadly catand-mouse game with German submarines, was ended by the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines and the subsequent round of  declarations of  war. The mobilization of  A merica, which had slowly been taking place before the start of  the war, sped up. On December 29, 1940, Roosevelt had called upon his country to become “the great arsenal of  democracy.”2 Industrial conversion to the manufacture of  tanks, guns, ships, airplanes, and the multitude of  other implements of  modern warfare became more pressing, as did the efforts to get much larger numbers of  A merican men (and women) into military uniforms. Roosevelt, Se cretary of  War Henry L. Stimson, and Chief  of  Staff  General George C. Marshall had a scare in September 1941, when the Selective Service Act—the conscription law—was nearly defeated, extended for another year in the House of  Representatives by the margin of  a single vote. Once the war began, of  course, there was no longer any question of  opposition to the draft. Restructuring the government for handling the war effort presented numerous challenges, especially with a slow and lumbering Congress increasingly suspicious of  Roosevelt, who often found it necessary to bypass Congress in setting up agencies to deal with pressing needs. FDR’s particular administrative peculiarities and his oft-noted disinclination to dismiss functionaries who were not performing well posed further difficulties. The combination of  these factors produced a spate of  ad hoc agencies, usually created by executive order, to deal in many cases with specific problem areas. Frequently these units were succeeded by new agencies called into being to handle the same or similar problems but to do it better. Things were working, problems were in fact being solved, but bureaucratic confusion was rampant as well. Republicans and anti-Roosevelt Democrats, who were none too happy to see a great augmentation of  the President’s powers in wartime, attempted to rouse the citizenry against the growing multitude of  administrators, ignoring the fact that the munitions were being produced, synthetic rubber and penicillin and sulfa drugs were being developed, and the American armies and navies around the world, as well as those of  our allies, were being supplied. Nevertheless, the American voter could easily be confounded by the profusion of  brand-new bureaus, agencies,

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committees, and commissions and led to believe FDR’s opponents who portrayed these as just more New Deal–type bureaucracies. The National Defense Advisory Commission (NDAC) was followed by the Office of  Production Management (OPM), which gave way to the Supply Priorities and Allocation Board (SPA B) and later to the War Production Board (WPB). The Smaller War Plants Corporation (SWPC), the Office of  Price Administration (OPA), the Office of  War Information (OW I), the Office of  Defense Transportation (ODT), and the Board of  Economic Warfare (BEW) each had its own area of  operation, sometimes encroaching upon others, sometimes being encroached upon. And there were many other agencies—each with its own set of  initials—handling specific needs. The Office of  Price Administration—the OPA—was a particular target of  anyone who had any kind of  g ripe about wartime conditions. Controlling the prices of  or even rationing consumer items had an impact on everyone, and OPA Administrator Leon Henderson found himself  the constant recipient of  the barbs of  discontent, justified or not. One historian has said, “As the war drew on, nearly every item Americans ate, wore, used or lived in was rationed or otherwise regulated. It was the most concerted attack on wartime inflation and scarcity in the nation’s history, and by and large it worked.” That is not to say that people were happy with how it worked. In 1944, Henderson’s successor, Chester Bowles, declined to take any part in FDR’s campaign, fearing the reaction if  the OPA chief  got involved “in politics.” He had problems enough without that. 3 The administration turned to businessmen, many of  them Republicans, who came to be called “dollar-a-year” men, to make it a bipartisan war effort. The businessmen, some of  the great industrialists of  the nation, responded splendidly on the whole. The United States became the arsenal for the free world that Roosevelt had envisioned. As the country developed rapidly into an industrial giant at home, it turned more slowly into a military giant as well. The string of  horrors of  December 1941 and early 1942—Pearl Harbor, Guam, Bataan, Corregidor, Wake Island, and the vast destruction of  shipping off  the Atlantic coast by German U-boats—gradually turned into victories at Midway, the Coral Sea, and Guadalcanal. The debacle of  an untried U.S. Army at

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Kasserine Pass was followed by the successful eviction of  the German army from Tunisia and Sicily, the invasion of  Italy, and the removal of  Italy as a belligerent power. Roosevelt agreed with Winston Churchill that overall strategy required defeating Germany first, with Japan to be dealt with later, but the American public did not always favor this strategy. The Russian army had broken the back of  the Wehrmacht at Stalingrad and won a great tank victory at Kursk, but Kesselring’s troopers that the American Fifth and the British Eighth armies fought up the boot of  Italy were still battle hardened and tough. The Soviet Union’s Josef  Stalin, whose bloodied nation knew the full meaning of  “total war,” demanded the opening of  a full-fledged “second front” in the west, but the Western Allies could not conceive of  a cross-Channel invasion in 1943, despite Stalin. On the home front, Americans coped with the war—with shortages of  items they were used to having in plentiful supply, with ration books, 35-mile-an-hour speed limits, gasoline rationing, draft boards, Victory gardens, gold-star flags, air-raid wardens, war bonds, with uprootings and displacements and massive changes in ordinary life. Coffee, sugar, shoes, typewriters, whiskey, alarm clocks, and domestic servants became hard to find. Any complaint about conditions—about just about anything— was met with the universal response: “Don’t you know there’s a war on?” 4 An example of  a restriction surprisingly well accepted was gasoline rationing. A serious rubber shortage made it imperative to ration gasoline, thus preserving automobile tires, and nationwide rationing went into effect on December 1, 1942. The initial protests from the citizenry soon disappeared. 5 Meat rationing, on the other hand, was poorly handled by the OPA, which issued a flood of  sometimes-nonsensical regulations—on constantly changing ration point values, on how butchers should cut meats, on what meatpackers could charge. Housewives raised a steady howl of  protest. In some parts of  the country, horse, rabbit, and muskrat were sold as substitutes for beef  and pork, and black marketeering of  meat became widespread. On the home front there was more money around than Americans had seen in some time—the nagging memories of  the Depression started to fade—but all too little to spend it on. The magazines—Life, Look, Col-

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liers, the Saturday Evening Post—were full of  t wo-page, brightly-colored ads showing many of  the consumer items that would be available soon after the war ended, but these things were not for sale now. Many people were vaguely aware that there had been some sort of  problem on the West Coast with the Japanese who lived there, but it had been taken care of  and dropped out of  newspaper reports. Few Americans realized that the displacement and internment of  Japanese Americans, citizens and non-citizens alike, with no evidence of  sabotage or imminent danger, constituted one of  the most flagrant mass abuses of  civil rights in the nation’s history. The Japanese internment became a dark stain on the historical reputations of  California Attorney General Earl Warren, Assistant Secretary of  War John J. McCloy, Henry Stimson, and Franklin Roosevelt. The army was opposed to the evacuation, but the civilian leadership of  the War Department, particularly McCloy, pushed hard for it.6 Popular culture thrived during World War II. Early in the war Roosevelt wrote what was called the “green light letter” to baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, advising that big-league baseball should be kept going in wartime, for morale purposes, even though subject to similar restrictions as everyone else.7 This green light seemed to apply to other forms of  entertainment and culture as well. Clark Gable and James Stewart and Henry Fonda went to war, but Bing Crosby carried on and Gregory Peck, Sonny Tufts, and Van Johnson became bright new stars. Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, and Bob Feller went into the service, while old-timers like Mel Ott, Eddie Mayo, and Joe Medwick drew fans to the ballparks, and a left-handed pitcher named Hal Newhouser, with a heart murmur that frustrated his efforts to enlist, became the top hurler of  wartime baseball—and of  a few years afterward. Early in the war, Americans watched films like Mrs. Miniver, about the heroic English, and Casablanca, about coping with the Vichy French. Soon enough Hollywood began pumping out plenty of  movies about the American war. “The wartime function of  the movies . . . ,” pronounced the Hollywood Writers Mobilization for Defense, “is to build morale.” In 1943, fully one-third of  A merican movies dealt with the war, either directly or indirectly.8

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So Americans watched such films as Brian Donlevy’s Wake Island, Action in the North Atlantic with Humphrey Bogart, and Tyrone Power’s Crash Dive. Moviegoers made a hit of  Madame Curie, starring Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon (with small roles for Van Johnson and cute little Margaret O’Brien), and Coney Island featuring Betty Grable, who was voted by movie-theatre owners the top star of  1943. They followed Saturday-afternoon serials like Don Winslow of  the Navy and Walt Disney sagas like Dumbo, about an elephant whose ears were so big he could use them to fly. Alfred Hitchcock’s fans loved the famous director’s Saboteur, whose villain got his comeuppance in a spectacular fall from the top of  the Statue of  Liberty.9 Radio, over the three national networks, CBS, NBC, and the Blue, was still the medium of  choice for wartime Americans, who sat around their living rooms by the millions to listen to Jack Benny, Fred Allen, Fibber McGee and Molly, Your Hit Parade, One Man’s Family, and dozens of  daytime soap operas. There were quiz shows, amateur hours, baseball games, even boxing matches, to while away the spare hours of  radio listeners, as well as newscasts, both regular and those interrupting programs with “fast-breaking news.” The names and voices of  newsmen became familiar to American listeners—William L. Shirer, Edward R. Murrow, Gabriel Heatter, and Eric Sevareid, among many others. And, of  course, there was music—hours and hours of  music. From Arturo Toscanini’s NBC Symphony of  the Air, the New York Philharmonic, and Texaco’s Saturday afternoon broadcasts of  the Metropolitan Opera to the half-hour shows of  big bands like those of  Harry James and Fred Waring and the contributions of  d isc jockeys around the country, music filled the airwaves. A number of  the big bands broke up soon after the coming of  the war, but others continued. What was new was the proliferation of  single singers. In the thirties there were a few stars like Bing Crosby, Russ Columbo, and Rudy Vallee, but most popular singers were connected with the big bands. When Frank Sinatra left Tommy Dorsey’s band to go out on his own and quickly became 1943’s biggest star, with teenage girls called “bobby-soxers” “swooning” at his well-modulated tones, a new paradigm was established. America’s wartime pop music ranged from such combat-inspired classics as “You Can’t Say ‘No’ to a Soldier,” Frank

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Loesser’s “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition,” and “They’re Either Too Young or Too Old,” to the more standard “Blues in the Night,” Xavier Cugat’s “Brazil,” “Mairzy Doats,” and Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas,” introduced by Crosby in the 1942 film Holiday Inn. In April 1943, a new show by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II opened in New York, and the Broadway musical would never be the same again. With its catchy songs and its exuberant choreography set in turn-of-the-century frontier life, Oklahoma was about as far away from midwar America as it could be, but it enchanted people around the country. When Alfred Drake as Curly McLain wrapped his baritone voice around “Oh What A Beautiful Mornin’!” all America gasped with pleasure. With all that music playing, it was only natural that there was a great increase in dancing. Especially near army bases, there were many recreational facilities for off-duty soldiers, offered by the USO, local churches, YMCAs, teen canteens, and dance halls. It was considered “patriotic” for young ladies to provide entertainment in such milieus for lonely GIs, and thousands of  them did so, often with all-too-predictable results. The strenuous “jitterbug” boomed during the war, particularly with youngsters, while older dancers preferred the fox-trot and its varieties. With gasoline rationing encouraging Americans to stay at home, it was not surprising that book buying increased. Shirer’s Berlin Diary was at the top of  the best-seller lists when the war began, and it was no surprise that war-oriented books sold well, including See Here, Private Hargrove, a story of  a citizen-soldier trying to adapt to the military, William L. White’s PT boat saga, They Were Expendable, Guadalcanal Diary by Richard Tregaskis, and Wendell Willkie’s One World, recounting the author’s journey around the world on a presidential mission. So the people of  the United States had much with which to divert themselves from the news coming from overseas and the discomforts of  wartime living. Joe Louis and Billy Conn, the kings of  the boxing world, were both in the army, but Count Fleet won the Triple Crown of  racing in 1943, and he was as fast as any pre-war thoroughbred. Dinah Shore sang “I’ll Walk Alone,” and millions of  bereft young ladies sighed with her, while Vaughn Monroe sang wistfully of  a time “When the Lights Go On Again,” all over the world.

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Christmas 1943 seemed more somber than usual, with so many empty chairs at Yuletide dining tables and with shortages of  such holiday staples as candy and liquor. Major labor troubles loomed as well, on the railroads and in the steel mills, and indeed the President had to step in a few days after Christmas and seize the railroads to head off  a threatened major strike. A couple of  days later, Americans got ready to welcome in a new year with relief  that the worst seemed past and better times should lie ahead in 1944. They read in their newspapers of  a Russian victory over twenty-two German divisions in the Ukraine, of  a 1,300-plane strike by the U.S. Army Air Force against targets in the Reich, and the capture of  a key airfield near Cape Gloucester, on the island of  New Britain, by MacArthur’s forces. They took in the news that the British navy had sunk the 26,000-ton German battle cruiser Scharnhorst off  northern Norway and that General Dwight D. Eisenhower had arrived back in London to take command of  the staff  planning the long-awaited cross-Channel invasion. Americans prepared to celebrate the new year in hotels, USO clubs, nightspots, movie theatres, churches, and homes, wherever a few revelers might get together. Killjoy Paul McNutt, the War Manpower chieftain, warned federal employees against starting the new year with a hangover, as January 1, 1944, was a work day for the government. So it was, as America prepared for an election year.

2

Politics in Midwar

The midterm elections, in 1942, had not gone well for FDR and his party. In October, the President sent Congress a message asking that the draft age be reduced to cover 18-year-olds. In normal times Speaker of  the House Sam Rayburn would have sat on such a politically risky proposal until the election was safely past, but he knew that the military exigencies were great so he brought it up promptly. When it passed, an “avalanche of  protests from parents” buried a number of  Democrats who voted for the measure. The 18-year-old draft, the cumulative annoyances of  wartime restrictions, regulations, and rationing, and a drift away from the spirit of  the New Deal hurt Roosevelt’s party. One historian has called the ’42 election “more an expression of  apathy and of  barriers to voting by displaced workers than the result of  an electoral shift to the Republican party,” but to party politicians in November 1942 it sure looked like the Republicans had won. Out of  about eighty million eligible voters nationwide, only some twenty-eight million voted. The Democrats lost seven seats in the Senate and forty-seven in the House of  Representatives, leaving the Congress firmly in the control of  a coalition of  Republicans and conservative Southern Democrats.1 White House staffer Jonathan Daniels lamented that the President, “though [a] master politician, [was] not interested in party politics now.” Roosevelt seemed to have pushed aside any inclination to further a progressive agenda while the war occupied his time and concern.2 15

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Republicans were almost giddy with delight over the election returns. Arthur Krock, in the New York Times, noted “a nation-wide trend . . . in favor of  the opposition party,” while a Chicago Tribune writer gleefully called the election “a great national court martial by which the Roosevelt administration was tried and adjudged guilty of  bungling the war effort.” Senator C. Wayland “Curly” Brooks of  I llinois, a pre-war isolationist re-elected in 1942, said the swing to Republicans was an expression of  disgust with the administration. 3 Republicans considered themselves the natural ruling party of  t he country. Since the seismic political shifts of  Civil War days, the GOP had controlled the White House except when unusual circumstances let Cleveland and Wilson win. The normal order of  t hings had been restored after each of  t hose aberrations. The Depression had led to the presidency of  Franklin Roosevelt, and the threat of  war had given him a third term in 1940. Republican partisans felt it was time to restore their party to its accustomed primacy, especially with the war nearing its close. Once the off-year election was out of  the way, the pundits quickly turned to speculation about the presidential election two years hence. Thomas E. Dewey, who had almost captured the Republican nomination in 1940 from a position no higher than district attorney of  New York City, was elected New York’s governor in 1942 and was immediately granted front-runner status. Other Republican governors who were recognized as possibilities were Dwight Green of  I llinois, Harold E. Stassen of  M innesota, Earl Warren of  California, John W. Bricker of  Ohio, and Leverett Saltonstall of  Massachusetts. U.S. senators thought to have a chance included Robert A. Taft of  Ohio and Arthur Vandenberg of  M ichigan. The wild card in all the guessing was 1940 nominee Willkie, no favorite of  the party’s leaders but still a definite factor. On the Democratic side was the incumbent Franklin Roosevelt. Until he made his position clear regarding a possible fourth term, there were no other realistic Democratic candidates. Meanwhile, early in the war the leaders of  organized labor had patriotically agreed to a no-strike pledge in order not to hamper the mass industrial production needed to sustain a worldwide war effort. With such a pledge, of  course, they gave up labor’s most potent weapon, in

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effect entrusting their welfare to a wartime agency, the National War Labor Board (N W LB), a twelve-member panel consisting of  representatives of  business, labor, and “the public.” With rapid inflation in 1942, the N W LB had to come up with a policy to keep wages in line, a policy that became known as the Little Steel Formula, because it first went into effect with the second-line steel producers. The formula was to restrict wage increases to levels that would not increase inflation. Labor was not happy with the Little Steel Formula, arguing that wage increases did not keep up with cost-of-living increases and that workers suffered while corporations made huge, war-swollen profits. Complicating matters was the combative, black-browed leader of  the coal miners’ union, John L. Lewis. Lewis considered himself  and his union above all such mundane matters as wartime pledges and regulations, and in the spring of  1943 he called his men out of  the mines on a nationwide strike. An outraged Congress passed an anti-labor bill called the Smith-Connally Act. FDR vetoed Smith-Connally, but his veto was quickly overridden. Measures like this one, as well as low voter turnout in the off  year of  1942, which resulted in the large setback for the liberal cause (none of  the Democratic losses in ’42 came in the conservative South), pushed organized labor toward a new activism for the 1944 political wars. The leaders of  the Congress of  Industrial Organizations, the CIO, one of  the two mammoth labor conglomerates (the American Federation of  Labor, mostly old-line craft unions, the other), recognized that further losses, including possibly the White House itself, were in store without a reenergized effort. Philip Murray, CIO president, and the CIO’s executive board, at a special meeting in Washington on July 7, 1943, created a political action committee, generally known as CIO-PAC, to get labor fully involved and, just incidentally, to get around Smith-Connally’s ban on political contributions by labor unions. Sidney Hillman, president of  the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of  A merica, was designated the new group’s chairman. Republicans, and business leaders generally, looked upon this new development in the labor field—“a new political storm,” Life called it—with unease. “It is the first full-scale, professional entrance of  labor into politics,” the magazine said.4

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As 1944 began, CIO-PAC opened a national office in New York City, with regional offices springing up from coast to coast and being quickly staffed. Various divisions were established in the national headquarters—research, public relations, women, youth, Negroes, and more. PAC staffers worked with such zeal that one newspaperman exclaimed, “This isn’t a committee—this is a crusade!” Much of  the enthusiasm was generated by PAC chairman Hillman. 5 Hillman, a Jewish, Lithuanian-born pants cutter who had spent time in czarist prisons in his youth, came to the United States in 1907 at the age of  20. In 1910, he involved himself  in the Chicago garment-workers’ strike and succeeded in settling it on favorable terms. His rise in labor ranks followed, and for the last thirty years Hillman had been president of  t he powerful Amalgamated Clothing Workers. As labor’s shrewdest and most pragmatic politician, he was a natural to head the newly formed CIO-PAC. With his political savvy and the fund-raising muscle that his group soon showed, Sidney Hillman suddenly became a factor in discussions of  the forthcoming elections—one that the leaders of  the Democratic Party looked upon with some nervousness, not quite sure whether CIO-PAC would win or lose votes for them. Another factor, one that would loom larger as the election drew nigh, was the influence of  Communists in American public life. Ever since the publication of  K arl Marx’s Das Kapital, and much more so since the establishment of  a Bolshevik regime in Russia at the end of  World War I, there had been a virulent strain of  anti-communism in the United States. During the Depression of  the 1930s, the lure of  communism had brought about a substantial increase in members of  the Communist Party and its sympathizers, called “fellow travelers.” The Communist numbers dropped off  when Josef  Stalin signed his treaty of  a lliance with Hitler in 1939, but Hitler’s treacherous attack on the Soviet Union, followed by America’s entry into the war as Russia’s ally, made World War II “the high point of  prestige for the roughly 100,000 party and Young Communist league members, and a like number of  fellow travelers.” 6 As a result of  the wartime alliance, anti-communist attacks were toned down early in the war, but they were never entirely muted. The Republican right wing, personified by Colonel Robert McCormick of  the Chicago Tribune, persisted in attacking its opponents as Communist-in-

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fluenced, if  not in fact Communists. Particularly vulnerable to this sort of  invective was the CIO, about a dozen of  whose international unions as well as a number of  locals were led by Communists or fellow travelers. Hillman’s CIO-PAC, perhaps because of  the great fear it aroused, was constantly assailed for being a Communist ally. Hillman, though not himself  a Communist, was not beyond using Communist functionaries in his efforts in the labor ranks, so GOP orators had little hesitation in coupling the names of  Hillman and Earl Browder, the Communist Party secretary whose jail term for passport fraud had been commuted by Roosevelt in 1942. As the war progressed, and peacetime problems loomed ahead, the Republicans made more and more use of  the Red issue.7 A separate issue, more for the Democrats than for the GOP, was the voting pattern of  black citizens. Blacks had swung over in substantial numbers from their traditional Republican base to Roosevelt in 1936, in recognition of  a nd gratitude for the aid that the New Deal had provided to the poor and impoverished, which included all too many blacks. But issues arose during the war, often in connection with the segregated military services, which threatened to cause black voters to rethink their allegiances. Early in the year, Robert Sherwood, the playwright and Roosevelt speechwriter, talked to Walter White, the head of  t he National Association for the Advancement of  Colored People (NAACP). White, Sherwood found, was “very pro-Willkie” but opposed to “that insufferable Tom Dewey.” White proclaimed “eternal loyalty to the President but indicates that the Negro vote won’t look with favor on any attempt to appease the southern Democrats by nominating Byrnes, Rayburn or Barkley for Vice-president.” So, keeping the blacks contented while not losing any of  the Solid South looked to be a problem for the Democrats.8 There was another off-year election, much smaller in scope, held in November 1943. The results confirmed what had happened the year before. In mostly municipal contests, Republicans captured a fair number of  city governments. There were two gubernatorial elections as well. In both, Republicans turned out Democratic state-house administrations, with Walter Edge winning in New Jersey and Simeon S. Willis triumphing in Kentucky. A special election in New York resulted in Dewey’s man, Joe R. Hanley, winning a statewide race for lieutenant governor,

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his victory widely recognized as an endorsement of  Dewey’s first year in Albany. Ohio’s Bricker, who had helped Willis in his race in neighboring Kentucky, wired a friend, writing happily, “Election showed definite trend in all sections against New Deal. I was not surprised at the outcome particularly in Kentucky because the thinking of  people in the middle west is in line with results down there. It looks very much like a Republican victory next year.”9 “The U.S. is now a Republican country . . . the standout fact of  last week’s elections,” proclaimed Life, reflecting the views of  publisher Henry Luce. “The contests were scattered and local,” Life wrote, “mostly in the East, and many had no national significance. But, taken together, they furnished new evidence that a great shift of  opinion has taken place in the last few years and that the Republicans are now the majority party.” More support for this view came on November 30, when a special election in Kentucky filled a congressional vacancy with a Republican in a traditionally Democratic district.10 After the 1943 elections, the Republicans held twenty-six governorships, in states with 339 electoral votes, while the twenty-two states held by Democrats had only 192 electoral votes. In an era before pervasive television advertising, control of  the machinery of  state government, with the patronage such control bestowed on a party, was considered very influential in determining how a statewide election should go. It was not a happy picture for the Democratic Party. With the presidential election coming up, Roosevelt was receiving the results of  public opinion polling done by Hadley Cantril of  the American Institute of  Public Opinion, who submitted his information to Sam Rosenman. Cantril found, for example, that twice as many respondents were concerned about domestic matters as they were about international affairs. While some 69 percent approved of  the way Franklin Roosevelt did his job, if  the war were still on at the time of  the election, and FDR was a candidate, he would beat Dewey 51 percent to 32. If  the end of  the war was clearly in sight, the numbers came out 42 to 41 for the President, but if  the war had ended, Dewey could get 51 percent to Roosevelt’s 30 percent. These figures, of  course, were calculated long before the campaign took place, but they had to be considered. Cantril’s

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polling showed a 76 percent job approval for FDR after the D-day invasion in June, making it clear that the “commander-in-chief” posture had to be maintained.11 Whether it was to be Willkie, or Dewey, or some other Republican suddenly favored by fortune, Democratic leaders looked at 1944 with foreboding. With a war on, though, they felt that perhaps they could put together a winning effort by stressing the need for continuity in wartime. “Don’t Change Horses,” they proclaimed, “in the Middle of  the Stream!”

3

The Republicans

Harry Luce and Life magazine were not the only ones who felt that 1944 could be a Republican year. Homer E. Capehart, president of  t he Packard Company, spoke in early January to a luncheon of  business executives at the Hotel Roosevelt in New York and said “any good Republican” could defeat Roosevelt. “The American people,” pronounced Capehart, who was himself  r unning for a U.S. Senate seat in Indiana, “are sick and tired of  t he New Deal.” Charles Hurd, a political reporter for the New York Times, wrote that Republican leaders “assume and expect that the House will pass to their control” in the upcoming election and were “convinced that 1944 is a year in which their party can win.”1 As the year opened, there appeared to be four, possibly five, candidates on the GOP’s horizon; the party would have to weigh their respective merits and come to a choice at—or possibly before—its June convention. Those who were most seriously considered for the Republican presidential nomination at the start of  the year were two governors, New York’s Dewey and Ohio’s Bricker, two military men, General Douglas MacArthur and Lieutenant Commander Harold Stassen (the former governor of  M innesota), and the party’s surprise 1940 nominee, Wendell Willkie. A private poll taken in late summer 1943 among delegates to the 1940 convention indicated that 35 percent of  those who answered favored Dewey, with 21 percent for Bricker, and 17 percent for Willkie. 22

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MacArthur, Ohio Senator Robert Taft, and Herbert Hoover (who got a surprising 4 percent) shared the balance.2 Shortly after that poll was taken, Dewey was severely condemned by a Chicago Tribune editorial for his support at Mackinac Island of  a postwar Anglo-American military alliance. Accusing the New York governor of  selling out to Downing Street, the editorial said that Republicans “now have no recourse but to repudiate him as a deserter.” But in spite of  Colonel McCormick’s paper, Dewey held on to his lead. 3 A Gallup poll released on January 29, 1944, indicated that Dewey held a substantial and growing lead among Republicans. Now 42 percent of  the respondents favored the New York governor. Willkie’s support dropped slightly, from 25 percent to 23, while Mac­A rthur moved up from 15 percent to 18. Bricker showed 8 percent and Stassen 6 percent.4 The kicker in all this, however, was Dewey’s seeming reluctance to be a candidate. In 1942, when Dewey ran successfully for governor of  New York, he announced upon winning the Republican nomination that, if  elected, he would “devote the next four years exclusively to the service of  the people of  New York State.” Such a pledge, helpful in winning his gubernatorial election, obviously barred an active run for the presidency two years later. Nevertheless, his success in carrying New York by a substantial margin immediately propelled him to the front of  prospective Republican candidates for 1944, and there he was found as the election year began. 5 So Dewey maintained a public stance that he was not a candidate, while his political lieutenants moved about the country picking up commitments and delegate support for him. It was a clever ploy, and it appeared more likely to win him the nomination than his active candidacy did in 1940. Th e Prosecu tor Thomas Edmund Dewey seemed to be a somewhat peculiar individual for such a highly public and political situation. He was born on March 24, 1902, in Owosso, Michigan, a small city located about halfway between Flint and Lansing in the central part of  the state. Thomas’s father,

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George, was the local newspaper editor and later postmaster. The family was active in local Republican politics (his grandfather had been a delegate to the 1854 convention at which the party was born), and there was never any question where young Tom would wind up politically. He participated in theatricals in high school and college and worked to develop his mellifluous basso cantante (between a baritone and a bass) singing voice. At the University of  M ichigan Thomas studied opera, while he considered a professional singing career, and law, which seemed a more practical life choice. Dewey left Michigan in 1923 and headed east to New York City, where he resumed his study of  law at Columbia, while continuing with voice lessons. His first solo recital, though, on March 24, 1924, was a fiasco, the result of  laryngitis, and Dewey promptly decided against relying on such an unreliable organ as the voice for his livelihood.6 Dewey graduated from Columbia in the spring of  1925 and on a tour of  Europe grew the mustache that would long be a staple of  political cartoonists. Passing the bar exam, he began the practice of  law in New York City and was soon earning a handsome income.7 In June 1928, Dewey married an aspiring singer named Frances Eileen Hutt. He and his bride moved into Manhattan’s fashionable “silk stocking” district. The youthful Dewey became active in New York City politics. He started out on a very basic level, ringing doorbells, handing out leaflets, and canvassing voters, and before long was serving on the board of  governors of  t he Young Republican Club, where he befriended another young lawyer from the Middle West, a Nebraskan named Herbert Brownell. It was the start of  what would become a lengthy political association. In 1931, Dewey left private practice to become chief  assistant to the United States Attorney for the Southern District of  New York, a highly regarded barrister named George Z. Medalie. In 1932, when Medalie ran for the United States Senate, Dewey managed his campaign. 8 The 1932 election resulted in a Democratic victory nationwide and in New York. Medalie lost his Senate race and in November 1933 resigned as U.S. Attorney; Dewey was named by the district’s judges to replace him, at least until the new president (Roosevelt) named a Democrat. Dewey attained a measure of  prominence from his work in the U.S.

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Attorney’s office, particularly when he personally tried and obtained the conviction in December 1933 of  Prohibition-era beer baron Irving Wexler, better known as Waxey Gordon, for income-tax violations. It was a spectacular ten-day trial, and Dewey played a leading role in the courtroom.9 Shortly thereafter, Roosevelt appointed a new U.S. Attorney, and young Tom Dewey returned to private practice. In 1935, however, a series of  sensational investigations and newspaper reports exposed both the scope of  organized crime activity in New York City and the inability of  local law enforcement agencies to cope with it. A grand jury called upon Governor Herbert Lehman to name a special prosecutor to supersede the district attorney; it even specified Dewey as the man it wanted. Lehman, a Democrat who could recognize a “young man on the make” when he saw one, was reluctant to appoint Dewey. However, after being turned down by several other lawyers, the governor offered the special prosecutor’s position to Dewey, who accepted it, after initial hesitation.10 Thomas E. Dewey soon emerged as the nation’s top “gangbuster,” obtaining numerous highly publicized convictions of  well-known gangsters and racketeers in New York City. It was a time when the public was fascinated by tales of  the great criminals, the Dillingers, Lucianos, Schultzes, Capones, and their brethren, and the press and Hollywood played to this fascination with a ready will. Dewey made a name for himself  as their leading nemesis, and in his most famous conviction Dewey sent Charles “Lucky” Luciano to prison for running a prostitution ring. Dewey’s parade of  hookers on the witness stand made for sensational press coverage. In 1937, Dewey was drafted to run for district attorney of  New York County on a Fusion ticket with Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, up for reelection. Dewey was reluctant to take on this new responsibility just when his term as special prosecutor was nearing its end; he had accepted an offer from John Foster Dulles, senior partner at the major Wall Street law firm Sullivan and Cromwell, to join the firm as a litigator, with a possible income of  $150,000 a year. He had been serving on the public payroll for five of  the past six years, at far less money than he could have made in private practice, and he had a growing family for which to pro-

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vide. Dewey, however, was talked into acceptance by LaGuardia and New York Republican leader Kenneth Simpson.11 Once on the ballot, things went smoothly for Dewey. He campaigned hard up and down Manhattan, and both he and LaGuardia won handily. As district attorney, Tom Dewey continued to be newsworthy. He was instrumental in sending to prison Richard Whitney, former head of  the New York Stock Exchange, and he conducted a highly publicized prosecution of  Tammany boss James J. Hines, which, after a controversial mistrial, ended in a conviction of  H ines for ties with New York racketeers. Shortly after the end of  the first Hines trial, the Republican Party gave Dewey its 1938 nomination for governor of  New York. Popular Governor Lehman was planning to run for the U.S. Senate, but alarmed Democrats prevailed upon him to run instead for re-election to Albany, so fearful were they that only Lehman could hold back the Dewey tide. After a campaign that attracted national attention, Lehman was able to hold on to his office by a scant 64,000 votes. Dewey emerged from the election as the frontrunner for the 1940 Republican presidential nomination, even though he was only district attorney of  New York County. Dewey opened his campaign for the presidency in December 1939, barnstormed around the country in early 1940, winning primaries (far fewer in those times than today) and picking up delegates. Senators Robert A. Taft of  Ohio and Arthur Vandenberg of  M ichigan appeared to be his principal opponents, until the improbable appearance on the scene of  ex-Democrat Wendell L. Willkie. Willkie’s entry into the race seemed to coincide with the explosion of  horrible news from Europe, as Norway, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands fell before Hitler’s Wehrmacht, and Britain looked as if  she might be next. Dewey’s complete lack of  experience as anything but a gangbusting prosecutor began to appear a serious detriment in a world gone mad. The three leading contenders, Taft, Vandenberg, and Dewey, were all isolationists to some degree, and they showed up badly against Willkie’s fervent internationalism. In the convention in Philadelphia, Dewey led the way for three ballots, but his total receded on each, and he was soon swept away by the Willkie rush.

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As a result of  h is 1938 run, however, Dewey had put together a powerful statewide organization in New York. Anchored by Edwin F. Jaeckle’s dominant machine in Buffalo at one end of  the state and J. Russell Sprague’s control of  Nassau County on Long Island at the other, with a nerve center in New York City of  Elliott V. Bell and Herb Brownell, the Dewey Republican organization won a smashing victory for governor in 1942. Dewey had made some missteps on the national scene—on January 10, 1941, he said FDR’s Lend-Lease bill “would bring an end to free government in the United States,” and he ridiculed as “a publicity stunt” Roosevelt’s call for the annual production of  50,000 military airplanes— but he was surefooted in New York politics. Dewey defeated a splintered Democratic Party to win the governorship by a huge margin. Once again, he became the leading GOP contender for the presidency, even with his disclaimer of  any intention to seek the nomination.12 But there was a problem with Dewey. The man had one of  the coldest personalities of  anyone who had ever contemplated a run for the American presidency. David Brinkley wrote of  him, “In public Dewey came across as pompous and cold. And for good reason. He was both.” He was generally conceded to be intelligent, efficient, a master of  detail, “serious-minded to the point of  severity,” as one contemporary noted. “He is as humorless as a man can be,” wrote another. With his short stature, five feet eight, about which he was quite sensitive (shunning photographs of  himself  a longside any noticeably taller man), his mustache, and “something mechanical about his gestures,” he was compared to the little man on the wedding cake, an image that he never shook off.13 One writer described him: Dewey’s attention to detail extends to his personal appearance, which is always immaculate. He will not allow himself  to get excited. He rarely sweats. His most frequent unconscious gesture is to reach up with one hand and lightly smooth his wavy, dark brown hair, which is hardly ever out of  place. . . . Dewey talks in deep, deliberate tones in ordinary conversation, using an occasional gentlemanly “damn” for emphasis. He is highly conscious of  t he importance of  voice and gesture control.14

The Albany correspondent of  the liberal paper PM wrote: Dewey is like the beautiful girl at the cocktail party who turns out to be dull and superficial. He is intelligent without depth, shrewd without vision, jocular

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F DR , De w e y, a n d t h e E l ect ion of 194 4 without humor. . . . His enemies are legion and his friends don’t like him. . . . But he is popular in direct proportion to the distance away from his presence. Which means that he is popular among millions of  voters.15

Raymond Moley, the ex-FDR-brain-truster-turned-conservativewriter, said later, “the significance of  Thomas E. Dewey must be in the amazing fact that he went so far with so little natural political endowment. His success is a tribute to hard work, courage, perseverance, analytical intelligence and a superior sense of  order.”16 Herbert Brownell, whose relationship with Dewey went back further than most, wrote in his memoir, “The Tom Dewey I knew was also quite different from the popular perception of  him as a rather wooden political figure, formally attired and with a mustache,” but he gave no further elucidation of  this than the statement that he got to know Dewey’s wife and sons well. The Dewey he described was efficient, smart, confrontational, well organized, “and didn’t suffer fools gladly”17 Many successful politicians exude an aura of  warmth, of  f riendliness, of  bonhomie. Tom Dewey was exactly the opposite. Nearly everyone conceded Dewey’s ability to do his job well, while many observers commented on his very apparent and consuming ambition. But the frigidity of  his personality made him the natural butt of  comments about the man on the wedding cake or the saying that “you’ve got to know Tom Dewey to really dislike him.” A Dewey biographer, summing up the public image of  Dewey at about this time, said it “was generally that of  a small, rather young, inexperienced man, quite vain and pompous, self-seeking and ambitious, and oblivious—even at times deliberately contemptuous—of  the feelings and desires of  others.” He was assumed to be “coldly efficient, scrupulously honest, and intensely aggressive—a man who was apparently downright ruthless in his methods.”18 Navy Secretary James Forrestal had a friend, an architect in Albany, who tried to size up Dewey as he was seen in the state capital. “Briefly,” the architect wrote, “he has done a very efficient job. . . . There is no mistaking that whatever job he tackles he does on a pretty sound basis. On the other hand, he is as cold as a fish and strictly runs an out and out one-man show.” Even a favorable article in the Saturday Evening Post concluded that “it is downright hard for Dewey to be a man of  the people.”19

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Buck e y e Politico The governor of  Ohio, though, was an almost complete opposite of   Thomas E. Dewey. John William Bricker, it was said, “was excellent company.” People liked being around Bricker, and he enjoyed being around others. He was a joiner. In Columbus, Bricker belonged to the Odd Fellows, the Eagles, the Moose, the Rotary, the Sons of  the American Revolution, the American Legion, and the Masons. He was president of  a nine-county Boy Scouts council and a trustee of  three colleges. Big, jovial John Bricker, one author wrote, “had the essential of  popularity, a real and lively interest in people.”20 John Bricker was born, with his twin sister, Ella, on a farm in Pleasant Township, Ohio, near Mount Sterling, twenty miles southwest of  Columbus, on September 6, 1893. He was of  German and Scotch-Irish descent, and he grew up in a typical turn-of-the-century farm childhood. John attended Sunday school faithfully, played a lot of  baseball, plumbed a lot of  fishing holes, and hunted a lot of  birds in the surrounding woods.21 Baseball became a great interest in young John Bricker’s life, and he avidly followed the fortunes of  the Cincinnati Reds throughout his life. Bricker studied hard in high school, because he had by then determined to take up the law as a career. When Bricker went off  to Ohio State, in Columbus, he quickly established himself  as someone to be reckoned with on campus, tall, broad shouldered, and accomplished. He caught for the Buckeye baseball team and was president of  his class, a varsity debater, and president of  the university YMCA. He received his bachelor of  arts degree from Ohio State in 1916 and returned to campus in the fall to complete his legal education. When the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, Bricker immediately applied for enrollment in the army officers’ training corps. He was turned down when doctors discovered that his heartbeat was only three-fourths the normal rate. Subsequent attempts to enlist in the army, the marines, and the navy ran afoul of  the same physical condition, much to Bricker’s frustration. He passed the state bar examination in June 1917, but he wanted to serve in the war. After pulling a few strings (and receiving a one-year ordination as a minister, with the proviso that

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he not preach), Bricker managed to be commissioned as an army chaplain, though he was unable to get overseas. At the war’s end and with his mustering out of  the Chaplains Corps, Bricker completed his law course at Ohio State, married a young lady from Columbus named Harriet Day after a whirlwind courtship, and got a job with a law firm in Columbus. Bricker, active in politics since his college days, joined the local Republican Party as soon as he started working. His political principles were then and remained staunchly conservative, wedded to age-old ideals of  individualism and local responsibility. Soon after starting his law practice, Bricker turned down a job in the Department of  Justice in Washington; as a young and hopeful politico he knew he needed to establish himself  in his home area. He soon acquired the post of  solicitor for his local community, a position he held for eight years as the cornerstone of  a growing practice. After working hard for the election of  the GOP’s state attorney general candidate in 1922, Bricker was rewarded with appointment in 1923 as counsel to the Public Utilities Commission, where a young lawyer could make a name for himself  w ith high-profile cases representing consumers’ interests, which is just what John Bricker did. He roamed all over the state of  Ohio, trying cases in lower courts, appellate courts, and federal courts, and even went before the Interstate Commerce Commission and United States Supreme Court in Washington. Bricker made himself  the leading authority on public utilities law in Ohio, as well as a highly publicized advocate for the little man. Still, state regulation of  utilities, for the good of  the consumer and for the good of  the utilities themselves, which received orderly market conditions as a result, was about as far as conservative John Bricker felt that governmental intrusion into commerce should go. He returned to private practice in 1927 and the following year sought the GOP nomination for state attorney general. In a race with six candidates, Bricker finished a close second, carrying sixty of  the state’s eightyeight counties. In 1929, he was named to fill a vacancy on the Public Utilities Commission, where his service kept Bricker prominently in the public eye. In 1932, in the face of  an electorate voting Democratic, Bricker was elected attorney general of  Ohio, despite a Democratic sweep of  the state

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led by Roosevelt. The lone Republican consolation was Bricker’s narrow victory by 10,008 votes. Bricker’s four-year stint as attorney general was an active one, marked by all the upheaval of  the Depression and the efforts to combat it—bank liquidations, unemployment insurance, old-age pensions, minimumwage laws, and the like. Bricker warned against “federal encroachment” in state affairs at a time when most states were nearly paralyzed. He was called a moderate progressive.22 Bricker was re-elected attorney general in 1934, again in the face of  a Democratic tide, one that brought in Martin L. Davey as governor. Bricker’s victory margin was four times larger than that of  t wo years earlier. Davey’s administration was marked by widespread charges of  corruption, and Bricker went after him in 1936, running a fierce campaign as the GOP nominee for governor. This time, though, the Democratic surge was simply too strong. FDR, running for a second term, carried Ohio by more than 600,000 votes, while Davey won by only 126,000. Bricker ran 300,000 votes ahead of  presidential nominee Alf  Landon, and Republicans all over Ohio took notice of  him. “John Bricker was defeated,” one newspaper commented later, “but the run he made was more notable than most victories are.” John W. Bricker returned once again to private practice.23 In 1938, the increasingly scandal-ridden Davey was defeated in a bitter Democratic primary, while Bricker was unopposed for the Republican nomination. After a two-month campaign featuring his attacks upon labor unions, sit-down strikes, and alleged Communist support of  his opponent, Bricker was easily elected governor. In the same election, Robert A. Taft, son of  a former president and a leader of  the Ohio legislature, won a U.S. Senate seat by defeating a Democratic incumbent. Both men, Bricker and Taft, were quickly touted by the pundits as possible national figures to be watched.24 Bricker set himself  to the task of  reversing the policies and programs of  the previous eight years of  Democratic administration in Ohio. He inherited a deficit of  $20 million from the Davey administration, and he left a $70 million surplus in the state treasury when he left office in 1945. One biographer says Bricker brought this about “by slighting the urban unemployed during his first term and by riding the economic

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boom produced by the war effort during his final two,” while another called his renovation of  state finances “one of  the political marvels of  this century.” Bricker concentrated on cutting expenditures and eliminating state jobs where possible; although this pained patronage-hungry Republican politicians, it played well with the public and helped in Bricker’s two successful re-elections.25 In his first term, however, Bricker achieved national notoriety when a crisis blew up in public relief  shortages in some of  Ohio’s cities, most notably Cleveland, which was governed by a maverick Republican mayor, Harold H. Burton. Unemployment remained high in Ohio, even though the economy had been in a slow recovery, and Ohio’s response to the relief  question was inadequate. Bricker mandated that the state’s relief  payments be conditioned upon a dollar-for-dollar match from local governments, a requirement that proved extremely onerous to hardpressed Ohio cities. By late October 1939, with an unemployment and relief  crisis at hand, delegations from Cleveland, Dayton, and Toledo, led by Cleveland’s Mayor Burton, called upon Bricker, urging him to call a special session of  the legislature for the purpose of  appropriating additional relief  f unds. Bricker’s back stiffened, and he refused to call any special session. Eventually the crisis was eased when the state discovered a “frozen account” of  $1.8 million available for relief  payments and Cleveland issued $1.2 million worth of  special bonds.26 Because of  the publicity Bricker had received nationwide upon his election in 1938, the relief  crisis in Ohio garnered an unusual amount of  national attention. Bricker was denounced in the liberal press as “the Starvation Governor,” the “Pharaoh of  t he Famine,” and “Breadline Bricker,” and comments upon the problems of  Ohio appeared from such sources as Mayor LaGuardia of  New York, Harold Ickes, and President Roosevelt himself. On the other hand, rural and suburban residents in Ohio and elsewhere, and conservatives across the country, applauded Bricker for holding the line against New Deal–type spending and standing fast to his economic program. In 1940, Bricker considered a run for his party’s presidential nomination but pulled back after Robert Taft announced his own candidacy. Bricker dutifully served as Taft’s floor manager in the national convention at Philadelphia, watching with consternation the flood of  delegate

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votes going to Wendell Willkie on the fifth ballot and after. When Bricker ran for re-election as governor, he was fortunate to draw as an opponent the flamboyant Martin Davey, back again after winning a brutal Democratic primary. Bricker was content to contrast his orderly and solvent administration with the corrupt and spendthrift ones of  Davey. Franklin Roosevelt carried Ohio against Willkie, but Bricker piled up a huge majority over Martin Davey.27 Bricker took steps to prepare Ohio for the civil defense and industrial issues which would be involved with the oncoming war and won another huge re-election in 1942. With his successive big victories in Ohio, handsome John W. Bricker was looked at more closely by Republican leaders around the nation. After the relief  episode of  1939, no one called Bricker a “moderate progressive” any more; he was now viewed (and viewed himself) as being on the more conservative side of  the Republican Party, the side where most Republican politicians were most comfortable. His position on foreign affairs before the war was basically isolationist, to the extent that a governor of  Ohio was concerned with the affairs of  other nations. “He hates the principle of  centralization in the abstract,” wrote a campaign biographer about Bricker, “and in the particular he hates the voraciousness of  the federal government in gathering controls in Washington during recent years.”28 Not everyone loved Bricker. “An honest Harding,” William Allen White called the Ohio governor early in 1943, when it became apparent that he would run for president, “. . . a man . . . aspiring to high office, without the intelligence, without the courage or without the sheer honesty to make some declaration upon the most important issues that have faced this old earth.” White feared a GOP “so craven” that it would “conspire to sneak into victory with no issue but Bricker and a bellyache.” White’s screed received considerable publicity and damaged Bricker’s fledgling candidacy, especially when the Ohio governor’s highly ballyhooed speech to the Political Science Academy early in April in New York City flopped badly, combining poor delivery with trite and bland generalizations about the federal bureaucracy. John Bricker’s candidacy had a long climb ahead.29 Certainly no one considered Bricker an intellectual giant, but the people of  Ohio were comfortable with him, and he hoped the American

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people would be in the mood, after twelve years of  Franklin Roosevelt and excitement, for a calm and conservative presidency. It was as such a conservative Republican, with the blessing of  Robert Taft—who was concerned in 1944 with re-election to the Senate—that John W. Bricker decided to run for president. His initial steps were tentative and faltering, exemplified by a mix-up among the governor and his staff  on whether he should at the same time run for president and for a fourth term as governor. (“How can you attack Roosevelt for running for a fourth term when you’re doing the same thing?” some of  them challenged.) His speeches were not particularly inspiring, and it quickly became clear that he had no grasp of  foreign policy other than the traditional isolationism of  the Midwest. But Bricker persevered, and he attracted campaign funding from right-wing big-money interests. By the time the 1944 convention began, he had covered more than 25,000 miles and given hundreds of  speeches. Bricker’s warm and winning personality won him supporters where his positions on issues and policies did not. Th e Sol di er a n d th e Sa i lor The two men in military service in 1944 who were possible presidential candidates could not have been more different from one another. Douglas MacArthur was a career soldier, a man whose eminence was brought about almost solely by his military exploits, while Lieutenant Commander Harold E. Stassen was a civilian politician in uniform, a man who had resigned a high political office to serve his country in wartime. Both men were long shots for a 1944 nomination, but both had been bitten by the presidential bug. Douglas MacArthur in 1944 was one of  the most famous of  A mericans. He was the well-publicized and valiant leader of  A merican army forces fighting the treacherous Japanese, the hero of  Corregidor, a gallant general battling the nation’s enemies, with a chestful of  medals and smoking a corncob pipe. MacArthur was born January 26, 1880, in Little Rock Barracks in Arkansas, the son of  a Civil War hero named Arthur MacArthur, who won the Medal of  Honor for his service at Missionary Ridge and was

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wounded at Kennesaw Mountain. Arthur MacArthur made the military his life, and his son Douglas followed him in this. Douglas was brought up at a series of  army posts and, in 1899, won an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he put together a brilliant career after which he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Corps of  Engineers. In 1905, his father was stationed as a military observer in Japan, and he procured the services of  his son as his aide. Douglas and his father embarked on an eight-month military inspection tour that took them all over Asia. The journey was a life-altering one for Douglas—“without doubt the most important factor of  preparation in my entire life,” he said. Young MacArthur gained insight into the advantages and drawbacks of  colonial rule, a vision of  A sia as an area of  the world with which the United States must concern itself, and a healthy respect for Japanese military strength. 30 Back in North America, Douglas served tours of  duty in Washington, Milwaukee, and Fort Leavenworth, and when the United States entered the war in 1917, he suggested to Secretary of  War Newton D. Baker the creation of  a division made up of  units from National Guard elements from many states. Baker took him up on the idea, formed the 42nd or Rainbow Division (with Guard units from twenty-six states and the District of  Columbia), made MacArthur chief  of  staff  of  the division, and promoted him to colonel in the infantry. In the summer of  1917, MacArthur with his new division was on his way to Europe, where, distinctive in his dress and fearless in combat, he earned both a Croix de Guerre and a Silver Star for his capture of  a German colonel in a raid behind enemy lines. The Rainbow Division fought in the Second Battle of  t he Marne, and in midsummer, Mac­ Arthur was given command of  a brigade, which he led brilliantly in the capture of  the St.-Mihiel salient. His personal heroism was seen again in the struggles in the Meuse-Argonne area, and by the time the armistice came, MacArthur, now a brigadier general, was in command of  the division. Newton Baker said simply that MacArthur “was the greatest American field commander produced by the war.”31 Returning to the United States, MacArthur was surprised to be appointed superintendent of  the military academy at West Point. Mac­

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Arthur had a highly publicized and tempestuous marriage, served his tour at West Point, went back to the Philippines, and was promoted to major general. He returned to the States in 1925, was divorced, and then was reassigned to command the Philippines Department. There was talk that he wanted to be governor-general; “according to close friends,” said the New York Times in April 1929, “General MacArthur has his eyes on the White House for eight or twelve years hence, via a successful administration as Governor General for four years, followed by a cabinet post, either as Secretary of  State or Secretary of  War.”32 MacArthur did not win the governor-generalship of  the Philippines but in August 1930 was recalled to Washington by President Herbert Hoover to be chief  of  staff  of  the U.S. Army. At the age of  50, Douglas MacArthur had reached the very top of  his profession. It was not to be an untroubled tour of  duty. In the dying days of  the Hoover administration, MacArthur was deeply involved with the eviction of  the Bonus Army from its camp on Anacostia Flats, an action that adversely affected his reputation for years. While MacArthur was to his surprise kept on as chief  of  staff  by Roosevelt, life in Washington under the New Deal was not a great pleasure for the general. Roosevelt and MacArthur had a stressful relationship, and the chief  of  staff  was unhappy with the way his army was being treated. There were other problems. Throughout his tour, MacArthur had friction with the Air Corps, whose independent-minded young flyers wanted to get out from under the wing of  the army. As his tenure as chief  of  staff  was ending, MacArthur arranged to be lent to the Philippine government, as field marshal of  t he Philippine army. Under legislation passed by Congress, the island nation was to receive its independence in 1946, but the United States still had an obligation to defend it as a commonwealth until then. MacArthur would be the man on the front line for this duty. On the voyage from San Francisco to Manila in late 1935, MacArthur met and fell in love with a 35-year-old Tennessean named Jean Faircloth, whom he married a year later. Of  Douglas MacArthur’s tenure in the Philippines, of  t he hardfought struggle against the Japanese invasion, and of  the narrow escape by PT boat to Australia, the American public was well aware. Bataan and

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Corregidor became names in America’s military legends, like Saratoga, Gettysburg, and Chateau-Thierry, and MacArthur’s dramatic vow upon leaving the Philippines—“I shall return”—struck a chord in America. MacArthur resented the fact that the war against Japan took a back seat to the struggle with Nazi Germany, with a resultant dispropor­ tionate allocation of  resources. This emphasis was the result of  a conscious decision made by Roosevelt and Churchill, for what they felt were good and proper reasons, but it was not popular with many, including portions of  t he Republican right wing. MacArthur did not hide his views; he told James Forrestal “that the history of  the world will be written in the Pacific for the next ten thousand years. . . . Europe is a dying sys­tem.”33 Douglas MacArthur had long felt a sense of  his own destiny, that he was one of  God’s chosen, for achievements over and above those of  other men. His military feats, he believed, certainly demonstrated this, but perhaps there was more in store for him. As a longtime Republican, and as one who detested Roosevelt, his commander in chief, he saw no reason why he should not consider, as reports had him doing for years past anyway, the presidency of  the United States. There were plenty of  people who were happy to encourage MacArthur. An old and wealthy friend, a former West Point classmate named Robert Wood, now president of  Sears, Roebuck, formerly active in the isolationist America First movement, offered whatever money might be needed. Herbert Hoover supported his old chief  of  staff. The Luces, publisher Harry and his wife, Congresswoman Clare Boothe, disappointed with Wendell Willkie, considered MacArthur as a very real possibility. Clare wrote to MacArthur on October 23, 1943, urging that while he should not do anything to encourage the movement for his nomination, he should not discourage it either. “I believe you should allow the Mac­ Arthur sentiment here to grow unchecked,” she wrote. 34 When Secretary of  War Stimson reminded reporters that army regulations forbade a career officer from seeking a political office he had not held before entering the service, his statement stirred up a considerable pro-MacArthur fuss, some of  it raised by Michigan Senator Arthur Vandenberg, who then received a fulsome letter of  t hanks from the general.

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Vandenberg regarded this as an indication of  MacArthur’s willingness to be considered a candidate, and he took it upon himself  to recruit some Republican heavyweights in the general’s cause. In addition to Wood, there were said to be John D. M. Hamilton, Kyle Palmer, Joseph N. Pew, Jr., Hamilton Fish, and several publishers, Roy Howard, Frank Gannett, William Randolph Hearst, Colonel Robert McCormick, and Cissy and Joseph M. Patterson. It was soon noted by one magazine writer that, looking at this roster, “it may not be his fault but it is surely his misfortune that the worst elements on the political Right, including its most blatant lunatic fringe, are whooping it up for Mac­A rthur.”35 MacArthur’s reaction to all this seemed to be a restrained interest. General Robert Eichelberger, serving under MacArthur, noted in his diary on June 13, 1943: “My Chief  talked of  the Republican nomination—I can see that he expects to get it and I sort of  think so too.” Some newsmen who encountered MacArthur, like Raymond Clapper and Turner Catledge, came away with the impression that he was certainly open to the idea. He corresponded with people back in the States who were pushing his prospects. But, on the surface, he kept up the pose of  a soldier simply interested in winning the war. Such a pose, obviously, was the best politics, as Clare Boothe Luce and Arthur Vandenberg had advised him. On January 18, 1944, formation of  the MacArthur National Association was announced in New York by Ormsby McHarg, an old-time Republican officeholder. McHarg said he felt a “moral certainty” that MacArthur would accept the nomination if  chosen, though he said he had no direct word from the general regarding this. MacArthur’s backers believed that Dewey and Willkie might deadlock, in which event Mac­ Arthur could well emerge as a compromise candidate, since he would probably have considerable second-choice strength among both Willkie and Dewey supporters. 36 Meanwhile, another candidate was also wearing a uniform in the South Pacific. Lieutenant Commander Harold Edward Stassen was flag secretary to Admiral William F. Halsey while his followers were promoting him for president of  the United States. Stassen was born in Dakota County, Minnesota, near St. Paul, on April 13, 1907, which meant he became 37 years old in 1944. His parents, William and Elsie, were truck farmers of  modest means, so their son

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knew what it meant to work to earn a living. Harold worked at various odd jobs to help finance his education, but he managed to graduate from high school at 15 and from the University of  M innesota at 19. Two years later he finished the University’s law school, went into partnership in South St. Paul with a friend, and married Esther Glewwe. Within a year, Harold was elected Dakota County attorney for the first of  t wo terms. He organized the Young Republican League and used it to support his 1938 campaign for the nomination as governor of  M innesota. Winning his party’s nod, Stassen went on to defeat Farmer-Labor incumbent Elmer A. Benson, winning election as governor at the remarkable age of  31. Stassen pulled in a Republican legislature with him, and the legislature reciprocated by enacting nearly all of  the reform measures that he proposed. A Gallup poll taken in Minnesota measured Stassen’s popularity at 81 percent, and the young man was easily re-elected in 1940 and 1942, though he told his electorate, several months prior to the latter balloting, that he would resign during that term to join the military. “The drive for victory against the totalitarian forces that threaten the future of  f ree men,” he said, “will be conducted in the main by the young men of  my generation. I want to be with them.”37 Harold Stassen gave the keynote address to the Republican convention in 1940 in Philadelphia, then became the floor manager for Willkie’s successful drive to the nomination. Since the keynoter was supposed to stay neutral, this break with precedent was frowned upon by members of  the Republican establishment. Still, Stassen’s close association with Willkie at the convention and afterward shaped and confirmed his commitment to internationalism. 38 Stassen resigned as governor on April 27, 1943, and received his naval commission. Some of  Stassen’s political friends, including Edward J. Thye, who succeeded him as governor, felt the decision to resign was poor political strategy. Thye “believed that had Stassen stayed, he could have wooed and won the delegates needed to secure for him” the nomination. Thye’s conjecture is interesting, in view of  the fact that Dewey’s strength was based primarily on his supposedly being able to carry the big eastern states; Stassen might well have cut into that strength. Others, of  course, believed that Stassen was really looking toward 1948, when a military record would be almost required. 39

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Stassen, tall and exuberant, six feet three, 200 pounds of  lean muscle, with a pleasant, open face, a beaming smile, and thinning red hair, was considered to be the first of  a type that would become popular politically in the 1950s: “the earnest young man with a sense of  mission.” He was, said one writer, “aloof  and majestic. He possessed an icy self-assurance and pursued an objective single-mindedly, once committed to it.” In 1944, Harold Stassen’s future seemed boundless and rosy with promise; no one could have guessed that he would in future years become a political joke with his never-ending quest for the presidency, or whatever other office might be available.40 W i llk i e The fifth candidate, of  course, was Wendell Lewis Willkie, the 1940 standard-bearer, about whom the Republican big shots knew all too much already. They knew about his boyhood in Elwood, Indiana, his education at Indiana University, his career as a young lawyer, his rise to the presidency of  the vast Commonwealth & Southern utility holding company, and the name he made for himself  in his jousts with the New Deal and the Tennessee Valley Authority (T VA). They remembered all too well how Willkie, not too long after leaving the Democratic Party, had somehow swept a Republican convention off  its feet and become, in 1940 at Philadelphia, the party’s nominee for president of  the United States. And they never forgot what one old Republican politician had told Willkie back in 1940: he said he would not mind if  the town prostitute joined his church but he didn’t think he wanted her leading the church choir on her first night of  attendance.41 Willkie had never been elected to a public office, and he kept that record intact when he lost to FDR’s third-term bid. His campaign had been unruly and disorganized, and Willkie had managed to alienate a good many party regulars, although his appealing personality had attracted millions of  voters. But, as the GOP leaders were also aware, the man had not had the good grace to disappear from view after that. Wendell Willkie had made motions toward seeking the Republican nomination for New York governor in 1942, even threatening to oppose Dewey, whom he cordially disliked (a feeling that Dewey re-

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ciprocated). He had made it rather clear that, even if  he did not run, he would prefer almost any other candidate to Dewey. After sounding the waters, Willkie had pulled back, recognizing that Dewey had substantial residual strength in the state after his 1938 run. Still, it was obvious that Willkie did not share the feeling that Dewey was “entitled” to any preferment. Willkie had made his famous trip around the world, as a personal emissary of  Franklin Roosevelt no less, with all the publicity that was involved with it. The Republican bosses ground their teeth in frustration. Then Willkie wrote a book about his trip, entitled One World, which became a huge best seller and pushed to the fore its author’s fervent belief  in international cooperation. Still, the party leaders had rather pointedly excluded Willkie from the 1943 Mackinac Conference, though he felt the party must adopt his foreign policy positions in order to win a national election. Willkie toured the country, his big shambling frame offset by his tousled appearance, speaking to groups of  a ll kinds, touting his ideas for the postwar world, and evidently working hard to get the Republican nomination again. So there they were, five Republicans, with their candidacies in various postures. Dewey by the end of  1943 was still denying his candidacy publicly, while his henchmen Brownell, Sprague, and Jaeckle were assuring possible delegates that he would certainly accept a draft. Bricker was an avowed candidate, with appeal to midwestern conservatives. Mac­ Arthur was unannounced but certainly available, boosted by the party’s far right, and Harold Stassen was available but not too much so, as he rode aboard Bull Halsey’s flagship. And Wendell Willkie, “the simple barefoot Wall Street lawyer,” as Harold Ickes had called him, was eager for another run. There were possible dark horses—Earl Warren of  California, Dwight Griswold of  Nebraska, Congressman Everett Dirksen of  I llinois, and one or two others—but they seemed to be darker in 1944 than in most other presidential years. One of  the five most prominent was fairly sure to be selected by the party at its convention in June.

4

The Democrats

For the Democrats, the problems for 1944 were of  a different magnitude than were those of  the Republicans. They knew who their presidential candidate would be—who it had to be—but he was taking his time agreeing to run. The Republicans gave next to no thought to a vice presidential candidate—the second spot on their ticket would most likely be filled, in a manner all too common, by a last-minute decision, as their convention was winding down and the delegates were preparing to go home. For the Democrats, on the other hand, the vice presidency was an all-consuming issue. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was serving his twelfth year as president of  the United States in 1944, longer than any man before him. The clamor, the noise, the arguments over the third-term precedent were far behind him by now. Vice President John Nance Garner, Postmaster General James Farley, and other good Democrats had opposed Roosevelt on the third-term question and lost. The Republicans had flooded the country with their pins and buttons—“No Third Term,” “No Man Is Good Three Times,” “Fight the Third Term-ites,” and so on—and they had lost, even with a candidate as appealing as Wendell Willkie. The international crisis had been added to normal Democratic strength and FDR’s great popularity, and he was elected handily to a third term. The fourth-term question promised to be an issue only among those who were inveterate Roosevelt-haters already. 42

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The war against the Axis had changed all the equations as well as the political and governmental responsibilities of  Franklin Roosevelt. Henry Stimson, the former Republican secretary of  state who sat in FDR’s cabinet as his secretary of  war, assessed Roosevelt’s performance, saying, “On the whole he has been a superb war President—far more so than any other President of  our history.” Other Republicans would dispute that judgment, but none of  them had the perspective that Stimson enjoyed.1 The big question was whether Roosevelt would run again. The leaders of  the Democratic Party knew that he would—or thought that he would—but they were frustrated that he would not give them a green light. To their knowledge that he was their strongest candidate was added the appalling thought of  trying to find a proper candidate if  Roosevelt didn’t run. The names that came into the party leaders’ minds at that point were not very comforting—names like Paul McNutt, Harry Hopkins, Walter George, Guy Gillette, Cordell Hull, Alben Barkley— names that made the Republican confidence look very well placed indeed. In November 1943, there was even talk of  drafting General George C. Marshall; Senator Edwin C. Johnson, an anti-Roosevelt Democrat from Colorado, proclaimed that “in this grave crisis the Democratic party owes it to the people to draft General Marshall for President.” But nothing much came of  the Marshall boom, sponsored as it was mainly by the administration’s foes, and with no indication from Marshall that he would even consider such a thing.2 Of  course Roosevelt would run, the Democrats felt. But in 1944, he seemed much more than twelve years older than the man who had taken the reins from Herbert Hoover in the dreadful conditions of  March 1933, he was not happy with the never-ending contumely directed at himself  and members of  his family, and he longed to retire to his beautiful estate on the Hudson River. Political maneuvering seemed much less interesting to Franklin Roosevelt by now than running the great war machine he had had so much to do with creating. His secretary Grace Tully said “he spoke many times to me of  his anticipation of  retiring to Hyde Park where he could live the life of  a country squire and an elder statesman, taking pleasure in his land, his family and his many hobbies.”3

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Drawing him back to Washington were the war—progressing well now but without an end yet in sight—and the problems and promise of  the postwar. The president of  the United States would have the opportunity to redress the mistakes of  Woodrow Wilson and his opponents after World War I, the opportunity to create an organization to keep the peace. How could he entrust such a task to a Republican successor? FDR was aware that Willkie shared many of  his ideas regarding a postwar international organization, but he knew that Willkie did not represent the majority view in his party and was very unlikely to be the Republican candidate. Dewey, Bricker, MacArthur—how could he leave the government to one of  them? The party leaders hoped that these thoughts coursed through Franklin Roosevelt’s brain as he lay down to sleep at night. They knew that they did not have a viable candidate to run in place of  Roosevelt. Just going through the list of  possibilities was discouraging. First, of  course, were the anti-Roosevelt Democrats. They were a small but noisy element in the party, led by men like Harry H. Woodring of  K ansas, once FDR’s secretary of  war, and they would be happy to run someone like Jim Farley or Senator Harry Flood Byrd of  Virginia, or even former Massachusetts governor Joseph B. Ely, who announced his availability on February 20, “in an acknowledged attempt to block a fourth term for President Roosevelt.” 4 But the Democratic convention in 1944 was not going to nominate an anti-Roosevelt candidate; that would be tantamount to handing the White House to the Republicans. The pickings were lean, though, in the Roosevelt wing of  the party. Vice President Henry A. Wallace was no favorite; he had generated major opposition to his continuance in the office that he already held, as we shall see. Harry Hopkins, whom Roosevelt may have favored in 1940 before he decided to run again himself, was almost the personification of  the New Deal at a time when the New Deal seemed to be fading perceptibly from public favor. He had been FDR’s lightning rod in his various New Deal positions, and few Republican politicians ever neglected to bring up Hopkins’s alleged statement that “We shall tax and tax, and spend and spend, and elect and elect.” No, Harry Hopkins was far too controversial for a 1944 nomination—on

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top of  everything else, he had been divorced—and his health was not good in any event. 5 Paul V. McNutt, a handsome, personable Indiana politician, a man who had served in several administrative positions under Roosevelt, was regarded, perhaps unfairly, as a lightweight. Fifty-two years old, McNutt had had brilliant careers at Indiana University (a classmate of  Willkie) and Harvard Law School, served as an army major in World War I, had been dean of  Indiana’s law school at 34, the youngest law school dean in the country, and had even been national commander of  the American Legion. He did a creditable job as governor of  Indiana from 1933 to 1937 and then put in two years as high commissioner in the Philippines. From 1939 on, McNutt had been administrator of  the Federal Security Agency and then the War Manpower Commission. Somehow, though, party leaders did not envision Paul McNutt as president. Secretary of  State Cordell Hull was sometimes mentioned; he had been a successful politico in Tennessee, serving long years in Congress, a personage in the Democratic Party even before Franklin Roosevelt came along. Hull’s tenure in the State Department had been relatively popular. But Hull was elderly, 72 at the start of  the year, and none too healthy, and his years as an active politician were long in the past. He had been in the State Department since 1933 and had eschewed partisanship to gain support for his foreign policy initiatives.6 After that the line of  possible presidential nominees got very thin. Roosevelt had groomed no successor, and none had developed independently. Barkley of  Kentucky, Byrnes of  South Carolina, Speaker Sam Rayburn of  Texas—these were men considered regional favorites at best. The leaders of  the Democratic Party knew they needed Roosevelt, desperately. The vice presidential question was a totally different one. For this to be an issue, the given was that FDR would be the presidential candidate. If  the presidential nominee were McNutt or Hull or someone like that, the vice presidency would be almost a throwaway nomination, a way to build up someone for the future. But the question of  who was to share the ticket with Roosevelt was a substantial one. It was universally assumed that the President would choose his running mate. Almost all presidential candidates did so, and in 1940 Roo-

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sevelt had forced Henry Wallace upon a reluctant convention, going to the point of  threatening to refuse his own nomination if  the convention denied him his choice. All the pressures, then, in 1944 were upon FDR, to help him make up his mind about the vice presidency. Many party leaders had ideas of  their own, ideas that they were eager to share with the President. There was another factor that weighed upon the Democratic leaders as they thought about a running mate for Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944. That factor was Roosevelt’s health and the possibility that the convention might actually be choosing the next president when it named someone to the second spot on the ticket. Obviously, given man’s mortality, that is—or should be—a consideration in every vice presidential nomination, although clearly it is often ignored. (See Dan Quayle, Joe Lieberman, or William Miller for recent examples.) But in 1944 there were a great many whispers about this influence in the year’s politics, even though historical hindsight has given more importance to this element than perhaps should be given. Franklin Roosevelt’s health had long been a matter of  public knowledge and speculation. His background was well known: born in 1882, a childhood of  privilege in Hyde Park, on the east bank of  the Hudson, Groton, Harvard, Columbia Law School, the New York State Senate as an anti-Tammany Democrat, then the same post in the Navy Department that his well-known cousin Theodore had held. In 1920, as assistant secretary of  the navy, Roosevelt had been a strapping, vigorous young man when he was selected as the candidate for vice president on the Democratic ticket with James M. Cox of  Ohio, who lost to Warren G. Harding. In August 1921, Roosevelt first suffered the symptoms of  what was soon diagnosed as poliomyelitis, or infantile paralysis. He was reduced to the status of  a cripple, with useless legs. His mother, Sara, urged young Franklin to retire to Hyde Park, where he could lead a life of  luxury in a wheelchair, with his every need attended to. But Franklin Roosevelt was no quitter: he did everything in his power, tried every suggested remedy, went to every promising healing spa, to restore life and vigor to his legs. The 1924 Democratic convention marked his first public appearance since the onset of  polio, as he made a dramatic entrance on crutches to

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the podium at Madison Square Garden in New York to deliver his stirring “Happy Warrior” speech nominating New York’s governor Al Smith for presidential consideration. Shortly after, FDR found a run-down old resort at Warm Springs, Georgia, where he felt that swimming in its therapeutic waters, 89 degrees with a high specific gravity due to double molecules of  magnesium and calcium, was the answer to his needs. Roosevelt devoted most of  his non-political energies thereafter to the development of  Warm Springs as a therapeutic spa and resort. He refused to concede that he would never again walk unaided, although what recovery he made was stymied after his 1928 election as governor of  New York and 1932 election as president. He simply no longer had the time or the strength to pursue various leads to possible cures or improvements.7 All of  t his was well known to the American public. Some people may have recalled that, well before the election back in 1932, the Democrats had released to the public considerable information about Roo­ sevelt’s health, including details little noted at the time of  a slightly elevated blood pressure and a possible enlargement of  t he left side of  h is heart. Although Roosevelt was careful never to be photographed in his wheelchair, people knew that he had survived polio and that he was not as mobile as other men. Yet they frequently saw him, either in person, in photographs, or more often in the newsreels, standing at a lectern or podium to deliver a speech. They did not see the effort, on Roosevelt’s part as well as on the part of  h is helpers, that got him there. So far as most of  t he public was concerned, Franklin Roosevelt was the gregarious and smiling man whom they remembered from so many pictures, often photographed sitting at his desk in the Oval Office or working on his stamp collection, usually with a cigarette holder held insouciantly in his hand.8 By 1944, Roosevelt was not the same. His face looked drawn and weathered, his complexion had turned grayish, and there were deep circles under his eyes. He coughed much of  the time, his hands trembled, and he had lost a noticeable amount of  weight. The immense pressure of  r unning a worldwide war effort was clearly taking its toll. On occasion his mind seemed a bit fuzzy. Grace Tully wrote of  “the signs of  cumulative weariness” she observed, the dark circles under his eyes, the tremor

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of  his hands, the “easy slump . . . in his shoulders” as he worked. Roose­ velt suffered with colds that lingered on and on, and all sorts of  r umors about his failing health swirled about, many of  them generated by his Republican opponents.9 While the leaders of  the Democratic Party actually knew little more about FDR’s health than did the general public—they were fed the same “all is well” reports by Roosevelt’s personal physician, Vice Admiral Ross T. McIntire, that the public at large got—they shared in the overall suspicion and felt themselves to be in position to do something about it. They could try to influence the President to select a running mate who would not hurt the ticket and who could, if  worse came to worst, succeed Roosevelt as chief  executive. Who that could be was a matter of  t he highest conjecture; for many of  t hem, though, they just knew it should not be Henry Agar Wallace. A coterie of  Democratic leaders—“party bosses,” by anyone’s standards—set out at the start of  t he year—indeed, back in 1943—to derail any chance for renomination that Wallace might think he had. Party treasurer Edwin Pauley later claimed to have been first to come to this line of  t hinking, and he was joined by Chairman Robert E. Hannegan of  t he Democratic National Committee (DNC), Edward F. Flynn, Democratic boss of  t he Bronx, Mayor Frank Hague of  Jersey City, Postmaster General Frank C. Walker, and Mayor Ed Kelly of  Chicago, who agreed that they would do whatever might be necessary to keep Wallace off  t he 1944 ticket. They recruited General Edwin “Pa” Watson, Roo­ sevelt’s appointments secretary, who agreed to try to steer in to see the President those Democratic politicians who would tell him how much damage Wallace would do to the party in their particular areas. If  not Henry Wallace, though, who? This was one of  the great questions facing the Democratic Party early in the crucial year 1944. Wallace was not popular. He had a peculiar personality—not one that appealed to politicians, certainly—and his political views were an­ athema to large parts of  the Democratic Party. Wallace was something of  a mystic, and his “guru” letters to the mysterious Nicholas Roerich certainly set him apart from the ordinary run of  Democratic hopefuls. Wallace had become involved with Roerich, an expatriate Russian painter, in the early 1930s. By that time Roerich had transformed himself  into

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a dealer in spiritual wisdom, a man who wore Tibetan robes that went well with his piercing dark eyes, forked beard, and overbearing manner. He was also quite good at charming money out of  wealthy Americans, and he became a phenomenon of  sorts in New York in 1929. Wallace, to his later chagrin, exchanged numerous mysterious and cabalistic letters with Roerich, in some of  t hem addressing him as “Dear Guru.” The Republicans got hold of  t hese letters during the 1940 campaign, but they were prevented from using them because of  the Democrats’ threat to reveal to the public the fact that Willkie had a mistress, Irita Van Doren, the glamorous literary editor of  t he New York Herald Tribune, a relationship that Willkie hardly bothered to hide. The “guru letters” did not become public in 1940, but political insiders were well aware of  their existence.10 Henry Wallace was an accomplished agricultural scientist, but in politics he was regarded as an extreme and somewhat naïve liberal. Some of  his policies from his eight years as secretary of  agriculture were still widely ridiculed by Republican orators and commentators, even though those policies had helped to restore the suffering agricultural economy. Wallace was deeply unpopular among Southern politicians, and the bosses of  the big-city Democratic machines in the North were very concerned about his possible effect on the ticket in 1944. Wallace was, however, a favorite of  t he labor unions, particularly the CIO, and of  t he more advanced New Dealers, so he could not be unceremoniously dumped. Besides, Franklin Roosevelt liked Wallace personally. Up against the fact of  Roosevelt’s friendship with Wallace, though, was the fact that he had publicly intervened against Wallace in the latter’s squabble with Jesse Jones in July 1943 over wartime economic policy. As the election year began, other names were floated, in Washington and around the country, to see what kind of  reactions they might generate. One of  the names heard most often was that of  James F. Byrnes of  South Carolina, a man whom Turner Catledge, longtime Washington reporter for the New York Times, called “the smartest politician I knew in Washington.” Byrnes was a most consequential man indeed in wartime Washington and a man close to Roosevelt. Trained initially as a court reporter (and still having a handy shorthand at times), Byrnes had won

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success in Democratic politics in South Carolina, served in the House of  Representatives for seven terms, and held a seat in the United States Senate from 1931 until Roosevelt appointed him to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1941. Byrnes had steered through or supported in the Senate most of  the early measures of  the New Deal and had won Roosevelt’s gratitude.11 Byrnes had been considered briefly for the vice presidency in 1940; Roosevelt said later that he had been discouraged by Archbishop Francis Spellman of  New York, who told him that Roman Catholic voters would not support a man who, like Byrnes, had been raised a Catholic but later converted to a Protestant faith. This question would hover in the background of  Byrnes’s 1944 candidacy but would not be cited as a major reason for opposition to the South Carolinian.12 Early in the war, in 1942, Roosevelt summoned Byrnes to take over the demanding but crucial administrative post of  director of  the Office of  Economic Stabilization. Byrnes obligingly resigned his lifetime seat on the Supreme Court and accepted the job. Once he took it in hand, he was soon being called “the Assistant President.” Later, FDR named Byrnes director of  the Office of  War Mobilization. Jimmy Byrnes became the man to see in wartime Washington and would figure most prominently in 1944’s doings. Other names that were heard included those of  Speaker Rayburn, Senator Barkley of  Kentucky, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, and, occasionally, Senator Harry S. Truman of  M issouri. Rayburn, a native of  Tennessee who lived most of  h is life in Bonham, Texas, was a favorite of  Texas and the South as well as of  h is many congressional colleagues from all over. Democratic congressmen appreciated the soft touch that Rayburn used with them and his concern for their interests, whenever they could be accommodated within the big picture. Rayburn had served in the Texas legislature from 1906 until his election to Congress in 1912. After many years in the House, where he was a close ally of  Texas congressman and later vice president John Nance Garner, Rayburn became majority leader in 1937, serving until his election as speaker after the death of  W illiam B. Bankhead. At the age of  45, Rayburn was married in 1927, but the union lasted only three months before his wife filed for divorce; perhaps the eighteen-year age

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difference with his bride was too much. Rayburn apparently never gave thought to marriage again, and few people in Washington knew that he had ever been married. When there was talk of  R ayburn as a possible candidate, his divorce never seemed to be considered a factor.13 Alben Barkley, a native of  Kentucky born in 1877, had the advantage of  coming from a border state, acceptable in most cases to both North and South. He had a warm personality and had been in Washington since 1913—in the House from 1913 to 1927 and in the Senate thereafter—so he was well known to most Democratic leaders. He was often regarded, however, as a Roosevelt puppet, because, when Senate Majority Leader Joe Robinson of  A rkansas died in 1937, heavy pressure from the White House procured the succession for Barkley over Pat Harrison of  M ississippi, by a slender one-vote margin. There was still lingering resentment over this business, resentment that would soon be dispelled in a dramatic fashion. Douglas was a most intriguing possibility. A poor boy from Yakima, Washington, William Orville Douglas had come east on a shoestring to attend Columbia Law School, where he was a classmate and acquaintance of  Tom Dewey. A brilliant law school showing was followed by eye-opening stints on the faculty of  Yale Law School and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Douglas was hailed as one of  the brightest of  the bright young New Dealers when FDR named him, at 41, to the United States Supreme Court, succeeding Louis Brandeis. He continued to make news while on the Court with original and iconoclastic opinions, while being viewed sourly and with jealous suspicion by brethren like Felix Frankfurter and by others who knew him as an inveterate womanizer. Douglas carefully cultivated his image as a rugged westerner with treks through the mountains of  his native state of  Washington. He was seen as a long shot but not an impossibility for national preferment; Harold Ickes pushed for Douglas and talked him up to many influential Washington insiders. Thomas Corcoran—“Tommy the Cork” of  t he early New Deal days—supported Douglas and looked for ways to promote him. Roosevelt liked Bill Douglas and he liked the way the young justice played poker. As 1944 opened, the junior senator from Missouri, Truman, was probably not thought of  by anyone in the country as a possible candi-

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date for vice president. Or perhaps he was thought of  by only one man, Robert E. Hannegan, who happened to be the newly chosen chairman of  the DNC. By virtue of  his position, Hannegan was one of  the leaders who met with Roosevelt from time to time to discuss Democratic issues. Hannegan was also one of  those leaders who hoped to dissuade FDR from choosing Henry Wallace again. Bob Hannegan had been the political boss of  St. Louis in 1940, when his late switch to Truman had helped the latter win a hard-fought Democratic primary for re-election. Truman’s gratitude had been among the elements that made Hannegan commissioner of  Internal Revenue and, eventually, Democratic national chairman.14 When Hannegan started pushing the name of  Harry Truman to his fellow party bosses, they did not really know that much about the man. He had come to Washington in 1935 as a new senator, tagged as “the senator from Pendergast” because of  his early support and sponsorship by Tom Pendergast’s notorious Kansas City political machine. Truman had indeed been a part of  the Pendergast organization, which had elected him to three terms as Jackson County judge, an administrative, not a judicial, position. While running Jackson County, Truman was in charge of  building a new courthouse and many miles of  roads and highways, and not a trace of  t he Pendergast mud rubbed off  on him. After a major bond issue was passed in Jackson County in 1927, Truman said he had “a heart-to-heart talk with Pendergast.” He told the boss he would not play favorites, that contracts would go to the low bidders, and he intended “to appoint nonpartisan boards of  a rchitects and engineers to pass on plans and progress.” Pendergast gave his word that Truman would have a free hand, “and he kept it,” Truman said. Truman was so straight, indeed, that there is some suspicion that Tom Pendergast sent him to the Senate in the 1934 election to get him out of  t he local picture in and around Kansas City.15 Pendergast picked Truman, from Independence, for that Senate seat in 1934, and he defeated a Republican incumbent. When Truman ran for re-election in 1940, however, after an undistinguished first term, he had to do so with no help from the Pendergast machine, whose boss was then in jail. Truman came to the Senate in 1935, kept quiet, kept his

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nose clean, and voted faithfully to support the various New Deal measures which came before the Senate, although he complained that he received little respect from the White House. Roosevelt was dismayed at the revelations of  the Pendergast machine’s large-scale vote frauds in 1936; thus, when Governor Lloyd Stark, who had been elected with the backing of  the machine, turned on Pendergast and beat his candidates in the 1938 primary election, FDR withdrew his support of  the Kansas City organization. Henceforth federal appointments in Missouri were cleared through Stark, not through Senator Truman. When the Pendergast machine came apart and its leader went to jail under the relentless attacks of  U.S. Attorney Maurice Milligan, Truman was the only senator to speak and vote against Milligan’s reappointment. In 1940, with very little organization muscle behind him, Truman faced both Milligan and Stark in the fight of  h is political life for reelection to the Senate. In January, FDR’s press secretary Steve Early called Truman and offered an appointment to the Interstate Commerce Commission if  he would withdraw in favor of  Stark. Truman turned him down. With the last-minute help of  Hannegan in St. Louis, his own residual strength in the western part of  t he state around Kansas City, and with the friends he had made around Missouri as senator, Truman squeaked by in the Democratic primary and then eased through the general election, to resume his seat as a Senate backbencher.16 Early in his Senate career, Harry Truman had been schooled in the proper way to run a congressional investigation by Burton K. Wheeler, the veteran senator from Montana, who placed Truman on his committee to look into railroad holding companies. While the committee’s work was largely ignored, Truman learned the ropes. A few business men and financiers “began to speak of  Truman as a strange sort of  politician—a New Dealer who showed no desire to persecute business, a man who dug for his facts, used them surely, and tolerated no wool over his eyes.” These qualities would soon become valuable for the nation.17 When preparation for the war began, Truman saw quickly the danger of  huge, ill-considered war contracts, with vast sums of  poorly supervised federal dollars floating about, and he resolved to try to bring the system under rational control. He stood up one day in the Senate, February 10, 1941, noted that he had (at his own expense) driven to many

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parts of  the country looking at newly built army camps and hastily converted munitions factories, and asked the Senate to create a committee to keep watch on the burgeoning war contracts, to make sure the taxpayer’s dollar was spent the way it was intended, and to see that the items that the American fighting men needed were in fact produced for them. A self-taught student of  history, Truman said he wanted to make sure such a committee avoided the ill-advised encroachments on executive authority of  the Civil War’s Joint Committee on the Conduct of  the War; the Senate made him chairman of  the committee.18 Truman and his colleagues went to work; the “Truman Committee,” as it was universally called (its formal name was the Senate Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program), was careful, diligent, constructive, and by the end of  the war it had saved the nation billions of  dollars, exposed and discouraged graft and corruption, and considerably improved the efficiency of  the war effort. Its basic method was to undertake a checkup on each major program as it developed, to try to prevent scandals and boondoggles, rather than simply revealing them after they had taken place. The committee was well run, with Hugh Fulton as its chief  counsel, and it inspired confidence in both industry and the public at large because of  its clear sense of  fairness and responsibility. Most of  its work was approved unanimously by both its Democratic and Republican members. Truman and his fellow senators showed considerable courage as well, not hesitating to criticize both labor unions and industrial corporations when they were at fault.19 It did all this without generating reams of  publicity for its chairman, and when Hannegan mentioned Harry Truman early in 1944, everyone he talked with knew about the Truman Committee but very few still knew much about its chairman. So Harry Truman was another long shot for the second spot on the ticket. There was one other major question that the Democrats had to face up to, albeit reluctantly. Since 1880, when Winfield Scott Hancock (ironically one of  the great heroes of  the Union Army in the Civil War) had carried every state in the South as the Democratic candidate for president, the party had counted upon the South as the bedrock of  its electoral efforts. It was a great advantage to start a campaign with the electoral votes of  the eleven states of  the old Confederacy already sewn up. Only

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in 1928, when the Roman Catholic and aggressively anti-Prohibitionist Al Smith led the ticket, did the South defect in any significant manner from the Democratic Party. There was still, in the South, only a very rudimentary Republican organization, consisting mainly of  marginal politicians hoping for patronage jobs when the Republicans controlled the White House. For years after the Civil War any blacks who became involved in politics joined the Republicans, out of  loyalty to Lincoln, but in 1928, the national Republicans, seeing an opportunity to win in the South, had sanctioned a move toward a “lily white” party. Since then most Southern blacks had supported the Democratic Party of  Franklin Roosevelt, although few of  them could actually vote for him. The great obstacles to black participation in Southern politics were literacy tests, the poll tax, which made voting too expensive for most impoverished black sharecroppers, and the “white primary,” functioning under party rules that permitted none but whites to vote in party nominating elections. The courts had upheld such rules as permissible in “private” organizations such as the Democratic Party. As Ralph Bunche wrote, “the white primary has now become . . . the most effective device for the exclusion of  Negroes from the polls in the South.” White southerners fought their political battles in the Democratic primary and fell into line behind the party’s nominees in the fall. But, as 1944 opened, there was serious talk in Southern Democratic circles of  a defection from the Democratic national ticket.20 An additional white Southern grievance developed when the Supreme Court on April 3, 1944, issued a ruling in the case of  Smith v. Allwright, by a vote of  8–1, that the Texas Democratic Party’s “white primary” was unconstitutional. Seven of  the eight justices in the majority had been appointed to the Court by Franklin Roosevelt. This case, although it applied specifically to Texas, placed in jeopardy one of  the most useful tools Southern whites had to keep blacks from participating in the electoral process.21 Roosevelt felt that he understood the South. Certainly he had spent much time there, in his lengthy stays at Warm Springs particularly, and many Southern politicians had become his friends. In addition, he had gotten to know and like many ordinary southerners, and he empathized with their problems. Roosevelt believed strongly that the Democratic

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Party had to get beyond an urban-rural schism and “everlastingly worked to explain each side to the other,” as one biographer put it, “and to reunite them on a progressive program not unlike President Wilson’s New Freedom.” Of  course, the urban-rural schism was easier to bridge when the question of  race was not a part of  it.22 FDR was committed to the alleviation of  poverty, and his many programs along this line brought him considerable popularity in the South, which suffered from poverty more than any other section of  the country. In addition, southerners reacted favorably to Roosevelt’s charm and intellect, and his honeymoon with them lasted far beyond the early days of  the New Deal. Southern politicians, too, had reacted favorably to the New Deal, as its programs poured federal dollars into their Depressionridden states. They had overwhelmingly supported the President and his proposals in Congress into his second term, when a steady drift began of  Southern Democratic politicians away from the administration. As the fourth-term election approached, Franklin Roosevelt was still personally popular with voters in the South, many of  whom had his picture hanging on their walls. In the summer of  1943, a Gallup poll indicated that 80 percent of  southerners favored his renomination, and in early  ’44 he was still clearly the favorite below the Mason-Dixon Line— but he was no longer so well regarded by many of  the political leaders of  the party there.23 Those political leaders were, on the whole, conservative and racist. With the booming wartime economy, they no longer needed New Deal programs to bring money into the South. They now looked with dismay at the national administration and what they considered its liberal leanings. Even though FDR had soft-pedaled his domestic program during the war, Southern politicos had not been happy with such measures as the Wagner Act and the Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC). They looked with suspicion at New Dealers like Wallace, Harold Ickes, David Niles, and T VA’s David Lilienthal, and viewed with distaste the increasing assertiveness of  black leaders whose people had gained economically from New Deal programs. While FDR himself  had been relatively reserved in pushing specific black-oriented proposals—his FEPC was created to head off  a threatened mass march on Washington, organized by A. Philip Randolph

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of  the Railway Porters Union—his wife, Eleanor, had been fearless in helping black Americans. Southerners whispered about “Eleanor Clubs,” to which they believed their black servants belonged and which they knew were dedicated to pushing black interests at the expense of  whites. Although there was no documented evidence of  the existence of  such organizations, worried white folks in Virginia and Alabama did not need to have it spelled out. Southern politicians talked of  t he possibility of  w ithholding electoral votes from the Democratic ticket in 1944 if  certain things were not done as they wished by the party—dumping Wallace was one demand, reinstating the two-thirds rule in Democratic conventions, which had always given the South an effective veto power before its abrogation in 1936, was another. Few would go so far as to consider throwing their votes to a Republican candidate, but there was much chatter about Southern electors casting their votes for an anti–New Deal Democrat like Byrd of  Virginia. The ideal result would be to force the presidential election into the House of  Representatives, if  no candidate could cobble together a majority of  t he electoral votes, as provided in the Constitution. In this case, the top three candidates, presumably including Byrd with the major party nominees, would contend for the presidency in an arena in which each state delegation was entitled to one vote and a majority of  states was needed for election. The possibilities in such a situation for concessions and compromises seemed delicious to disgruntled Southern politicians; developments in 1944 would tell them how real they were.24 So the Democratic ship of  state sailed into election year 1944 in a distinctly tattered condition. The big-city bosses were at odds with the labor leaders, the Southern grandees were unhappy with the Northern and Western wings of  the party, the commander in chief  was displaying shockingly little interest in the ship’s course, and no one could tell who was to be second in command. George Allen, secretary of  the DNC, later wrote: “Many accounts have been written of  events leading up to the decision . . . to shelve VicePresident Wallace and nominate Senator Harry Truman in his place. Some of  them were written at the time by Washington correspondents who are normally careful, accurate, and understanding. Some have ap-

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peared since in the memoirs of  men who were intimately acquainted with a part of  the maneuvers—but not with all of  them. . . . It is one of  the episodes in American history that will baffle scholars of  the future because no two accounts of  it agree completely and some vary widely.” The Wallace/Truman switch, however told, was to be one of  the bigger stories of  1944. It promised to be an interesting year.25

5

Willkie Pushes Hard

While the polls and their own investigations told the leaders of  t he GOP that Governor Dewey was safely ahead in the race for the presi­ dential nomination, their fears in the night still spelled out the name W-I-L-L-K-I-E. They had been burned badly in 1940, when the Hoo­ sier utility magnate came seemingly out of  nowhere to sweep away the party’s nomination, and they worried that something like that might happen again. They all read Life’s editorials, proclaiming that Willkie was out in front; they didn’t really believe that, but what if  Harry Luce was on to something? What, for example, would happen if  Dewey hon­ ored his pledge to stay in Albany for four years? Weymouth Kirkland, counsel for the Chicago Tribune, told a lun­ cheon audience in December that if  Willkie ran against Roosevelt, the Tribune would support Norman Thomas, the Socialist. No one could predict what Bertie McCormick really might do, but it was clear the loathing of  Willkie by the party’s right wing went deep.1 On January 8, 1944, Governor William H. Wills of  Vermont deliv­ ered a nationwide radio speech supporting Willkie’s candidacy, stat­ ing that Willkie was the only Republican “certain to beat the strongest Democratic candidate,” and that it would be suicidal for the party bosses, whom he called “the four-year locusts of  Republican politics,” to stop Willkie’s nomination.2 A week later, John D. M. Hamilton, Philadelphia lawyer, former Re­ publican national chairman, a power on the GOP right, and one of  Wills’s 59

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“locusts,” responded, charging that Willkie’s people had brought “undue pressure upon party leaders in every section of  the country to pledge themselves to his cause before anyone else had a chance to be heard.” Decrying the Willkie backers’ claim to have more than 300 delegates “in the bag,” Hamilton called it “a deliberate attempt to foreclose the Republican presidential nomination many months before the national convention even assembles.” He said his recent twenty-state tour had disclosed no such “overwhelming demand for Mr. Willkie claimed by Governor Wills.”3 Hamilton, interestingly, had been prepared early in 1943 to support Willkie for the 1944 nomination, and Willkie even asked the Philadel­ phian to be his campaign manager. But a series of  political missteps by Willkie that convinced Hamilton that he was still the same uncontrol­ lable candidate he had been in 1940 put an end to that possible recon­ ciliation. For John D. M. Hamilton, stopping Wendell Willkie became a party necessity.4 The Republican establishment had reason to be concerned about Wendell Willkie. He had been campaigning for the 1944 nomination since early in 1943. While his message was often one that regular Re­ publicans preferred not to hear—he “was a lonely soul in the Repub­ lican party,” one observer wrote—he could still stir up a crowd with his oratory and personality. His kickoff  was at a Lincoln’s Day address in February 1943 to Republican women back in Indiana, at which he threw down the gauntlet to his intra-party foes. “There must never again be any question of  the right of  workers to bargain collectively through representatives of  their own choosing, or of  the fundamental right of  a ll our citizens to be free of  racial discriminations,” Willkie said, and he went on to describe the nation’s duty to protect its citizens “against the hazards of  unemployment, old age, accident and ill health.” For many of  his listeners, of  course, there were still plenty of  questions about such rights or duties. 5 But Willkie moved on, bringing his audience to its feet with an exhortation “to save America. We are the vital, thinking party of  this country,” he shouted. “Let’s go on the affirmative. Let’s do something besides criticize. Let’s throw off  the lethargy and take the leadership. . . . Why should we be on the defensive always against a party that is a com­

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bination of  Northern political machines of  the worst type and southern oligarchies that don’t even allow Negroes to vote?”6 Wendell Willkie spent the rest of  1943 making speeches to groups, mostly Republican but sometimes non-political, as when he spoke to the General Assembly of  t he Presbyterian Church on May 30 in Detroit, de­ tailing his foreign policy views and attempting to push his party toward more liberal domestic policies. When his talks were picketed in Detroit by America First followers of  R everend Gerald L. K. Smith, and he was later denounced by isolationist Congressman Hamilton Fish, Sena­ tor Gerald Nye, Alf  Landon, and Colonel McCormick, Willkie said, “I doubt if  a nyone ever was so fortunate in the nature of  h is opposition.” 7 Everyone in politics, of  course, knew that Willkie was running hard for 1944. When the editors of  Look magazine, for their October 5, 1943, issue, asked him, as the first of  four questions, “Will you be available for the Republican nomination for President in 1944?’ Willkie answered, coyly, “If  the Republican party intends to drive heart and soul for liberal objectives, such as I seek to outline below [in his responses to the other three questions], I shall give it my complete and undeviating service, whether as the convention’s nominee or as a worker in the ranks.” Later, in his answer to the last question posed to him, Willkie said, “the first step toward victory in 1944 must be a victory of  the liberal forces within the Republican party.” Without such an internal victory, he was saying, the nomination itself  would be worthless.8 Willkie made a highly publicized visit to St. Louis in mid-October ’43. It was instigated by a Republican multimillionaire named Edgar Mon­ santo Queeny, of  Monsanto Chemical fame, a 1940 supporter who had switched to adamant opposition because of  Willkie’s views on world af­ fairs. Queeny had the party leaders in Missouri send Willkie a set of  nine questions on postwar policy, all of  the “Have you stopped beating your wife?” variety, and Willkie agreed to meet with the group, even though he told the press, “Most of  the questions bear no relationship to reality.”9 Accordingly, on October 14, Willkie arrived in St. Louis for a twoday visit, topped off  w ith a speech before 3,500 listeners at Kiel Audito­ rium. The speech was assessed as a success; Turner Catledge of  the New York Times wrote that most observers felt that “Mr. Willkie had added to his stature while here.” What was even more delicious for political

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aficionados, though, was the private luncheon that Queeny hosted for Willkie and conservative business leaders. After Queeny introduced him as “America’s leading ingrate,” Willkie tore into the group, as one listener put it, “like a biting sow.” He told them, “I don’t know whether you’re going to support me or not, and I don’t give a damn; you’re a bunch of  po­ litical liabilities anyway.” For many rank-and-file Republicans, Willkie’s bravado in directly confronting his foes was most appealing. It was writ­ ten that he left “Missouri politics in a stew and ferment.”10 Even outside Missouri, the Willkie visit had its effect. Arthur Krock wrote that Willkie had “demonstrated anew that he must be reckoned with to the extent that he will be the leading figure in the Republican national convention.”11 Several days later, Willkie met in Washington with the “78 Club,” made up of  f reshmen Republican congressmen and their guests. It was a lively session, as Willkie had few allies among the Republican mem­ bers of  Congress, but he held his own, emerging from the get-together, looking somewhat more rumpled and tousled than usual, to proclaim it “a wonderful, enjoyable evening.” Still, he made few friends that night.12 On October 21, 1943, Willkie appeared before a crowd of  t hree thousand in Syracuse to urge the election of  State Senator Joe R. Han­ ley in New York’s special election for lieutenant governor. Onondaga County party chairman Rolland B. Marvin was Willkie’s strong and consistent supporter, unlike most of  the rest of  the party in the state; he had invited Willkie into his bailiwick. In the course of  his address supporting Hanley, Willkie alluded to the “young and aggressive” Re­ publican governor in the state, saying “Governor Dewey has given ample proof  of  the sound, clean and able administration of  New York’s affairs that the people of  this state may expect from him during the coming years.” The last words, of  course, a reminder of  Dewey’s pledge to spend four years in Albany.13 Willkie was an indefatigable traveler who had been all over the Mid­ west, the West, and the South. He was well received in the South, where he attracted large and enthusiastic crowds. His problem there was that party leaders, even those who favored him, wanted to be sure they were in the end with “the winning faction” of  their party, “and they are not yet sure that this will be the Willkie faction.”14

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In Milwaukee Willkie said, “The Republican party must take stock and make itself  worthy of  w inning in 1944.” In his travels, the rumpled candidate made sure to devote time and energy to meeting with local leaders and workers as well as the statewide big shots. He told Catledge of  the New York Times that “he knows more of  the down-to-the-precinct Republican leaders than any other man in the party, and that when con­ vention time rolls around he will know twice as many as anybody else.” This was just what the party leaders feared.15 They had kept Willkie away from the Mackinac Conference, they had anti-Willkie literature spread about, they spread tales (not always untrue) about his drinking, and they set out to keep him out of  the pop­ ulous vote centers where his liberal politics would likely reach fertile ground. The Times reported on November 5 that Hamilton was tour­ ing the country trying to build up “favorite son” candidacies to prevent Willkie from gaining delegate strength in the big states. Hamilton, a member of  a Philadelphia law firm that represented Joseph N. Pew’s Sun Oil Company, told the leaders he met that since Dewey was suppos­ edly not a candidate the anti-Willkie forces needed to promote “as many candidacies as possible.” Clearly the New York, Minnesota, and Ohio delegations would not produce Willkie votes because of  Dewey, Stas­ sen, and Bricker. Hamilton hoped to promote favorite son candidates like governors Warren of  California, Green of  I llinois, and Saltonstall of  Massachusetts and, of  course, Douglas MacArthur.16 Willkie took note of  Hamilton’s activities on November 11, in Por­ tage, Wisconsin, when he said, “I have been told that Hamilton and Pew are seeking to create enough regional and favorite son candidates to prevent anyone else from securing a majority of  delegates before the convention,” and he recalled the “disastrous results” of  the similar tactics in 1920 that produced the nomination of  Warren G. Harding. The next day, in Tulsa, Alf  Landon, a part of  the anti-Willkie cohort, demanded, “Who is Wendell Willkie to tell the Republican party where to head in?” Then, in a word to the candidate he favored, Landon added, “Who is Tom Dewey to tell the Republican party whom it cannot consider?”17 Republican leaders were not the only ones who worried about Wen­ dell Willkie. Dan Tobin, the Teamsters’ president, predicted that the Hoosier would be the nominee and would be hard to beat. “Dewey,”

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he said, “would be a tougher man for the Democrats to beat in the state of  New York. . . . Throughout the rest of  the country Willkie is the bet­ ter of  the two campaigners.” Tobin’s unsolicited advice to Dewey was to wait until 1948, particularly if  the war had not ended by June.18 There were other thoughts about the Republican possibilities. Har­ old Ickes, longtime Roosevelt cabinet member and an astute political observer, wrote to a friend on January 6, 1944, “I believe that Willkie is talking himself  to death, if  he has not already done so. In any event, he is erratic and unpredictable.” Ickes went on to say that he regarded Dewey, whom he called “a miniature fascist,” as the likely Republican nominee.19 Taking it all together, as 1944 opened, Wendell Willkie was running hard, and the leaders of  the Republican Party now knew better than to take him less than seriously.

6

President and Congress

Franklin D. Roosevelt and the 78th Congress were not functioning on the same wavelength. Although the Congress was nominally controlled by Democrats, it was actually run by a coalition of  conservative Southern Democrats and conservative Northern Republicans. Committee chairmanships were held by Democrats, but because so many of  t he southerners served year after year without any meaningful opposition, their seniority gave them most of  those chairmanships. Columnist Ernest Lindley, analyzing the differences between the two ends of  Pennsylvania Avenue, wrote that “the prevailing attitude in Congress has been that the home front and the war front are separate and that the home front is an open field for politics as usual.” The administration’s efforts to reverse this attitude had been less than successful, and congressional leaders were catering “to the narrowest and most selfish economic interests of  voters.” In addition to Republican opposition, Roosevelt faced such Democrats as Texas Senator W. Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel, who announced that “I’m a Democrat but the one-eyed mule they’re riding around here is not our Southern donkey” and called for the defeat of  F DR and his congressional followers.1 The major items on the congressional agenda as the solons reconvened on January 10, 1944, were military voting and taxes. Columnist Drew Pearson predicted that Congress was “fairly sure to be even more noisy, even more obstreperous, even more difficult for FDR.” He thought, though, that the President would come out “reasonably victori65

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ous” in the end. And even some Republican leaders were becoming wary of  the party’s congressional tactic of  blocking and opposing everything that came from the White House. Some of  them recognized that the American people were more interested in seeing the war won and won properly than in seeing which party scored more points at the expense of  the other.2 The session was off  to a contentious beginning with Franklin Roosevelt’s State of  the Union address, delivered on January 11, 1944. The President, still in what he called the “‘relapse danger’ part of  the flu,” from which he had been suffering for a couple of  weeks, was not permitted by his doctors to deliver the speech in person, so he sent it up to Capitol Hill at noon, when it was read to the two houses with none of  the impact and excitement that personal delivery to a joint session customarily had. That evening, however, he went on the radio at 9 p.m. and read nearly the full address to the nation. He first attempted to allay recently voiced suspicions that any secret commitments had been given in recent meetings in Moscow, Cairo, and Teheran. “Of  course we made commitments” in military planning, Roosevelt said, “but there were no secret treaties or political or financial commitments.”3 He discussed five items that he wanted the Congress to adopt, “a realistic tax law,” continuation of  the law for renegotiation of  war contracts, to protect against undue profiteering, “a cost of  food law,” reenactment of  the stabilization statute of  October 1942 well before its June 30 expiration date, in order to prevent price chaos, and, if  a ll the others were provided, a national service law.4 From there, the President went on to what has become the most noted part of  his speech, the “Economic Bill of  R ights,” based in part on a memo from Chester Bowles. Roosevelt enumerated these rights: the “right to a useful and remunerative job” to earn enough to provide adequate food, clothing, and recreation; the right of  the farmer to sell his produce for a decent living; the right of  businessmen large and small to trade in an atmosphere of  f reedom from unfair competition and monopolies; the “right of  every family to a decent home”; the right to adequate medical care and good health; the right to “protection from the economic fears of  old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment”; and the “right to a good education.”5

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“Congressional reaction” to the message, the Washington Post reported, “was cool to lukewarm.” Congress and the administration were already at loggerheads on some of  Roosevelt’s proposals, and there was little enthusiasm for a program of  national service. As soon as the reading of  FDR’s message was done, the Senate passed an amendment to the tax bill, freezing Social Security taxes and cutting off  a scheduled increase. It was another slap at the President.6 As to the “Economic Bill of  R ights,” the President’s recommendations stirred up very little reaction at all. No one argued with them, but FDR himself  had in effect said that these were postwar items. One unfriendly Southern commentator, recalling that Roosevelt had at a recent press conference noted that “Dr. Win The War” had replaced “Dr. New Deal” in ministering unto the body politic, said that the President’s “‘second bill of  rights’ . . . was a little surprising” because “it bears a striking resemblance to the New Deal.” He concluded that it was really “a political platform” for Roosevelt or whoever the Democratic nominee might be.7 The proposed legislation for military absentee voting appeared to have a clear connection to the forthcoming presidential election, so that everyone having anything to do with it immediately shifted into political mode. Most observers felt that Roosevelt, if  he ran, would stand to gain from more extensive soldier voting; he was, after all, the soldiers’ popular commander in chief, and the age group into which most soldiers fell tended on the whole to be more Democratic than Republican. The legislation that would become the “GI Bill of  R ights,” providing liberal economic and educational provisions for returning servicemen, had been introduced in late 1943 with the President’s backing and would be enacted into law in the spring of  1944. Thus Democrats, or at least those from Northern states, pushed for a liberal military voting law, while Re­ publicans held back. The administration’s voting bill, known as the Green-Lucas bill for its two senatorial sponsors, Theodore Francis Green of  R hode Island and Scott Lucas of  I llinois, provided for a “federal ballot,” which would list only the federal offices up for election, president and vice president, senator, and congressman. Republicans objected that this ignored state and local offices as well as constitutional provisions reserving the manner of  electing a president to the states. Republicans also feared that

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military officers would line their troops up and march them to a voting place where they would vote, presumably, for their commander in chief. Southern Democrats had their own reasons for resisting a federal absentee ballot; such a creation could override the various procedural impediments that Southern states had thrown up over the years to keep their black citizens from the polls. On December 3, 1943, a coalition of  R epublicans and Southern Dem­ocrats in the Senate had temporarily scuttled the Green-Lucas bill providing for a federal ballot by a vote of  42–37, after John McClellan of  A rkansas called the bill “another step in the direction of  centralized control.” The same coalition then passed by voice vote a substitute proposed by three Southern Democrats (McClellan, Eastland of  M ississippi, and McKellar of  Tennessee) which simply requested the state legislatures to pass bills to “afford ample opportunity” for men and women in the service to vote, using existing state absentee ballot procedures where possible. An outraged and excited Max Lerner, in PM, called the Senate action “the most barefaced betrayal of  A merica by Americans” that he had seen. Green-Lucas was not dead, however; it would come up again in the new session beginning in January.8 As the military voting legislation—or what there was of  it—worked its way through the two houses, another major issue dividing the executive and legislative branches came to the fore. In October 1943, the President had advised Congress that the Treasury was requesting new tax revenues in the area of  $10.5 billion dollars, to finance the war and to tamp down what was becoming a burgeoning inflation in the nation’s economy. Prices were up by 25 percent or more over what they had been three years earlier, and lower-priced items were disappearing into the black market. Congress was not much impressed. In the fall of  1943, the House Ways and Means Committee substantially reduced Roosevelt’s requested tax increases, setting the stage for an early 1944 collision. In his annual budget message, delivered to Congress on January 10, 1944, FDR renewed his request for $10.5 billion in new tax revenues. He stressed that nothing has occurred to indicate that the Administration’s tax program is more than a minimum. Indeed, the necessity for additional revenue becomes increasingly acute as the war continues. . . . The time to impose high taxes is now when

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incomes are high and goods are scarce. . . . If  we do not now pay in taxes all that we can, we shall be treating unfairly those who must face the accumulated bill after the war. 9

Congress remained unimpressed with Roosevelt’s strictures. Even so, as the tax bill worked its way through the two houses, another voice was heard. Willkie, speaking at a New York Times forum on February 2, called the administration’s tax requests unrealistically low and said that the President should be asking instead for $16 billion in new taxes. “The fact is,” Willkie said, “that if  we solve this problem realistically . . . we must materially lower the American standard of  living during the war.” Otherwise, he went on, the nation will “lose in debt the victory we have gained in blood.” Disagreeing with Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Willkie said the chief  reason for high taxes was not to combat inflation but “to pay for a big war without mortgaging our future more than is necessary.”10 The Times editorially applauded Willkie’s position, saying that his “candor does him credit” and, after examining the four basic postwar policies that Willkie had espoused, asked, “Where is there another available Republican candidate who can match that record?” The editors stated that “on the merit of  the causes he has led Wendell Willkie was head and shoulders above any other man in his right and title to the Republican nomination.”11 Those who would have some say over the conferring of  that nomination, however, reacted far differently than did the editors of  the New York Times. Arthur Krock, writing from the capital, said the reaction to Willkie’s speech was “dismal confirmation that the elected of  the people firmly believe a display of  this type of  courage and candor by a Presidential candidate, even in wartime, is politically fatal. . . . He is certain to frighten the politicians of  his party and intensify their determination to find another nominee.” No Republicans cared to be associated with a call for higher taxes. On the floor of  the Senate, Taft and Vandenberg took turns poking fun at Willkie’s proposals, and Congressman Calvin Johnson (R-Ill.) rose in the House to call Willkie “the Administration’s secret weapon against the Republicans.”12 Franklin Roosevelt, in his press conference of  February 4, was asked about Willkie’s proposal. “Well,” said the President, “I will put it this

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way, that I didn’t have the nerve to ask for sixteen billion, I only asked for ten. [Laughter.] But Mr. Willkie, as in my case, we were thinking a little bit about the next generation and not just about this generation.”13 None of  it did much good. On February 7, 1944, the House passed the final conference committee version of  the tax bill, calculated to raise $2.3 billion in new taxes, with reductions in existing taxes of  more than a billion dollars, by a vote of  238-101, and the Senate passed the same bill on a voice vote. It was far, far short of  Roosevelt’s recommended figure. “The reception which the measure will get from the President,” it was reported, “remained a subject of  speculation.”14 Earlier, the soldier-vote bills came up for final action in the two houses, but not before Franklin Roosevelt intervened sharply but ineffectively in the process. With the appearance in the Senate of  an apparent willingness to go back to the Green-Lucas federal ballot proposal, with certain amendments softening the measure for Southern comfort, the President sent a toughly worded message to Congress on January 26, calling the proposal to leave the mechanics of  military voting to the states “a fraud upon the American people.” FDR demanded that the members of  the House should “stand up and be counted” on the issue of  a federal war ballot, rather than hiding behind a voice vote. Taft, in the Senate, jumped to his feet to denounce Roosevelt’s “direct insult to the Senate and . . . to the House,” while GOP members of  the House booed the President’s message.15 The House, on February 3, passed by an overwhelming voice vote a states’ rights voting bill crafted by the veteran Alabama congressman, John Rankin, who never made any attempt to hide his virulent racism. A week later the Senate, after bitter debate, passed Green-Lucas by a vote of  48-37. There was no realistic expectation that the House would accept the Senate’s bill, so a conference committee was called for, with a pretty clear impression that the House conferees would be likely to insist upon their states’ rights measure. If  so, Allen Drury of  t he United Press commented, “things will probably be back just about where they started.”16 Meanwhile, the country and the war effort proceeded apace, paying relatively little attention to the bickering in Washington. The War Production Board calculated that the cost of  r unning the war rose in Febru-

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ary to $312,300,000 per day. Roosevelt complained to Lewis B. Hershey, head of  Selective Service, that the draft was not delivering the number of  men to the military that had been expected. There was a major worry among the nation’s military leaders over the deteriorating situation at the Anzio beachhead in Italy, but satisfaction at the capture of  Kwajalein Atoll, a Japanese stronghold in the Marshall Islands, representing the first breakthrough of  the outer shell of  Japan’s western Pacific position. And on February 15, U.S. Army forces destroyed the historic Abbey of  Monte Cassino in Italy, used by the Germans as an artillery post, in a move that would stir much debate for years to come.17 Home front morale was presumably being kept at a good level, at least for New Yorkers, by Licia Albanese in La Traviata and Lauritz Melchior in Die Walkure at the Met and such other headliners around town as Perry Como and the DeCastro Sisters, Billy Rose’s Carmen Jones, and Paul Robeson and Jose Ferrer in Othello. Moviegoers across the country had the chance to see Tallulah Bankhead in Hitchcock’s Lifeboat, Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles in Jane Eyre, and Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland in Henry Aldrich Haunts a House.18 Finally, a mid-February Gallup poll showed that 51 percent of  respondents hoped to see the Democrats win the upcoming election, with 49 percent pulling for the Republicans. In the thirty-seven states outside of  the (still) Solid South, however, the tally was 52 percent to 48 percent in favor of  the GOP. Something for the Democrats to chew on as they tried to settle some of  the problems in the nation’s capital.19 As the congressional leaders wrestled once again with the soldiervote bills, the House-Senate conferees first met on February 18, and they met sporadically—fourteen meetings over twenty-five days—until their final product was signed on March 7. It became clear early on that what emerged from the conference was going to look mostly like Rankin’s bill—simply because the House conferees were quite prepared to come away with no bill at all. And so, when the conference report was finally finished, Green and Senator Carl Hatch (D-N. Mex.) refused to sign it, and Green said he would fight it on the floor of  the Senate. The bill that came out of  conference was a one-sided compromise, allowing the federal ballot to be used only where a qualified voter could not use his home state’s absentee voting mechanics.

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While the conference committee was hashing out the soldier-vote issue, the fate of  the tax bill came to the fore. The Democratic congressional leaders—Barkley of  Kentucky, the majority leader, Vice President Wallace, Speaker Rayburn, and House Majority Leader John W. McCormack of  Massachusetts—met several times with Roosevelt in the White House. Barkley and Rayburn pleaded with the President to sign the bill; it was, they argued, the best that could be gotten from the 78th Congress. Nevertheless, it soon became obvious that a presidential veto was in store. Roosevelt was most unhappy with the measure, and his advisors were suggesting a veto. On February 14, Samuel Rosenman submitted a memorandum to the President, in which he said, “Personally I . . . hope that you will veto this bill. It is not only ineffective as a tax bill, but it contains so many special-interest provisions inserted through the influence of  selfish lobbies that it is really a vicious piece of  legislation.”20 Eight days later, on February 22, Roosevelt fired off  his tax bill veto message to Congress, stirring up both houses with his strong language. “I regret that I find it necessary in the midst of  this great war,” he began, “to do this in what I regard as the public interest.” He pointed out that the bill was “wholly ineffective” in raising the revenues needed to prosecute the war and keep down inflation, and it did little to answer the taxpaying public’s unhappiness with the increasing complexity of  the tax laws. Further, he said, while the bill purported to raise $2,100,000,000 in new revenues, it cancelled automatic increases in the Social Security tax yielding $1,100,000,000 and it granted specific relief  f rom existing taxes that would cost the Treasury more than $150 million dollars. “In this respect,” the President said, “it is not a tax bill but a tax relief  bill providing relief  not for the needy but for the greedy.” After lamenting the growing “tendency toward the embodiment of  special privileges in our legislation,” Roosevelt said it had been suggested by some that, having asked “for a loaf  of  bread to take care of  this war for the sake of  this and succeeding generations,” he should be satisfied “with a small piece of  crust.” Unfortunately, he concluded, “the small piece of  crust contained so many extraneous and inedible materials.”21 This message, with its undeniably colorful and provocative phrasing, stirred up no end of  trouble when it hit Capitol Hill, as a buzz of  anger

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and resentment surged through both chambers. As Harold Ickes said, “hell broke loose in Washington.” Robert Doughton, chairman of  the House Ways and Means Committee, said, “I couldn’t maintain my selfrespect if  I didn’t vote to override the veto.” House Republican leader Joe Martin said the veto message continued “the anti-Congress campaign which has appeared in many high places in recent weeks.” One reporter said Roosevelt’s message was “like a mad dog snarling at the postman.”22 And Alben Barkley, the amiable Kentuckian who had been Roose­ velt’s hand-picked choice for Senate majority leader seven years earlier, was in “a cold fury” when he told newsmen that he intended to make a speech on the matter the next day “without regard for the political consequences.” He had known a veto message was coming, but the vehemence of  it set him back. He took a copy of  Roosevelt’s message home with him and studied it throughout the evening, seething as he read again about tax relief  for the greedy, not the needy, and the inedible crust instead of  the requested loaf  of  bread. “The President,” Barkley felt, “seemed to go far out of  his way to slap, not only at the tax bill, but to impeach the motives of  Congress.” Around 11 p.m., he started writing his speech.23 The next day, when the Senate convened, the galleries and the press tables were full and there was a feeling of  electricity in the air. Barkley rose and gave his speech, a lengthy blast in which he declared that he would resign his position as majority leader at a Senate Democratic caucus he called for the following day and berated the President for trying to “belittle and discredit Congress.” Roosevelt had mentioned his own small business of  growing and selling Christmas trees at Hyde Park as he attacked a tax break given in the bill to lumber companies; now Barkley ridiculed FDR’s Christmas tree business, saying that to compare it to the business of  g rowing real trees “would be like comparing a cricket to a stallion.” He called the veto message a “calculated and deliberate assault upon the legislative integrity of  every member of  Congress.” He concluded, “If  the Congress of  the U.S. has any self-respect left, it will override the veto of  the President and enact this tax bill into law.” As he took his seat, Barkley was wildly applauded by his colleagues, who crowded around him to offer congratulations.24 Part of  t he reason for the sensation was the utter incongruity of  it all. Newsweek commented that “Alben Barkley was almost the last man

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the Senate could have expected to take the action that he did. In the politician’s parlance, he was a wheel horse, a party hack who would take orders from the White House and then proceed to carry them out regardless.”25 That afternoon, FDR’s press secretary Steve Early was one of  t wo visitors from the White House (Jimmy Byrnes was the other) calling at Barkley’s apartment seeking to soothe the Kentuckian’s sorely ruffled feelings. Early handed the senator a telegram from Franklin Roosevelt, who was off  at Hyde Park, urging Barkley not to persist in his plan to resign as majority leader. The “Dear Alben” wire said in part, “I regret to learn from your speech in the Senate that you thought I had in my message attacked the integrity of  yourself  and other members of  the Congress. Such you must know was not my intention. You and I may differ, and have differed on important measures but that does not mean we question one another’s good faith.” He hoped that Barkley would not resign, that his colleagues would not accept his resignation, or that they would “immediately and unanimously reelect you.” Their differences, Roosevelt concluded, did not “affect my confidence in your leadership nor in any degree lessen my respect and affection for you personally.” While the “Dear Alben” missive defused tensions slightly, it had little overall effect on the immediate situation, and it barely covered up Roosevelt’s deep resentment of  Barkley’s action, particularly of  the ridicule the senator went out of  his way to cast upon the President’s Christmas tree business.26 What happened next was easily predictable. Barkley submitted his resignation to the Senate Democratic caucus, and he was then quickly and unanimously re-elected as majority leader. On February 24, the House voted 299-95 to override the veto of  the tax bill, ninety-nine Democrats joining the Republicans to override, while only eighty-nine stayed with the President. The next day, the Senate joined in overriding the veto by a vote of  72–14. Thirty-nine Democrats, including Barkley as well as Missouri’s Harry Truman, voted to override. It was the ninth Roosevelt veto overridden and the first time ever that Congress had overridden a revenue bill veto.27 Despite Steve Early’s denial, many in Washington assumed that Sam Rosenman had written the stinging veto message. But there were

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others who correctly saw in the message the fine Irish hand of  Jimmy Byrnes. Some years later, back in private life, Rosenman told Alben Barkley, “That message was written by Jimmy Byrnes and Ben Cohen, with Ben doing most of  t he writing but Jimmy supervising and approving the finished product.” In his memoir, Barkley wrote that he found it ironic “that Byrnes should have come to my house and pleaded so eloquently for me not to be offended by words which he himself  had helped to write.”28 Roosevelt, at Hyde Park, told his cousin and confidante Daisy Suckley that the Barkley flare-up “might make a condition which would cause him to refuse to run.” Rosenman wrote to Robert Sherwood, the playwright and Roosevelt speechwriter, who was in London, “Things are very tense up on the Hill and in the dramatic resignation, the merits of  the tax bill and the tax bill veto were completely forgotten.”29 At this nadir of  relations between the Executive and the Congress, the military-voting bill was sent to Franklin Roosevelt on March 15, with one reporter saying, “By rights, he ought to veto it, but he may not have the guts.” But FDR stunned his opponents with his reaction. Two hours after the House voted to accept the conference report, the President fired off  a telegram to each of  the forty-eight state governors. Let me know, he asked blandly, do the laws of  your state permit you to validate the federal war ballot? If  they do not, will you be calling a special session of  your legislature to amend those laws? It was a master stroke by a master politician. The conservatives in Congress had been sitting around, smugly debating whether Roosevelt would sign a bill with which he had to be very unhappy or veto it and invite another humiliating override. Now, Roosevelt had in effect thrown the onus on the state governors, including, of  course, Dewey, Bricker, Martin of  Pennsylvania, Green of  I llinois, and a few others who were not going to like the position they were suddenly put in. 30 “The responsibility for the bill now rests upon the governors,” Allen Drury wrote. “If  they dare to say they will not amend their laws, the veto will be theirs, not the President’s. If  they say they will amend their laws, then they have given their formal promise before the nation and they will not be able to duck it.” Roosevelt, he said, “has tied his opponents’ coattails together.”31

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Over the next few days, the replies drifted in from the states. Fortyseven states were heard from (all but South Carolina), although from Louisiana the response came not from the governor but from the State Executive Council. Twenty-one states appeared likely to use the federal ballot, twenty-one were unlikely, and four governors (of  Delaware, Kansas, Michigan, and Oregon) provided answers that were difficult to categorize. It was hardly a mandate one way or another. Early reported to the press that Roosevelt had asked for the telegrams to study. 32 The President had until midnight, March 31, to act on the soldiervote bill. The Senate, planning to recess but suspicious of  Roosevelt’s intentions, met briefly on Thursday, March 30, so that it was still technically in session and the bill could not be killed by a pocket veto. On the 31st, Roosevelt announced that he was permitting the bill to become law without his signature, although he called the measure “wholly inadequate.” He said, in a rather more temperate message than those he had been sending to Congress recently, that he could not be sure whether more servicemen could vote under this bill’s provisions than could without it. No one could ascertain it, he pointed out, certainly not the bill’s sponsors. He urged Congress to amend the new law promptly to provide for wider use of  the federal ballot. 33 Accordingly, a new soldier-vote bill was introduced on April 1 by Senators Green and Lucas, just like the one that had been rejected. With no chance of  passage, the bill was perhaps an appropriate way to wind up three months of  ill feeling between the two ends of  Pennsylvania Avenue.

7

Wendell in Wonderland

In the second week of  January 1944, the Republican National Committee and numerous Republican state chairmen and vice chairmen met at the Stevens Hotel in Chicago, ostensibly to select the site of  their national convention but also to talk politics among themselves, to gear up for a very political year, and, perhaps, to enjoy Chicago. Chicago in the middle of  a great war was still a “toddlin’ town.” Some activities were less gamy than others. A troupe of  Gilbert and Sullivan players had just opened The Mikado at the Studebaker Theatre, although they had substituted for the line “we are gentlemen of  Japan” the wartime words “we are gangsters of  Japan.” The long-running and ever-popular Good Night, Ladies, with Stu Irwin, was at the Blackstone Theatre, a sex farce in a Turkish bath on ladies’ night. The Black Hawks were playing ice hockey, although not very well (they had a six-game losing streak), and Willie Hoppe was playing a three-cushion billiard exhibition. And there were still plenty of  bars, nightclubs, and strip joints for those so inclined.1 The Republicans assembled probably passed up these temptations, because politics was the main thing on their minds. Hospitality suites pushing Bricker and Stassen were opened up, and Illinois governor Dwight Green welcomed the visitors at a dinner on the evening of  January 9, telling them they were going to elect their ticket in 1944 “because the Republican party is the only agency through which the American people can speak to preserve the American form of  government.”2 77

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The next day Charlie Halleck of  Indiana, the recently named chairman of  t he National Republican Congressional Committee, started things off  w ith a ripsnorter, tearing into what he called “the New Deal plea of  ‘ don’t-change-horses-while-crossing-the-stream,’” assuring one and all that the GOP would make no change in the military leadership of  Marshall, Eisenhower, MacArthur, King, and Halsey. He deplored New Deal “snooping into our ice boxes,” presumably referring to wartime price controls and rationing, and he called for living again “as God meant us to live and not as some bureaucrat in Washington . . . would like us to live.” Offstage, Ed Jaeckle and Russ Sprague were spreading the word that there was a difference between “candidacy” and “availability,” and that while Tom Dewey was not a candidate, he would certainly be “available” if  the party chose to draft him. 3 Dewey was asked by the press in Albany the next day whether the statements in Chicago by Sprague and Jaeckle reflected “a change in your attitude.” Dewey responded, “Not in the slightest,” and he said he had conferred with the two men before they left for Chicago. Another reporter asked the governor if  he would adopt a Shermanesque position toward the presidency. “I am wholly and exclusively occupied with the administration of  the affairs of  the State of  New York,” Dewey said in his non-answer. It appears that by January 1944, he had decided to accept willingly a draft if  one could be engineered.4 When the Republicans at the Stevens got down to business on January 11, they surprised no one by selecting Chicago as the site of  their convention, beginning June 26. (No other city had put in a bid for the gathering, and it was expected that the Democrats would meet in the Windy City as well.) National chairman Harrison Spangler then made numerous appointments to committee chairmanships for the convention. Newsmen covering the meeting reported that most of  the leaders there believed that the standard-bearers of  the two parties that year would be Dewey and Roosevelt, though neither of  them was as yet a candidate. The GOP leaders assumed their foes would run Roosevelt “for the simple reason that there seems to be nobody else in the party who would stand a chance of  w inning.”5 Among these party pros it was quickly apparent that the majority supported Dewey, that the Jaeckle-Sprague message was very welcome,

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that California governor Earl Warren was favored for the vice presidency, and that Wendell Willkie’s followers were in a distinct minority. National committee members did not necessarily represent the potential delegates to a convention, of  course, but the sentiment of  this gathering demonstrated once again the difficulty of  Willkie’s position. But Willkie knew this; he was aware of  the fact that party insiders would do all they could to block him. “Political liabilities” he had called them; what he knew he had to do was to win primaries, to show the pros that the people, the voters, were with him. Needing a bit of  a jolt for his campaign, Willkie scheduled a tour of  t he West, leaving New York on February 4 and making his first stop in Milwaukee. Wisconsin was one of  t he key states on which Willkie had his eye, so the stop in Milwaukee was important. While Willkie was in the Badger State, his chief  political aide, Ralph Cake, the national committeeman from Oregon, was in Illinois, “surveying the political situation there.” Colonel McCormick of  t he Tribune had been making noises about running in the Illinois presidential primary, and Willkie was dying to enter that one if  McCormick filed. (Because the results of  t he primary were not binding, Willkie planned to pass it by unless he could travel up and down the state debating issues with the colonel.) Otherwise, he had not completely decided where he would file; one of  t he purposes of  t he Western tour was to help him decide just that. 6 In Milwaukee, Willkie had a private luncheon with twenty-four delegate candidates pledged to him, after which he addressed some thirty publishers of  Wisconsin newspapers. The completion of  the delegate slate, regarded as a strong one, virtually assured Willkie’s entry into the state’s primary. He told the press he regarded the Wisconsin primary as one of  his most important pre-convention operations. “Here is a Midwestern state with an established leadership that holds views opposite to the views that I have on domestic and international affairs,” Willkie said. “I look upon this as a good state for me to make a test and I am anxious to make it. I believe that the rank and file of  Republicans should determine who is to be the presidential nominee.” He went on, “Wisconsin is one of  t he most difficult states for me to make such a test. . . . I deeply appreciate those who have pledged their

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support to me, and I expect to come back in the middle of  March to make a definite campaign” for the April 4th primary.7 The next day, in North Platte, Nebraska, Willkie announced that he would enter the Nebraska preferential primary, which was non-binding but usually influential upon the chosen delegates. He would not, however, put up a slate of  delegates against those already filed for Stassen and for the favorite son, Governor Dwight H. Griswold. His purpose, he said, “was to demonstrate that he had voting strength in the Middle West,” to go along with what he said was strong support in New England and on the Pacific Coast.8 On February 7, Willkie conferred with Republican leaders in Salt Lake City. Asked by reporters about his alleged points of  agreement with Roosevelt, a possibly fatal issue with Republican voters, Willkie responded sharply, “I don’t know any man in the United States, particularly on foreign policy, with whom I differ more. On many points of  domestic policy, I differ very much. I assume we both favor cooperation with other nations, but we have widely varying views on how this is to be done.” He concluded by saying, “All I ask is that the people judge me by my beliefs. I have a great many faults, but one can never accuse me of  not expressing my opinions.”9 He spoke that evening to a dinner organized by the Utah Republican Party, before heading on to Idaho, where 2,800 people filled a high school auditorium in Twin Falls to hear him. Later, in Boise, Willkie urged, “Don’t trust any leader. Take no man on faith. Make him tell you what he believes,” a message aimed more at Thomas Dewey than at Franklin Roosevelt. While the majority of  Idaho Republican leaders were said to be opposed to Willkie, and the national committeeman declined even to meet with him, Governor C. A. Bottolfsen said later, “Mr. Willkie has captured the hearts of  the people of  Idaho” with his “straightforward manner and his views on agriculture.”10 In Seattle, the Hoosier candidate attended a Republican women’s breakfast, met with party leaders, and then moved on to Tacoma, where Governor Arthur B. Langlie introduced him to an audience of  more than four thousand. In Portland on February 12, Willkie told a press conference that he would enter the Oregon primary. Told that Dewey petitions were being

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circulated in the state, he said, “That’s the purpose of  primaries. I would be delighted to have him or any other candidate file in Oregon.” With party leader Ralph Cake in his corner, Willkie appeared to have a substantial edge in Oregon. He was disappointed to hear that McCormick had declined to run in Illinois. “I was anxious for Colonel McCormick to stay in; it would have been an excellent opportunity for the Republicans of  I llinois to express their views of  the position the party should take, particularly on international questions.”11 Willkie’s people were happy with his trip so far. Their candidate left no doubt of  where he stood on the major issues of  the day, and he believed that the people’s knowledge of  these stands was his best asset. His chief  objective was to get Dewey and Bricker to be equally frank. In Utah and Idaho, it was believed that Willkie had lessened the opposition to him and picked up considerable popular support. Washington and Oregon were considered friendly territory. On the 13th, Willkie flew five hundred miles from Portland to Sacramento for a private meeting with California’s governor, Earl Warren. Billed as “luncheon and a social visit,” the get-together stretched into four hours. Warren was running in California’s presidential primary, not really as a candidate but to have the delegation formally pledged to him for purposes of  leverage and influence. Warren’s posture raised some eyebrows, for by keeping Willkie out of  the primary in a state where he was presumably popular, he was in effect participating in John Hamilton’s stop-Willkie drive. Yet Warren ideologically was closer to Willkie than to any other candidate. Willkie had no intention of  challenging the popular governor, but he admitted to newsmen that he was interested in the makeup of  t he fifty-member delegation (for those second- or third-ballot breaks); it was assumed that this was one topic of  d iscussion between the two men. “I am naturally interested,” Willkie told the inquiring newsmen. “What’s the use of  dodging around? Both Governor Warren and I are known as men in the Republican party, so naturally there may be some talk about the Republican party.” Warren told the press, “The visit is not political in its implications,” as the reporters snickered. Willkie then dined with a group of  supporters and later delivered a radio speech.12

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Back in Portland the next day, Willkie announced that Ralph Cake of  Oregon was his pre-convention campaign manager and admitted his formal candidacy for president. “I hope to seek the nomination at the Republican National Convention. Everybody knows that anyway.”13 From Portland the candidate’s entourage moved on, to Spokane, to Great Falls, Montana, to Sheridan, Wyoming, back to Billings, Montana, and then on to the Dakotas, to Minneapolis and Des Moines and a return to the East. When he arrived in New York on February 22, Willkie was satisfied that he had made notable progress in his campaign. He had spoken in twelve states, talked issues with rank-and-file Republicans, and discussed political realities with party leaders. He was well received everywhere, even in areas where the GOP leaders were not for him. Life magazine reviewed the trip and concluded that Willkie’s “political fortunes . . . were on the mend last week.” “As always,” Luce’s journal commented, “his personality won the rank and file. But more important, he managed to stir up some behind-the-scenes support.” Two months earlier his candidacy had appeared hopeless. “Although political polls showed that he still had a long uphill fight to win the nomination, his western trip apparently had put him back in the running.”14 New Hampshire’s primary, then as now the earliest in the country, was scheduled for March 14. It was not the major media circus it would become, but it was still the first test before real voters. Eleven delegates were to be chosen, seven at large and four in districts. There were delegate candidates pledged to Willkie, to Dewey, and even one to Douglas MacArthur. Willkie made one major address in the state, on March 10, and then watched as six of  his delegates were elected. Two Dewey delegates won as well as three unpledged. While a victory for Willkie, it was less than fully satisfying because better things had been hoped for; New England was supposed to be his turf. Still, the country saw that Wendell Willkie had won. In the meantime, there had been other stirrings of  the political pot. On March 2, petitions putting Douglas MacArthur’s name on the primary ballot were filed in Madison, Wisconsin, and in New York City, Ormsby McHarg’s “MacArthur National Association” opened a headquarters. Lansing Hoyt, formerly with the America First Committee, pushed the effort to get the general on the Wisconsin ballot, against

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the advice of  Vandenberg and Wood and without MacArthur’s consent (which was not required), while McHarg spoke to the press in New York. He was, McHarg said, convinced that MacArthur “is the best timber in the Republican party” for the presidency. “Polls, letters and editorials attest the speedily increasing demand for MacArthur. He express-­ es all that America has lost and hopes to regain at home and abroad.” The newsmen duly reported these developments while wondering why they did not hear this “speedily increasing demand.” In any event, the Mac­A rthur-as-stealth-candidate tactic was clearly being abandoned, though whether the abandonment was a part of  a ny thought-out strategy was not apparent.15 At about the same time, another America Firster, Joseph P. Savage, took the initiative in getting MacArthur’s name on the primary ballot in Illinois, the other state (besides Wisconsin) that did not require a candidate’s consent. Wood sent the general a certificate of  w ithdrawal that he could sign and send back to Illinois, to take his name off  that state’s ballot, but MacArthur did nothing. His name remained on the ballot for the April 11 voting; the only other person who filed for the Republican presidential primary in Illinois was a political neophyte, a Chicago real estate agent named Riley Bender. While the Republican presidential possibilities adopted varying pos­ tures, depending on the state of  their candidacies, an actual contest between the parties reared its head in the Second District of  Oklahoma. Congressman Jack A. Nichols, a Democrat, had resigned his seat, and a special election was called for March 28. The Democrats put up W. G. Stigler, a former state senator and American Legion commander, while the Republicans ran E. O. Clark. The district was made up of  eight counties, agricultural, mining, and industrial, in the eastern end of  the state, and it had voted Republican only once, in 1920. In the most recent election, though, in 1942, the GOP got 49.5 percent of  the total vote, so the Republicans decided to make a real fight in the special election. They proclaimed that this would be a test of  things to come. Both parties dragged out big guns. Elmer Thomas, the home-state Democratic senator, stumped up and down the district for Stigler, and the very popular Congressman Mike Monroney threw his weight in on the Democratic side. The national leadership, feeling the heat, convinced

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Alben Barkley to go to Oklahoma to do his part for the party. Barkley barely mentioned Stigler, but he hammered hard on the benefits the New Deal had conferred on common folks like those in Oklahoma’s Second District. Late in the campaign, John Bricker combined his presidential speech­ making with help for the Republicans in Oklahoma. Speaking in Oklahoma City on March 27, he said, “I cannot understand how Senator Barkley can come into Oklahoma demanding unqualified support of  the New Deal in view of  his recent repudiation of  the President’s veto of  the tax bill.” Republican Senator Edward H. Moore of  Oklahoma was tireless in his campaigning for the GOP candidate, and Pappy O’Daniel, from neighboring Texas, came along to call for the defeat of  Stigler as the New Deal candidate.16 It rained on election day, and the Republicans claimed that this damaged their chances. Stigler, the Democrat, won the district by about four thousand votes, and the DNC’s Bob Hannegan in Washington said the result “exploded completely and decisively the myth of  a nation-wide Republican trend.” Perhaps so. In any event, the Oklahoma sideshow was over. Republican eyes turned to Wisconsin.17 It was a curious race. There was a full slate of  t wenty-four Willkie delegate candidates, including the four at-large to be chosen. Twentytwo candidates ran pledged to MacArthur, and twenty were committed to Stassen. Fifteen candidates were pledged to Dewey, despite the fact that Dewey, on February 22, sent telegrams to those who were circulating petitions on his behalf, stating that, “any use of  my name meets my strongest disapproval” and asking that such petitions not be filed. To those who had filed to run on his behalf, such as Arthur W. Prehn of  Wausau, Dewey urged a withdrawal. Prehn did in fact withdraw the petition he had filed, and he then filed a new petition to run in his district as an unpledged delegate, while making no secret of  the fact that he was for Dewey. Most of  the others stayed in, concluding that if  Dewey really wanted them out, he would have said so long before then.18 John Bricker stayed out of  Wisconsin, an omission that Robert Taft felt was a serious political mistake. Taft felt that Bricker should have entered the Wisconsin primary and established himself  as the anti-Willkie candidate.19

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A number of  the Dewey delegate candidates, it was noted, had been strong pre-war isolationists. By asking them not to run, even though they chose to do so, the New York governor was spared the possible embarrassment of  having his name linked with theirs, to his detriment in more internationalist areas. So there was a strong Dewey presence in the primary race, despite the New York governor’s protestations and his refusal to appear in Wisconsin. Since neither MacArthur nor Stassen was going to show up in the Badger State, the field looked to be open to Wendell Willkie. Nevertheless, Willkie entered in the face of  a January 25 Gallup poll which showed that Wisconsin Republicans were 40 percent for Dewey, 20 percent for Willkie, 15 percent for MacArthur, and 11 percent for Stassen. Dewey had won Wisconsin’s primary four years earlier, and those delegates had stayed with him to the end in Philadelphia. In addition, Wisconsin was reputed to be the most isolationist state in the Union; its congressional delegation had voted unanimously against every measure of  preparedness or aid to Britain that had come before Congress in the period before the war, and every one of  them had been re-elected in 1942.20 So why did Willkie choose to make Wisconsin the first test of  h is candidacy? He knew that he had to show some popular strength in the Middle West, the great heartland of  t he Republican Party. Wisconsin and Nebraska would, he believed, show that strength. Many of  t he leaders he had visited in his Western tour had indicated that they would be watching those midwestern contests in choosing whom to support. In addition, of  course, there was the long history of  W isconsin’s Progressivism, under the aegis of  R obert LaFollette and his successors. Many former Progressives had migrated into the Democratic Party, but there were no party requirements for Wisconsin’s primary; any voter could vote in any primary he chose. Surely, Willkie must have considered, the liberal traces of  t he Progressive movement lingering in Wisconsin had to work in his favor. To believe this, however, one had to ignore the strain of  isolationism strong with the LaFollettes and the Progressives. On top of  everything was Willkie’s belief  t hat if  he could simply get people to listen to what he had to say they would see that it made sense. So his mission in Wisconsin was just that: to get people to listen to him.

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Willkie arrived in Wisconsin on March 18 and commenced a grueling thirteen-day tour of  the state. He gave some forty speeches in this time, denouncing the Democrats and the Old Guard Republicans in about equal measure. He got reams of  press coverage and all the attention he could ever want. The campaign kicked off  w ith a speech in Richland Center, about fifty miles northwest of  Madison. Richland Center was in the middle of  r ich dairy country and the home of  Vernon Thomson, speaker of  the state assembly and leader of  the Willkie delegate slate, and Willkie was well received. In that community of  fewer than 5,000 people, 2,200 showed up to hear Willkie. He returned to Madison that night and spent the night and had breakfast in the Executive Mansion next morning with Governor Walter S. Goodland. On Monday the 20th, Willkie gave talks at Eagle Hall in Oshkosh, at a luncheon in the Retlaw Hotel in Fond du Lac, and in the town where the Republican Party had been founded ninety years earlier, Ripon, where he declared that it was the chief  f unction of  a political party to stand for certain principles instead of  being merely a vehicle for men who want power, by which he clearly meant Thomas E. Dewey. Unfortunately for Willkie, the talk at Ripon was a failure. The candidate was tired, his throat was paining him, and his delivery was poor. The next day, Willkie spoke at Lawrence College, in Appleton, about the opposition to him within his party. It started when he supported FDR’s Lend-Lease bill, he said, but “I never will be prouder of  anything else in my life.” Going on, he said, “Here in Wisconsin I have no doubt that you have heard many things about me, including a story that I beat my wife. You also undoubtedly have heard that I have some kind of  a deal with the Administration to keep Mr. Roosevelt in office.” His voice rose as he said, “My main objective in life is to make the Republican party worthy of  removing Mr. Roosevelt from office!” Referring again to the personal rumors about him, he went on, “I’ll take a glass of  beer, if  that’s any news to you. I had one with Governor Goodland the other day. And I have been known to take a Scotch and soda.”21 That evening, in Green Bay, Willkie named his opponents, Dewey, Stassen, and MacArthur, in charging them with avoiding a discussion of  the issues and mounting a campaign of  defamation against him. He

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said if  isolationists of  the Chicago Tribune stripe prevailed at the GOP convention, the way would be clear for Franklin Roosevelt to win four more years. That day Secretary of  the Navy Frank Knox had made public a message from Lt. Commander Stassen, saying that he was not an active candidate but would accept the nomination if  it came his way. Willkie scoffed and said, “It is difficult to know from the announcement whether Governor Stassen is a candidate or not.”22 On the 22nd, Willkie appeared along the shore of  Lake Michigan, in Manitowoc and Sheboygan, where almost five thousand people made up his largest and most enthusiastic audience so far. He denounced those who would have the Republican Party campaign on “the gasoline situation, food rationing, the fact that they have to work hard and the sending of  their sons abroad,” those who were “against every form of  international cooperation to maintain peace throughout the world,” those who in 1940 supported neutrality and opposed fortifying Guam, sending destroyers to Britain, Selective Service, Lend-Lease, and fighting in the war. “Today in this campaign in Wisconsin for delegates,” he cried, “I am expecting opposition from the same forces.” Not surprisingly, Willkie had just described the state’s congressional delegation. He was entertained after the talk at the home of  Charles E. Broughton, the editor of  the Sheboygan Press and a prominent Democrat. Broughton said he was merely extending a courtesy to a distinguished visitor, but Willkie’s opponents looked darkly at a scheme to get Democratic votes in the primary.23 The next day, Willkie received some encouraging news when he learned that an editorial in the Capital Times of  Madison had endorsed him. The editor was William T. Evjue, an influential member of  what was left of  the Progressive Party, so there was a hope that Willkie would pick up Progressive support. Evjue supported Willkie for his strong stands on the issues and decried the “coy and cagey game” Dewey was playing.24 Willkie spoke at a luncheon in Kenosha on March 23 and then went on to Racine for another talk. The candidate’s voice was becoming hoarse, as it had in the 1940 campaign, but he was still game. To talks on the 24th at Beloit and Janesville, down near the Illinois border— Chicago Tribune country—he added two speeches to the schedule, one at Burlington, where about three hundred persons showed up, and the

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other in Elk­horn, where he addressed another thousand at 11 o’clock a.m. One of  the cars in his motorcade ran over and killed a dog; Willkie himself  bought the owners a new dog, which they named “Wendell.” On Saturday the 25th, Willkie spoke at the Stock Pavilion in Waukesha, just west of  M ilwaukee, where he read to a capacity crowd of  2,500 a letter addressed to him by Bernard DeVoto, editor of  the Easy Chair section of  Harper’s Magazine. DeVoto said he was writing as “a tired New Dealer” who had “voted for the New Deal three times” but now felt that the administration no longer accepted “the democratic postulates on which it is supposed to be based.” Willkie jumped on the phrase “tired New Dealer.” “Here is a real distinguished member of  that group,” he said. “There are literally millions who are in a similar position. The Republican party can have them for the asking, if  it pursues the right course.”25 Experts trying to assess what was happening or was going to happen in Wisconsin were puzzled. They knew that most of  the organization Republicans were for Dewey, that Stassen had the support of  Governor Goodland and should do well in the part of  the state that was contiguous to Minnesota, that MacArthur had ties to Wisconsin, and that Willkie’s support should be coming only from those who shared his beliefs and principles. But they could also see that Willkie’s audiences were growing larger and more boisterous and that the budding interest in the Hoosier’s candidacy had made a considerable impression on county party leaders, most of  whom had been opposed to his nomination. Traveling with Willkie day after day, the correspondents could not help but be impressed with the open honesty, the in-your-face decency of  the man. They wondered how this quality was playing with the voters of  Wisconsin. Starting his final week, on Monday, Willkie spoke in the Milwaukee Auditorium. Hopes of  a big crowd faded when about four thousand people showed up, only two-thirds of  the capacity of  the hall, but those who attended were enthusiastic. The drumfire of  hostility coming from Hearst’s Milwaukee Sentinel may have helped to keep down the attendance. Willkie attacked the administration for its failure to live up to the ideals of  the Atlantic Charter in its foreign policy, citing the dealings with Darlan in North Africa and with Badoglio in Italy, as well as the failure to use moral force for settlement of  the Polish boundary dispute

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by international arbitration. “Recently,” Willkie said, “Secretary of  State Hull restated the general objectives, but at each step during the war we have violated the very principles we announced as the principles for which we fight.”26 The next day, in LaCrosse, before more than 1,200 listeners, Willkie quoted the well-known 1884 statement of  Wisconsin delegate E. S. Bragg about Grover Cleveland: “We love him for the enemies he has made.” Applying this statement to himself, he claimed credit for “the most valuable list of  enemies of  any public or quasi-public figure in America,” enumerating isolationist GOP leaders, Gerald L. K. Smith of  A merica First, Colonel Robert McCormick, and William Randolph Hearst. Just that morning, Hearst’s Milwaukee Sentinel had called for the election of  the Dewey delegates, calling that “the first step toward terminating the global aspiration of  the much traveled gentleman from Indiana and Wall Street.”27 On the 29th, after a two-inch snowstorm had blanketed the roads, Willkie and his entourage put on two hundred miles as he carried his campaign into northwestern Wisconsin, speaking to capacity crowds in Menomonie, Chippewa Falls, and Eau Claire. Again he went after the big newspapers opposing him, McCormick’s Tribune and Hearst’s Sentinel. The following day, he wound up his Wisconsin barnstorming with two speeches in Superior, far up on the Minnesota border. Emphasizing once again that he was the only one of  the four Republican hopefuls to appear in the state, the nearly exhausted Willkie urged Wisconsin voters not “to buy a pig in a poke.” He expressed satisfaction over his tour through the state and warned his followers against overconfidence, leaving late in the day for Minneapolis. The next day he was on to Lincoln, Nebraska, for a six-day campaign before that state’s primary.28 As Wendell Willkie left Wisconsin, a New York Times editorial summed up the difficulties facing him in that state and the unflinching nature of  his campaign there. “Win, lose or draw next Tuesday,” the editors said, “he will have made a campaign that reflects the sincerity of  his convictions and the high quality of  his leadership.”29 As soon as Willkie left the state, the Dewey forces, which meant most of  the organized Republican Party there, began to throw up billboards and posters around the state, while going on the air with hundreds

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of  pro-Dewey radio commercials and mailing out thousands of  antiWillkie circulars. These moves were calculated to have the greatest effect with Willkie now gone. Dewey himself  w rote to former governor Alf  Landon on the first, discussing the “interesting straw in the wind” coming next Tuesday in Wisconsin. He went on, saying that after Willkie had the state all to himself  for “two weeks of  unopposed oratory . . . if  he cannot get the whole delegation with no candidate speaking against him and the opposition divided three ways, and only partial tickets at that, it would be a surprising evidence of  weakness.”30 Dewey’s comments pointed up what Allen Drury, on March 31, called “the campaign to let Willkie talk himself  to death in a vacuum.” A shrewd move, Drury said, “a combination of  circumstance, strategy and his [Willkie’s] own desire to join the issue and fight it out. The issue has been joined—with empty air. The battle is being fought out—with nothingness.” Now, political observers waited to see what the voters of  Wisconsin had to say about the curious contest. The Wisconsin State Journal in Madison, looking at Willkie’s tour and the crowds he had drawn, predicted that the Hoosier statesman would win sixteen to eighteen of  the twenty-four delegates. 31 The voters spoke on April 4, and their verdict was unmistakable. Seventeen of  the twenty-four delegate spots went to Dewey delegates (fifteen pledged and two formally unpledged but committed to Dewey), four went to Stassen supporters, and three were won by MacArthur delegates. Wendell Willkie got none. It was an overwhelming rejection of  the man who had spent thirteen days in the state, covering some 1,500 miles in touring around it. Analyzing the votes for at-large candidates, it looked like Dewey got 40 percent of  the total, MacArthur 24 percent, Stassen 20 percent, and Willkie 16 percent. Anyone who recalled that January 25 Gallup poll would see that Dewey’s 40 percent stayed just where it had been then, that MacArthur and Stassen had slightly increased their shares, and that Willkie had declined from 20 percent. So much for campaigning. It was a stunning setback, and its implications were not difficult for Willkie to read. He—and his supporters—had seriously misjudged Wisconsin, and perhaps his personal appeal to Republicans as well. One

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of  h is followers wrote later to Willkie that they had “learned, to our great embarrassment, much about our state which we had not known before.” As he sat in his hotel room in Norfolk, Nebraska, on the night of  April 4, listening to the returns coming in from Wisconsin, Willkie reached a decision about his future course, told his wife of  it, then went to bed and slept soundly. 32 The next evening, he delivered a speech at the Omaha City Auditorium, mainly devoted to criticism of  Roosevelt’s foreign policy. At the end of  his prepared remarks, Willkie added several paragraphs, detailing why he had entered the primary in Wisconsin and how disappointed he was in its results. Then he said, “It is obvious now that I cannot be nominated. I therefore am asking my friends to desist from any activity toward that end and not to present my name at the convention.” Then, a bit of  advice: “I earnestly hope that the Republican convention will nominate a candidate and write a platform which really represents the views which I have advocated and which I believe are shared by millions of  A mericans. I shall continue to work for these principles and policies for which I have fought during the last five years.”33 The Milwaukee Journal headline of  April 6 told the story: “Turned Down by Wisconsin, Willkie Quits Race and Cancels Rest of  Tour.” Wendell Willkie was out of  the presidential race. He was not, however, out of  the Republican picture, as would become clear in the weeks and months ahead.

8

The Bandwagon Rolling

There were all the expected reactions to Willkie’s withdrawal. Robert Taft exulted that “Mr. Willkie has apparently recognized the inevitable.” His fellow Ohioan, John Bricker, was a bit more gracious, calling the withdrawal “an unselfish and patriotic act.” Senator Warren Austin of  Vermont, an internationalist, said, “I hope there will be someone who will come into the field to take up the torch and carry it forward.” Allen Drury described Willkie as “a man who, scorning the use of  the airplane, tried to fly by flapping his arms and when that didn’t work gave up in disgust.” Willkie’s favorite antagonist, Bertie McCormick, scoffed in the Tribune, “from today on Mr. Willkie can be dismissed as a minor nuisance.”1 Thomas E. Dewey, in Albany, said he had no comment on “political questions,” and Roosevelt, asked at his weekly press conference if  he could comment on Willkie’s withdrawal, responded, “I don’t think so.”2 With Willkie out of  the race—the race, such as it was—there still remained, with Dewey, four men: John Bricker, Douglas MacArthur, Harold Stassen, and, somewhere between a favorite son and a serious contender, Everett McKinley Dirksen, the Illinois congressman. The Stassen people hoped that Willkie’s followers might now fall into their camp; Stassen’s stand on most issues was closer to Willkie’s than was that of  any other candidate, and the two men had once been close. Willkie, however, had resented as a sort of  personal betrayal Stassen’s entry into 92

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the 1944 race as a contender against the 1940 standard-bearer. And Stassen seemed to be, at best, a quasi-candidate, off  there with the navy in the South Pacific. Even though he finished second in total votes in Wisconsin, Mac­ Arthur too came out of  it a loser. His backers had long felt that the general’s only real chance lay in a deadlock at the convention between Dewey and Willkie. Only with such a development could MacArthur’s great popularity as a soldier conceivably be converted into strength as an office-seeker. Now there would be no such deadlock. There had been an effort to enter a slate of  MacArthur delegates in the California primary. As unwise as this would have been to challenge Earl Warren on his home grounds, the effort fell flat; it turned out that the nominating petitions contained far fewer signatures than required. MacArthur was entered in the Illinois primary on April 11, and he received 550,000 votes. Unfortunately, his only opponent was a political nobody, so the victory, with 76 percent of  the vote, meant little. A couple of  days after the Illinois voting, there was a startling development that doomed MacArthur’s phantom candidacy. A freshman Republican congressman from Nebraska, Arthur L. Miller, made public a couple of  letters he had taken upon himself  to write to MacArthur as well as the general’s replies to him. All Washington was soon atwitter over these literary gems. 3 Miller’s first letter to MacArthur, dated September 18, 1943, described “a tremendous ground swell in this country against the New Deal” and the fear that Roosevelt and his party had of  MacArthur’s candidacy. “You above all men,” he told the general, “can bring the greatest defeat to the present administration.” Miller then went on, “I am certain that unless this New Deal can be stopped this time our American way of  life is forever doomed. You owe it to civilization and the children yet unborn to accept the nomination.” MacArthur responded, on October 2, 1943: “I thank you so sincerely for your fine letter of  Sept. 18 with its cordial expressions of  real friendship. I do not anticipate in any way your flattering predictions, but I unreservedly agree with the complete wisdom and statesmanship of  your comments.”

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Congressman Miller wrote again, on January 27, 1944: “If  this system of  left wingers and New Dealers is continued another four years, I am certain that this monarchy which is being established in America will destroy the rights of  the common people.” He predicted: “The next President might well be a one-termer. It is going to take an individual who is fearless and willing to make political sacrifices in order to cut out the underbrush and help destroy this monstrosity in the form of  a bureaucracy which is engulfing the nation and destroying free enterprise and every right of  the individual.” General MacArthur wrote again to Congressman Miller on February 11, saying, “I appreciate very much your scholarly letter of  Jan. 27. Your description of  conditions in the United States is a sobering one indeed and is calculated to arouse the thoughtful consideration of  every true patriot. We must not inadvertently slip into the same condition internally as the one we fight externally.” 4 The amazing feature of  a ll this, of  course, is that Miller thought publication of  this correspondence would give a sudden boost to Mac­ Arthur’s wavering candidacy. It was said to be “a signal for intensified activities by the . . . MacArthur-for-President clubs.” Joseph P. Savage, the MacArthur national chairman, said he had written to the heads of  eleven state organizations to speed up their activities and not be stampeded by any Dewey bandwagon. The New York Times’s Arthur Krock gleaned from the Miller letters that MacArthur “is a receptive candidate” who “would run on a most extreme anti–New Deal platform.” Political observers agreed that MacArthur’s backers had opted for “a more direct attack,” to keep Dewey from getting too far ahead. 5 In Australia, at Allied Headquarters for the Southwest Pacific, there was a bit of  consternation and embarrassment at the publication of  the Miller letters, which resulted in the issuance of  a MacArthur statement on April 16. “I entirely repudiate the sinister interpretation that they [his letters] were intended as criticism of  any political philosophy or of  any personages in higher office.” The letters to Miller were written “merely as amiable acknowledgements.” He went on, “I can only say, as I have said before, I have not sought the office, nor do I seek it.” Then he expanded on that: “The high constitutional processes of  our representative and republican form of  government in which there resides with the people

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the sacred duty of  choosing and electing their Chief  E xecutive are of  so imposing a nature as to be beyond the sphere of  any individual’s coercion or decision.” What MacArthur’s statement should have said, of  course, was simply “I didn’t even read Miller’s letters to me.”6 The reaction to this rather opaque statement, on the part of  stateside politicians, was that MacArthur had apparently reserved the right to accept a nomination if  offered. Senator Kenneth Wherry of  Nebraska said, “I don’t see that the General’s statement changes the situation. He isn’t a candidate, but he is receptive.” Joseph Savage said that MacArthur “removed a great obstacle by affirming today that he will accept the nomination.” And Miller said he expected to see a definite announcement of  MacArthur’s candidacy within six weeks.7 In the meantime, criticism of  MacArthur for the correspondence with Rep. Miller swelled. There could be no blinking the fact that an actively serving officer had called claims that his commander in chief  was seeking a monarchy “scholarly” and had referred to “the wisdom and statesmanship” of  assertions that the New Deal was leading to the doom of  A merican civilization. The New York Times reported, from Omaha, in the Republican heartland, that “the reaction, a good deal of  it expressed after a few days of  deliberation, has been anything but flattering to either party to the interchange.” Of  M iller, it was said “that he has been guilty of  political stupidity, brought on by overfondness for publicity.” Many Americans wrote letters to MacArthur critical of  his political involvement, and editorials around the country echoed that view. Vandenberg felt the release of  the letters by Miller was a “boner” and a “tragic mistake” and advised the general that his April 16 statement was not good enough. MacArthur’s reputation, let alone his candidacy, was in jeopardy.8 Accordingly, after a few more days, MacArthur, returning from his forces’ invasion of  Hollandia in New Guinea, issued another statement on April 30, which closed with, “I request that no action be taken that would link my name in any way with the nomination. I do not covet it nor would I accept it.” This was definitive, although it came two weeks later than it should have, and it closed the books on Douglas MacArthur as a candidate for president in 1944.9 It might be noted, as we leave MacArthur, that Admiral William Leahy, Roosevelt’s military chief  of  staff, said the President showed little

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interest in the April 30 announcement, “but I commented that if  General MacArthur should get the nomination he would be a very dangerous antagonist for anybody, including Roosevelt.” He might well have been; no one would ever know for sure. The general could now concentrate on the Japanese.10 So the Dewey bandwagon rolled on, with little to slow it down but the game yet futile efforts of  John W. Bricker. On April 27, Dewey addressed the American Newspaper Publishers Association at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City. He and Elliott Bell put together a speech designed to move the governor further away from his pre-war isolationism. At the Mackinac Conference the year before, Dewey had spoken of  a permanent, postwar alliance between the United States and the British. Now, with Willkie safely out of  t he race, Dewey felt he could move a bit further in the direction of  internationalism. He proposed “three fundamental principles for our foreign policy,” the first of  which was “to carry on the war to total crushing victory.” The second was “to organize in cooperation with other nations a structure of  peace backed by adequate force to prevent future wars.” The third was “to establish and maintain in our relations with other nations conditions calculated to promote world-wide economic stability not only for the sake of  the world but also to the end that our own people may enjoy a high level of  employment in an increasingly prosperous world.” He went on to criticize Roosevelt for his “privately” handled foreign policy and to assert that the peace after the last war failed “because those who drafted the treaty were tired war leaders,” a preview of  the coming campaign against “tired old men.”11 Dewey received good reviews for his talk to the publishers, perhaps because no one expected anything remotely concrete from the New York governor at that stage. Pundit Walter Lippmann wrote to John Foster Dulles, who was Dewey’s closest advisor on foreign affairs, that he was “pleased” with the speech; “what he has said is, I believe, thoroughly sound,” Lippman wrote. Sam Rosenman, FDR’s right-hand man, said that he was “convinced that Dewey is the most formidable of  the Republican field. He did a fine job of  letting the isolationists throw Willkie out before he himself  made that internationalist speech before the pub­l ishers.”12

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But Dewey ran few risks now, since the Wisconsin results had raised his stock far beyond the reach of  a ny other candidate. Now the Dewey people began planning for a first-ballot victory at Chicago, with just one possible threat clouding their future. That possibility would be Franklin Roosevelt, before the Republican convention, declaring that he was not a candidate for a fourth term. Such a declaration, it was feared, could cause the delegates to turn to a candidate more personally popular than the austere Tom Dewey, because without FDR to contend with the Republicans would feel more sure of  v ictory with any candidate. With Roosevelt in the race, however, and Willkie out of  it, only Dewey seemed to have the political strength for a head-to-head contest with “the Champ.” A survey of  delegates elected and agreed upon in mid-May gave Dewey some 779 votes, 249 more than were needed to nominate. This count included none from California or any of  Stassen’s delegates, some of  whom were expected to come over to the Dewey cause. “In the last few weeks,” wrote political correspondent James A. Hagerty in the New York Times, “the Dewey boom has progressed with greater rapidity than expected by its promoters.” For example, the Dewey people thought West Virginia would go for Bricker, but sixteen out of  that state’s nineteen delegates now said they would vote for the New York governor.13 A few days later the Utah Republicans meeting in Salt Lake City elected eight delegates to the national convention and instructed them to vote for Dewey. At Tennessee’s GOP conclave in Nashville, the convention delegates-at-large were not formally instructed, but the meeting expressed almost unanimous support for Dewey. Soon, though, some grumbling could be heard, particularly in the Midwest. In that part of  the country, it was reported, some “nationalists or pre-Pearl Harbor isolationists have decided they cannot accept Gov. Thomas E. Dewey’s views on American foreign policy.” Bricker was said to be “gaining favor among the nationalists.” Such a development had been anticipated among Dewey’s people as a result of  the speech to the publishers, but they discounted it as coming too little and too late.14 Owen Brewster, a Republican senator from Maine, told Ickes “that there was very strong Republican opposition to Dewey,” mentioning Joseph Pew as one opposed. But such inchoate opposition, if  it existed,

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seemed unable to generate a candidate to benefit from it. And Turner Catledge of  the New York Times wrote that any “‘stop Dewey’ movement seems to be more a matter of  conversation than of  substance”; most political observers in Washington, he said, regarded Dewey’s nomination as “virtually certain.”15 John Bricker was laboring to develop his candidacy as an alternative to Dewey, but little response to his effort appeared. Columnist Marquis Childs spent a few days with the Bricker entourage—“everything about the governor and his campaign is country cured . . . playing for the first time in the big leagues,” Childs remarked—and he saw few hopeful signs. “Bricker,” he wrote, “is working hard. He speaks to audiences of  loyal Republicans who applaud him generously. He makes a handsome appearance. But if  he is gaining, the evidence is hard to find.”16 In the last days of  May, the 36th annual conference of  state governors opened in Hershey, Pennsylvania. While the air was scented with the aroma of  chocolate, it was filled with talk of  politics and the two Republican governors in the running for a presidential nomination. Thirtyeight state governors plus the governor of  the Virgin Islands (seventeen of  them Democrats) attended the gathering, and most of  them took the opportunity to size up the governor of  New York. Not all of  them were enthralled with what they saw and heard. The night before the conclave officially opened, Dewey talked to reporters. He continued to insist that he was not seeking the nomination, but his words seemed increasingly hollow. He admitted that reports of  a first-ballot nomination had gotten beyond the rumor stage and that he was “doing nothing to stop that kind of  talk.” One newsman said Dewey “had almost talked himself  out of  the role of  disinterested candidate.” Still, he said, his position “remains entirely unchanged,” leading some to wonder what, deep down, that position had been.17 Dewey, in his speech to the conference the next evening, warned that “a peacetime continuation of  the regimentation that has been dictated by the war would lead to national failure” and he called for an end to home-front “inefficiencies and bungling.” He said the people were united on three things: winning the war, preventing future wars, and “determination to keep our nation great.” Dewey’s speech, according to one reporter present, “met a dead-pan reception.”18

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The next night’s featured speech was given by Bricker, but it attracted little notice, since most of  the political commentary centered on Dewey as the likely Republican nominee, with Warren of  California as his running mate. A number of  the GOP governors, as noted by Robert Albright of  the Washington Post, were none too happy about all the attention lavished on Dewey, but they viewed his selection as inevitable. “Where else can we go?” they asked. Bricker had come to the conference “apparently spoiling for a fight with Dewey,” but the New York governor pretty much ignored him. Most observers felt that all Bricker had done was “to practically write himself  out of  second place” on the ticket with Dewey.19 Dewey’s coldly efficient and humorless personality won him few friends among his fellow governors, but those few who had, before Hershey, felt that there was a chance of  nominating someone else came away from the conclave understanding that Dewey had matters just about sewn up and there was no chance he would turn down the nomination after his “draft.” As May passed into June, and the convention at Chicago approached, the bandwagon rolled on. In the Nebraska primary in April, six delegates had been elected pledged to the state’s governor, Dwight Griswold, as a favorite son, with six going to Stassen and three unpledged. On June 8, Griswold announced the release of  his six delegates and urged them to support Dewey. A couple of  days later, the New York Times reported that a recheck of  the various delegations showed little or no defection from the Dewey strength, despite the continuing efforts of  Governor Bricker.20 Early in June, Alf  Landon, a senior statesman of  sorts in the party, wrote Dewey: “I think you are doing a masterful job. I like the way you have kept your stride all the time.”21 But there was still muttering coming out of  t he heartland, complaints about that speech to the publishers. We were for Dewey because he was against Willkie, many of  those midwestern politicos were grousing, and now he’s sounding like Willkie. The Dewey strength, ironically, might well depend on whether they thought Dewey really meant what he said. Dewey’s popularity among Republican leaders, it should be kept in mind, was never because of  his personal attractiveness; it was because

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he looked like the man who would be politically strongest in a fight with Franklin Roosevelt, with the best chance to win those big Eastern states with their large electoral votes. But an unspoken part of  the deal was that Dewey would not do anything to jar the political sensibilities of  the heartland. A paper in Fort Wayne, Indiana, ran an editorial entitled “A Pernicious Influence,” decrying the influence on Dewey of  John Foster Dulles, generally predicted to be Dewey’s secretary of  state. With “all the perils implicit in Dulles’ radical philosophy” of  “extreme globalism,” he should quickly be repudiated by the New York governor. Tom Dewey had no intention of  doing that, but these grumblings from the Middle West were signs of  possible danger for the Dewey team.22

9

It Looks Like Dewey

While the Dewey forces worked on accumulating delegate commitments, and John Bricker’s people did what they could to put together an anti-Dewey bloc, the national party officers worked on making sure that the national convention itself  unrolled smoothly and as planned. Harrison Spangler, the Republican national chairman, got together his twenty-six-member arrangements committee in Chicago on April 18 and 19, to see where they stood. Joe Martin of  Massachusetts, the House minority leader, was pretty much agreed on by everyone as the permanent chairman of  the convention. Martin had served in this role in 1940, and there were no complaints about his fairness and efficiency. The question of  the convention’s temporary chairman, however, was very much up in the air. The principal function of  the temporary chairman was to give the keynote address the first night of  the convention. The keynoter gave to the nation, in his speech and even more in his persona, the image of  the party which its leaders wished to present. As the arrangements committee got together, there were quite a few names thrown about as possible temporary chairmen. There was some sentiment for picking someone who was not a politician, someone like Eric Johnston, president of  the U.S. Chamber of  Commerce. There was talk of  Governor Dwight Green of  the host state, of  Senator Arthur Vandenberg of  M ichigan, of  Congressman Charlie Halleck of  Indiana, and 101

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of  Senator Chapman Revercomb of  West Virginia. Some thought of  a woman for temporary chairman, either Representative Claire Boothe Luce of  Connecticut or Representative Jessie Sumner of  I llinois.1 Mrs. Luce was opposed by committee members who thought her selection would indicate an effort to put on a “good show,” rather than the “sober, serious . . . meeting” that Spangler wanted in wartime. Vandenberg’s long, sonorous periods might well, it was felt by some, put the convention and the radio audience to sleep. So, in a surprise move, the committee picked the upbeat Earl Warren of  California for the job, and Warren said he was happy to accept.2 Walter Hallanan of  West Virginia, chairman of  the Committee on Arrangements, took care of  just about everything else—housing, tickets, badges, concessions, decorations, music, and the media. A couple of  weeks later, Spangler said that he had invited both Herbert Hoover and Mrs. Luce to speak at the convention, and both had accepted. Tickets for the convention sessions were guarded very carefully. Hallanan said they would be distributed to officials, delegates, reporters, and visitors only two or three days before the convention opened. The Republican leaders remembered only too well the flood of  counterfeit tickets that had enabled the Willkie forces to pack the galleries in Philadelphia in 1940. There would be no repeat of  that performance, they vowed. Spangler arrived in Chicago on June 15 to operate out of  the national committee headquarters in the Stevens Hotel. In the meantime, workmen had been putting Chicago Stadium in shape for the convention. The main platform was done first, and then 3,200 miles of  w iring was installed for lighting, radio, and other electrical equipment. In the basement there were thirty-seven pressrooms, twelve film-loading rooms, eighteen darkrooms, a telegraph center, an express shipping room for photographers, a camera repair shop, and reception rooms. 3 Seats were provided for 778 newspaper reporters, and there was space as well for 212 feature writers, 100 newspaper and magazine photographers, 40 newsreel cameramen, and 160 radio people. Thirty Klieg lights were set up inside the stadium, as well as two hospital units. The concessions manager brought in quantities of  soft drinks, “and an ample supply of  beer, frankfurters and sandwiches.” Andy Frain’s Usherettes,

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more than a hundred girls in blue blouses and skirts, would attempt to maintain order, along with two hundred veteran Frain ushers. Everything that foresight could provide was on hand.4 The advance guard of  the party began arriving in the Windy City on June 18, with headquarters/reception areas being established for Bricker, Stassen, and Everett Dirksen. Roy D. Moore, Bricker’s campaign chairman, set up shop in his suite. It was reported that Governor Bricker himself  would arrive on the 22nd. Jaeckle, Sprague, and Brownell left for Chicago from Grand Central Station in New York on the afternoon of  the 18th, hounded by newsmen wanting to know what message they carried from Dewey. Sprague said, “The Governor knows I am going to Chicago. He knows Mr. Brownell is going to Chicago, and he knows Mr. Jaeckle is going to Chicago.” This wasn’t quite enough for the media, so Brownell said, “My personal opinion is that the Governor will accept, if  nominated. Any good American would.” And Jaeckle responded, “I think he will accept, if  nominated.”5 The three men arrived in Chicago the next day to spearhead the Dewey forces, opening a “New York” HQ (because Dewey was “not a candidate”) on the 25th floor of  the Stevens Hotel. The press still called it “the Dewey headquarters” and said it was “the largest, slickest and most crowded in Chicago.” Samuel Grafton, from the Los Angeles Daily News, was particularly impressed with “the girl greeters” who “look like professional models.” The Dewey “package,” Grafton concluded, “has been styled according to the best merchandising ideas of  1944.” 6 The three New York leaders went further on Dewey’s availability than they had, publicly, before. Sprague called a press conference and said the three of  them “had come to Chicago to get the Republican National Convention to draft” Dewey for the nomination. Pressed on what assurance he had that Dewey would accept, Sprague answered, “We are here to draft Governor Dewey. Do you think that we would be here to draft him if  he would not accept?” 7 One of  the articles of  faith for the Republican leadership in 1944 was that if  the war against Germany should be ended before the election their chances would be much greater. The shibboleth of  not changing horses in mid-stream would no longer protect FDR. On June 6, the successful invasion of  Normandy by Allied forces had brought that possibility

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considerably closer to realization, so the Republicans would meet in a rosy aura of  optimism. The first actual work of  the convention kicked off  on June 21, when Senator Taft called together his Resolutions Committee for the first informal discussions of  the platform. Taft’s committee was composed mainly of  safely conservative members who could be counted on to follow the lead of  the Ohio senator. Turner Catledge wrote a long article in the New York Times on June 18, as the trains began depositing Republican politicians in Chicago, assessing the chances of  a growing “Stop Dewey” movement. There was, Catledge wrote, a “lurking, outside chance” that Dewey might find a real contest on his hands. There seemed “real doubt” now that Dewey would win on the first roll-call, and this doubt by itself  encouraged some opponents of  the New York governor. After Wisconsin, Dewey’s stock had moved up markedly. Then, wrote Catledge, “the leveling off  began almost immediately after Mr. Dewey’s speech on foreign affairs” to the publishers, which was like a dash of  ice water to a lot of  midwestern “nationalists.” The leveling off  process got another boost from the governors’ conference, where Dewey annoyed many of  the other Republican governors no end by his superior attitude and aloofness and left them a good bit cooler than they had been to his candidacy. One observer wrote that Dewey “seemed rather frigid and not at all inclined to be a friendly mixer,” just the opposite of  Bricker.8 Dewey’s stall became more pronounced as Bricker opened a lastminute whirlwind campaign. Particularly was it noted that the effort to stop Dewey was not aimed at throwing the convention into chaos—from which who knew what might emerge—but was designed specifically to put over John W. Bricker. For, just as many Republicans were cool toward Dewey personally, supporting him only as the best chance of  w inning, so a great many GOP regulars were just as warm to genial John Bricker. No one thought the Ohio governor the intellectual equal of  Tom Dewey, but as a “regular guy” Bricker was much closer to the Republican norm. The Bricker people, as the convention neared, counted 174 definite votes for their man with most likely a first-ballot total nearer to 250. They claimed that Dewey’s first-ballot strength would be about 285, with 529 required to nominate. They expected many Illinois votes to go to Gover-

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nor Green, the 70 votes of  Pennsylvania to go to Governor Edward Martin, and the 35 from Massachusetts to be cast for Governor Saltonstall. Stassen would get votes, Dirksen would get a few, and other favorite sons (perhaps Ray Baldwin of  Connecticut, Simeon Willis of  Kentucky, and Walter Edge of  New Jersey) could split things up. This was the scenario the Bricker men hoped for; it was not what the New Yorkers were saying would happen. “The weight of  statistics and predictions,” Catledge concluded, “. . . still favors a landslide nomination for Mr. Dewey. But there are always other possibilities when a drive such as the one now being made for Mr. Bricker is under way.”9 That day, Roy Moore, manager of  the Bricker drive, said there were still 850–860 delegates unpledged and uncommitted; “many of  these like Governor Bricker and what he stands for.” The Ohio leaders hoped to get the votes of  well more than half  the delegates from the South. The next night, Robert Taft, in a CBS radio broadcast, urged Republicans to back Bricker, saying that “various polls and newspaper stories had not portrayed his true strength.”10 By the time Bricker himself  arrived in Chicago a couple of  days later, however, the “Stop Dewey” drive seemed to have run out of  steam. The Bricker headquarters in the Stevens had been just about empty, and reporters poked fun at the dozens of  placards on the walls, bearing stirring words from various Ohio department heads; these had, wrote one, “the strictly limited impact of  a letter of  recommendation from one’s own mother.” The Ohio governor was greeted by his followers, a band, and a bunch of  newsmen, and he had brave words for them. After expounding at some length on his views about international policy, he got into the mechanics of  the convention just ahead. “I will not withdraw,” he said, “and my name will be presented to the convention.” Asked if  he would take the vice presidency, he replied, “That’s something I will never have to pass upon because I am quite confident that the vice presidential nomination will never be offered to me.”11 At about the same time, though, the Dewey people were hearing that they would likely be getting the fifty votes of  the California delegates, who had, after Warren told them not to present his name, adopted a resolution in Fresno permitting two-thirds of  them to impose the unit rule on the entire delegation. And the Californians seemed to favor Dewey

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(although a surprise conference between Bricker and moviemaker Cecil B. DeMille, an early arriving delegate, gave renewed hope to the Ohioans). In addition, the “favorite son” ploy was failing. Connecticut indicated that it would probably not present its governor Baldwin unless the convention were deadlocked, and there was no indication that, as the Bricker managers had hoped, Illinois and Pennsylvania were going to introduce their governors as “favorite sons.” Connecticut had maintained its uncommitted stance because the vice presidential hopes of  R aymond Baldwin depended, for obvious geographical reasons, on the nomination of  Bricker and not Dewey. Arthur Sears Henning, political writer for the Chicago Tribune, noted ironically that the outstanding impression he gained about the arrivals at the convention was “that of  a large aggregation of  party leaders who are opposed to Gov. Dewey of  New York, but look forward to nominating him for President next week with every manifestation of  enthusiasm.” As he roamed the lobbies of  t he Stevens and Blackstone hotels, Henning encountered numerous national committeemen and state chairmen who much preferred Bricker but reported their delegations “preponderantly for Dewey.” Many of  t hem said they “never have been able to get along” with the New York governor. They found him “intensely arrogant, convinced that he knows it all . . . just another Roosevelt.” Western leaders worried about his foreign policy. But they felt it was “too late . . . for Bricker.”12 It was clear that the Dewey strength came solely from the indication that he looked most likely to be a winner. “To win New York State is perhaps highest among the particular objectives of  the party leaders” arriving in Chicago, one observer wrote, and Dewey was the only one who looked as if  he could do that. “Remarks are often heard . . . that if  the party kingmakers were sure of  success, Mr. Dewey would be passed over for a more ‘regular’ partisan, such as . . . Bricker . . . or even more probably Senator Robert A. Taft.” But that was not to be, and Dewey looked like a sure thing.13 On the same day the Chicago Tribune ran an editorial saying kind things about Dewey. If  Dewey’s nomination was inevitable, then he must be built up to defeat the hated Franklin Roosevelt. It stressed his upbringing as a midwesterner and his position, four years earlier, as “an

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unswerving nationalist,” a position it feared he had left behind. Some of  the editorial was a bit of  a stretch, when it connected the racketeers Dewey had convicted in New York City to Roosevelt, and it did worry about the clique close to Dewey, “a majority of  whom find the Hudson river a wider barrier to their thinking than the Atlantic ocean.” (Perhaps Bertie McCormick was unaware that Albany sat on the western side of  the Hudson.) John Foster Dulles was named as the most notorious “member of  this coterie.” It worried that the delegates might buy “another pig-in-a-poke . . . candidate” and called on Dewey to “make an early and frank statement on all national affairs.” No one, apparently, pointed out to Colonel McCormick that this was almost exactly what Wendell Willkie had been saying in Wisconsin.14 Saturday evening the 24th saw Bricker giving his final pre-convention speech to a packed crowd in the Stevens ballroom. In a change from prior days, when reporters noted the absence of  people coming to the lavish suite in the Stevens, this day had seen lots of  v isitors to the “Brickerfor-President” headquarters, including Gracie Allen, the famous radio comedienne. The Bricker people had been generous in handing out buttons, badges, beer, and bourbon at their hospitality suites. Mrs. Bricker even wrote a couple of  songs for her husband’s convention effort, one to the tune of  the Ohio State fight song, “Fight the Team,” the other to the tune of  “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition.”15 Now the governor did his best to pull it all together. Calling for “forthright discussion” of  the issues, Bricker said, “decisions can’t be made thru silence and subterfuge.” Without naming Dewey, he proclaimed, “This is no time or place for an emotional stampede, if  we are to save the republic from a fatal drift toward absolutism and socialism.” Going after Roosevelt, Bricker said, “He’s commander in chief  of  the army and the navy, but he’s not commander in chief  of  the American people.” The two thousand listeners roared and applauded, but it seemed a lost cause.16 Early on Sunday June 25, the Illinois delegation held a surprise caucus and, in a move orchestrated by Governor Green, fifty of  the fifty-six delegates present agreed to vote for Dewey on the first ballot. This was a coup that caught the other big state delegations, particularly Pennsylvania’s, off  g uard and increased the possibility that Green might be

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chosen for the second spot on the ticket, although the Illinois governor disclaimed any interest in that position. California would be the first big bloc of  votes called on the roll call, but Illinois, as the second big state, would make the bandwagon roll ever faster. The Pennsylvania delegation was scheduled to caucus on Sunday night, when Governor Martin was expected to bow out of  a favorite son role and endorse Dewey, but its support of  the New York governor would now look like jumping on that bandwagon. The Bricker people, unfortunately, would now have to watch more and more delegations jumping onto that same bandwagon. On Sunday night, on the eve of  the convention, Bricker accepted the invitation of  the Stassen people to drop into their headquarters and give a brief  speech, but there was no talk of  t he two candidacies joining together against Dewey. It was too late for that. Later, station WGN and the Mutual Broadcasting network aired from 8 to 9 o’clock highlights of  a welcoming party in the Stevens ballroom for delegates and alternates. Fulton Lewis, Jr., the conservative Mutual commentator, was the moderator, and short talks were made by Colonel McCormick, Governor Green, Harrison Spangler, and Joe Martin. Martin in his talk proposed as the issue of  t he campaign: “Do we want the American way of  l ife, or state socialism?”17 As the Republicans’ big show prepared to open, where was Wendell Willkie, the “titular leader” of  the party? Willkie was back home in New York. On May 17, party chairman Spangler had written to Willkie that he had been allotted a seat on the stage “with the other honored guests” and given six box seats, five seats in the arena, and five in the mezzanine. On June 16, Spangler announced to the press that Willkie had been invited to attend, with “other prominent personalities in the party.” Asked about this, Willkie said, “Mr. Spangler very kindly offered me a ticket so that I could listen to the proceedings of  the convention.” He did not use the ticket.18 What Willkie did do, two weeks before the convention, was publish a series of  seven articles, summarized as a “Proposed Platform” for the party, stating his views on the issues before the country. These articles appeared daily, beginning June 12, in the New York Herald Tribune, with many other papers across the country also running them. But the Republican Party ignored them, just as it ignored Willkie himself. The old

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guard felt that it could humiliate Wendell Willkie by not inviting him to speak on the platform and not permitting him to speak to the convention. Spangler justified this snub on the grounds that Willkie had refused to commit himself  to support the party nominee.19 But solving the Willkie question would not be so easy for the GOP. Leo Cherne, secretary of  the Research Institute of  A merica and part of  Mutual’s convention broadcasting team, in a radio broadcast on the eve of  the convention, said that the party had committed a major “and perhaps fatal blunder . . . snubbing” Willkie. No convention of  recent history, Cherne said, had so heavy a shadow of  a man not a candidate hanging over its every step. “And in fear of  that shadow, in fear of  the ‘trouble’ that Willkie might cause had he been invited to participate in the convention, the GOP may have committed suicide if  the race for the Presidency is close.” No one would know this, of  course, until November.20 Catledge of  the New York Times said “it promised to be one of  the most cut-and-dried conventions” in the party’s history. Dewey seemed like a sure thing, and the Dewey people had decided on Earl Warren as the vice presidential candidate. A reporter for the Atlanta Journal said, “If  you close your eyes and open your ears, there is nothing to the Republican National Convention . . . but Governors Dewey of  New York and Warren of  California. They are ‘in the bag,’ so it is repetitiously chorused.”21 But they still had to go through the formalities. Perhaps some surprises were in store.

10

The Republican Convention

As the delegates rose for breakfast on Monday morning the 26th of  June, before their trek to Chicago Stadium, they were greeted with an editorial in the Chicago Tribune calling upon them to remember “how they were tricked and humiliated in 1940,” in what the editorial called “the Crime of  Philadelphia.” “This convention must be sternly American,” it thundered. “If  we have a fourth term, it will be the fault of  this convention, and the Republic will fall.” With this ominous load imposed upon it, the convention gathered.1 Chairman Harrison Spangler called the first session to order at 11:16 a.m., although half  the spectators’ seats were empty. After a singing of  the national anthem and an opening prayer, Spangler introduced Governor Dwight Green of  I llinois for a speech of  welcome. Green started with a standard denunciation of  “the fascist minded federal bureaucracy” and called for a Republican victory in November that “will strike dread into the hearts of  the enemy.” Green was followed at the podium by the winner of  the essay contest of  the Young Republican National Federation, a 21-year-old army private from Minneapolis named Harry Reasoner. “I don’t believe that any young man has ever stood before an assemblage like this and felt as deep a sense of  humility as I feel right now,” Reasoner said, little dreaming that national conventions would become a routine event in his long career as a newsman.2 110

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Next came the election of  California’s Earl Warren as temporary chairman, the appointment of  numerous committees, and the ratification of  necessary housekeeping rules and regulations. All this accomplished, the initial session ended and the delegates, sweltering in what turned out to be a record-setting Chicago heat wave, headed back to their hotels for cold drinks and cooling baths. That evening a considerably larger crowd turned out, although the heat in the hall was still brutal, abetted as it was by the large beaming floodlights set up for the benefit of  the motion picture photographers. The feature of  the evening that had drawn the crowd was Warren’s keynote speech. Warren eschewed the traditional hell-raising, fire-in-the-eye keynote speech, instead setting forth a friendly, reasoned summary of  the issues as he saw them. Among those he consulted in preparing his talk was the disillusioned ex–New Dealer Raymond Moley, who advised the California governor to stay “far above the political battle.” Warren endeavored to do so, and his speech contained a three-fold pledge with which no one could argue, to bring America’s soldiers home quickly and victorious, to reopen the doors of  economic opportunity to all, and to safeguard the peace of  the world in the future. Referring to the anticipated Democratic slogan, Warren brought the cheering delegates to their feet when he said, “For eleven long years we have been in the middle of  the stream. We are not amphibious. We want to get across. We want to feel dry and solid ground under our feet again.”3 The talk was well received, as was the fact that the movie lights were turned off  halfway through it. The Kansas City Star wrote of  “the frankness, the tolerance, the reasonableness that permeated the Governor’s address.” Henning in the Tribune called it “one of  the most masterly presentations of  issues in the history of  convention oratory.” Another listener, however, said the speech “indicated that the Republicans were against aggression, New Dealism, and the man-eating shark.” 4 Just about everyone in the convention agreed that Warren, handsome and personable, was a cinch to be named for the vice presidential slot. Dewey’s people wanted him, and his keynote talk let everyone see what an asset he would be to the ticket. Besides, the New York-

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to-California connection was considered simply good politics. It was expected that Warren would be nominated by acclamation when the time came, shortly after Dewey’s selection. Tuesday morning was marked by an unwelcome swarm of  fl ies and an unplanned 45-minute recess while the credentials committee struggled over a contested Oklahoma delegate seat. Finally came Joe Martin’s election as permanent chairman and his lengthy speech in response, “an address that took the New Deal apart and exposed its failures and fallacies,” in the unbiased words of  the Chicago Tribune. Martin spoke of  his sympathy for the Democratic Party, captured by a minority whose philosophy it supposedly despised. “It has become a prisoner of  the New Deal,” he proclaimed. “This election, curiously, is not merely a fight to put the Republicans into office but, by a strange twist of  fate, it is also a fight to emancipate the Democrats.”5 Martin’s oration finally wound down and the delegates wandered back to their hotels, where they heard more news about additional state delegations pledging their first-ballot votes to Thomas E. Dewey. The newsmen added the figures and came up with something in excess of  800 votes committed to the New York governor, far more than the 529 needed to nominate. Back in Albany, the non-candidate started working on his acceptance speech, even though he had never yet said publicly that he would accept the nomination. Still, the Bricker and Stassen people refused to throw in the towel. It was announced that Bricker would be placed in nomination by Mayor James Garfield Stewart of  Cincinnati, with a seconding speech by Senator Moore of  Oklahoma. Senator Joseph H. Ball of  M innesota was to do the honors for Stassen. There was not much prospect, though, of  l ightening things up. Col­ umnist Anne O’Hare McCormick wrote that the convention “has no air of  carnival. It is dull. It seems to make a point of  dullness.” The delegates, she wrote, “don’t expect any surprises and they are not likely to get any.” Another columnist “reported in candor and truth that no national convention of  either major party has ever been so dreary and dull as this current gathering,” and Ernest Lindley called it “close to rock-bottom in dullness.” The heat, of  course, was a major contributor to the lethargy, along with the wartime backdrop and the fact that Republi-

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can politicos tended to be more staid and proper than their Democratic counterparts.6 Some of  t he delegates made their way back to Chicago Stadium for what promised to be the most boring of  a ll the convention sessions. Tuesday afternoon was set for the presentation and adoption of  the party platform. There had been a stir on Monday evening when fifteen Republican governors trooped into the room where the Resolutions Committee was working out the platform, making it clear that they felt they were being bypassed in the deliberations. Raymond Baldwin of  Connecticut served as their spokesman; he said, “We are not a group of  insurgents, by any means. We’re interested in a Republican victory and we want to see the platform and give our opinions on it.” Unspoken but implied was their feeling that they the governors best represented the resurgent Republican Party, not the senators and congressmen who dominated the platform committee. The meeting broke up at one in the morning, after the governors had had their say, and chairman Taft said their ideas would be fully considered.7 The only other contention over the platform was almost predictable. Wendell Willkie called the proposed foreign policy plank “ambiguous” and ineffectual. He said it was subject to opposing interpretations and could be used to choke off  effective collaboration with other countries to maintain peace. He likened the language in the proposed plank to that employed in 1920, when thirty-one leading Republicans said the formula set forth “was the surest road to an effective international organization,” only to have Harding, relying upon the same plank, announce immediately after his election that the League of  Nations was dead. Clearly Willkie had little trust in Thomas E. Dewey and his intentions.8 Even Willkie’s supporters, though, were caught off  g uard by his objections, and the party’s “internationalists” rejected Willkie’s criticisms. Senator Warren Austin of  Vermont said, “It is not ambiguous. It definitely stands for the employment or direction of  military or economic reactions to prevent or repel military aggression. . . . Our policy, stated in the plank, is against a superstate.” Austin, of  course, felt that it was his baby that Willkie was attacking. Austin had carried on a voluminous correspondence with Dulles and Vandenberg in the weeks before the convention, to make sure he got all the right nuances into the plank

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he was writing. Bob Taft said, “I’d be very much surprised if  the plank adopted by the Democratic platform committee suits Mr. Willkie any better than that of  the Republicans.”9 Willkie’s enemies in the party were nastier in their reactions. Werner Schroeder, Illinois national committeeman and a McCormick ally, said, “Willkie is again trying to bolt. He is laying the foundation to return to his first love—the New Deal.” Another Illinois delegate said, “What this convention does is none of  Willkie’s business. This is a Republican convention.” And a Wisconsin delegate referred to “the lesson that the voters of  Wisconsin taught Mr. Willkie when they ran him out of  the state and out of  the party in April of  this year.”10 After all this fuss, the platform was put together by Taft and its committee and brought forth on the late afternoon of  June 27, before what one reporter called “a scattering of  delegates.” As most platforms do, it made vague promises to as many different interests as possible. The work had been approved in its final form by the Resolutions Committee, with the motion to accept made by Mary Donlon of  New York, Dewey’s personal link with the group. It was read to the convention in its entirety, all 4,600 words, by Taft, whose faintly unpleasant voice put many of  those sweltering in the sparsely filled hall to sleep. Only one cheer went up during Taft’s performance, that coming with the call for a constitutional ban on more than two terms for any president. When the Ohio senator was done after thirty-five minutes, Martin quickly moved adoption of  the platform, waited a second to see if  any floor fight was in prospect, then banged his gavel and the platform was adopted at 5:35 p.m.11 Not everyone was enamored of  the platform. The Washington Post condemned the labor plank as being too close to what the CIO wanted and showing “no signs” of  “ dispassionate balanced judgment.” Walter Lippmann wrote after the convention that “Senator Taft and the small number of  old guardsmen who were in charge of  the platform have given Governor Dewey an opportunity to prove his qualities.” Even aside from “its intentional ambiguity on foreign policy,” the pundit wrote, the platform “is an invitation to all the pressure groups . . . to plunge the country into the chaos of  an uncontrolled and uncontrollable inflation of  prices and wages.” Thus, for Dewey “the platform is a formidable obstacle to be overcome, to be superseded, to be reshaped.” Lippmann called the

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document, “as regards domestic affairs as reckless and as mischievous as irresponsible politicians dared to make it,” and said Dewey would have to show by his attitude toward the platform “whether he can lead and govern the country.”12 A reporter called on Wendell Willkie in his Fifth Avenue apartment after the platform was adopted despite his opposition to the foreign policy plank and read to him Senator Austin’s prediction that Willkie would “lend strong support” to the plank. With his eyes sparkling, the 1940 candidate replied, “In the language of  Priscilla, speak for yourself, Warren.” Then he added, “I have no statement to make at this time.”13 The delegates came back again for an evening session, in which the temperature inside the hall was just about 100 degrees, with the air conditioning system inoperative. A writer observed that they sat “almost as in a stupor,” although they perked up some when a fellow came through selling cardboard hand fans at a quarter each. The evening’s scheduled business was a couple of  speeches, one by former president Herbert Hoover and the other by Clare Boothe Luce, “the glamour girl of  the GOP.” The big thing on the minds of  the assembled politicos, though, was an unexpected development in the vice presidential selection.14 Earl Warren told his delegation shortly before the night session that he would not accept the vice presidential nomination. A recent biographer maintains that Warren took his position because he saw clearly that Roosevelt could not be beaten in 1944. That, of  course, was not the reason for his declination that he announced publicly. “In good conscience,” he told his caucus, he could not go back on a commitment he had made to the people of  California to serve out his term as governor. This seemed to make his campaign pledge something more binding than the same pledge Dewey had made to the people of  New York, but the uncomfortable GOP kingmakers didn’t want to talk about that just then. What they were faced with, suddenly, was a possibly unscripted and uncontrolled fight for the second spot on the ticket.15 With the Bricker and Stassen contingents vowing to fight to the finish, no one was quite sure where the vice presidency was going. Bricker seemed a logical choice, but perhaps not if  he fought Dewey to the bitter end. Governors Green of  I llinois and Griswold of  Nebraska were considered possibilities, although nobody thought they would add much

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strength to the ticket. Massachusetts delegates let it be known that they’d like to see their governor Saltonstall get the nod, but that idea picked up little support—bad geography, for one thing. Somebody suggested Dirksen, but his name aroused little interest. Earlier, Congressman Harold Knutson of  M innesota had floated the idea of  r unning Senator Harry Byrd of  Virginia on the ticket with Dewey, hoping to pick up major Democratic support in the South, but it had gone nowhere. In the meantime, the delegates got to listen to Hoover.16 The former president, still wearing the high, stiff  collar for which he was noted, was greeted by a roaring demonstration of  over a minute that brought tears to his face. Hoover spoke in a soft voice, denouncing the tyranny of  Franklin Roosevelt. No one remembered what he had said a couple of  minutes after he said it, but he was beloved by these Republicans and they cheered him lustily. After Hoover came Mrs. Luce, former Vanity Fair editor and playwright, speaking supposedly for the women of  A merica, looking cool and dazzling and far younger than her forty-one years. Mrs. Luce minced no words in her denunciation of  the twelve years of  Democratic rule, which she said were “distorting our democracy into a dictatorial bumbledom.” The major part of  her talk was a maudlin melodrama about G.I. Joe, who would be coming home after the war to an uncertain future, and his buddy, G.I. Jim, lying in a grave overseas because Roosevelt lied the country into war. She called upon the party to “choose a president who need not apologize for the mistakes of  the past but who will redeem them, who need not explain G.I. Jim’s death but who will justify it.”17 Most of  the crowd loved the performance, as the onetime actress moved up and down the scales of  emotion apotheosizing G.I. Jim and blaming the President for the war, but some of  her listeners were turned off  by it. Even some of  Harry Luce’s Time people were made uncomfortable by what they considered a “cheap” address; a British diplomat found it to be “sentimental gush.” A writer for the New Yorker wrote that Mrs. Luce’s speech “made it difficult to keep anything on our stomach for twenty-four hours. To hint,” the magazine writer went on, “that the American war dead died because the majority of  us voted wrong in the last three elections is a palpable misstatement of  fact as well as a staggering breach of  taste.” At least Clare Boothe Luce had achieved what so

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few convention speakers are able to do: she had delivered a memorable speech.18 When the delegates showed up the next morning, they learned that everything had been straightened out overnight, by Dewey’s “Three Musketeers” putting the arm on Bricker. After getting Dewey’s consent by phone, they agreed to give the second spot to the Ohio governor in exchange for his dropping out of  the presidential race. At breakfast time Senator Ball learned of  the new development and agreed to go along. Bricker and Stassen (and the almost-forgotten Everett Dirksen) would drop their hopeless candidacies, Dewey would be nominated unanimously, Bricker would then be given the vice presidential nomination, Dewey would appear on the scene for his acceptance speech, and everybody would go home happy. The convention would end twenty-four hours ahead of  schedule, which would make the weary and overheated delegates happy. And that’s pretty much the way it worked out, with a few little wrinkles. When Congressman Martin called the Wednesday morning session to order, it moved quickly on to business. The first order was nominating speeches for president, and Governor Dwight Griswold of  Nebraska placed Dewey’s name in nomination. When he finished there was a halfhearted demonstration of  about five minutes, which “fell flat as a pancake,” according to one observer. When Martin then recognized John Bricker as the next speaker, pandemonium broke out. The Bricker demonstration went on for about fifteen minutes and was obviously much more heartfelt than that for Dewey. Bricker said, “ I am more interested in defeating the New Deal philosophy of  absolutism which has swept free government from its moorings throughout the world . . . than I am in personally being President of  the United States.” While some of  his supporters shouted “No!” the Ohio governor asked his friends “not to present my name to this convention but to cast their votes . . . for Thomas E. Dewey for President of  the United States.”19 One observer, calling Bricker’s appearance “the most dramatic moment of  a ll,” felt as many others did, “that if  Bricker tossed his hat back into the arena” at that point, “he might have upset the applecart of  the big boys in the back room who had called the signals.” It had been “common report throughout the convention . . . that many preferred to vote for the

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Ohio governor.” What such a turnaround on Bricker’s part might have done to the Republican Party is not pretty to contemplate. But Bricker kept his bargain, and so he was, just like that, out of  the presidential picture.20 So it was over—almost. There were several more seconding speech­es for Dewey, and then Martin went on with the formality of  calling the roll of  states. Arthur Vandenberg, who had been a MacArthur backer, learned that Dr. John P. Koehler, one of  the Wisconsin MacArthur delegates elected back in April, was planning to nominate the general with a twelve-page speech. Vandenberg decided that it would be a poor show to put MacArthur up, so he talked it over ahead of  time with Martin and the two of  them resorted to what Martin called “a little dipsy-doodle.” As Koehler got to the stage, Vandenberg accosted him and engaged him in argument long enough for Martin “to give Wisconsin the barest time I decently could on the roll call.” When Koehler finally got past Vandenberg, Wyoming had been called, and Martin ruled Koehler out of  order.21 When the roll was called for voting for the presidential nomination, a dairy farmer from Beloit, Wisconsin, named Grant A. Ritter, out­ raged at what he had just seen at the stage, cast his vote for Douglas MacArthur. So the official tally was: Dewey 1056, MacArthur 1. It was not unanimous.22 Next came the vice presidency. Governor Edward Martin of  Pennsylvania presented Bricker, four seconding speeches followed, and that was it. Bricker was nominated by acclamation, exactly forty-one minutes after the presidential voting, and the Republican ticket for 1944 was official: Thomas E. Dewey of  New York, and John W. Bricker of  Ohio. An editorial in the Chicago Tribune noted that “the comparison between the two tickets will be of  striking advantage to the Republicans if  the CIO, the Communists, and the rest of  the radicals who have taken over the Democratic party succeed in inflicting Henry Wallace on that party again.”23 The convention adjourned to await its evening session and conclusion, the acceptance speech of  Governor Dewey. Even before his nomination had actually taken place, Dewey, his wife, and accompanying party had taken off  f rom the Albany airport, bound for Chicago in a

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chartered plane with a short stopover in Cleveland, where the nominee paid a brief  tribute to “my good friend, your very distinguished Gov. John Bricker.”24 The biggest and liveliest crowd of  t he convention showed up on Wednesday night. The twenty-one thousand seats in the hall were filled and another four thousand people stood in the aisles and in the wings. At 8:45 p.m. the doors were thrown open to one and all, with or without tickets. The Republican faithful from all over wanted to see and hear the man of  mystery to whom they had entrusted the party’s standard. And Dewey did not disappoint them. His chartered plane set down in Chicago at 7:33 p.m., and a tumultuous crowd, including Governor and Mrs. Green, greeted the nominee at the airport. Dewey’s lengthy motorcade was welcomed by another big crowd at the Stevens, where he was met by his mother, down from Owosso, Michigan, and his wife’s parents, up from Sherman, Texas. The New York governor changed and rested briefly at the Stevens before going on to the stadium, where a vast throng was waiting with an enthusiastic reception. Columnist Frank Kent wrote about Tom Dewey’s great opportunity. “If  he has it in him,” Kent wrote, “he can revitalize the convention, establish immediate and effective party leadership, and start his campaign off  w ith real enthusiasm and justified hope. . . . It is very much up to Mr. Dewey.”25 Dewey spoke for twenty-six minutes, and one reporter counted sixty-nine interruptions of  laughter, cheers, and applause; he also had a moment of  annoyance when he had some photographers removed from the stage. He denied the existence of  any “pledges, promises and commitments” to anyone and added, “That I have not sought this responsibility all of  you know.” Dewey pledged to bring “an end to one-man government in the United States.” He vowed that a change in administration would bring no change in the leadership that General Marshall and Admiral King were giving to the war effort, and he would put an end to civilian interference in the conduct of  the war. The administration, Dewey said, is old and tired (the Republican code words for “Roosevelt is sick and dying”), proving that three terms is too many. Giving the lie to the defeatist New Deal, Dewey concluded, “Our country is just

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fighting its way through to new horizons. The future of  A merica has no limit.” The crowd roared its approval as their candidate stepped back, and Chairman Martin brought the convention to a close.26 The Republicans, hoping for a winning candidate, loved the speech. Bricker said, “It was perfect,” and Taft said it was “beautifully delivered, magnificently thought out.” An editorial in the Los Angeles Times called it “one of  the best that any political convention has ever produced.” Wallace White of  Maine, the Republican Senate leader, said, “The speech squared with Republican views and, I hope, with those of  the great mass of  the American people. It reflected the freshness and vigor of  a vigorous young man.”27 Columnist Ernest Lindley pointed out, however, that Dewey, in praising General Marshall and Admiral King, “necessarily pays a very high tribute to the President.” Both Marshall and King were chosen for their posts by Roosevelt, and “neither was an automatic appointment recommended by seniority. They were both hand-picked” and jumped over the heads of  numerous seniors. Lindley mentioned too that Dewey’s scorning of  civilian interference in conducting the war might be “an indication that he does not grasp the nature of  war or the duties of  the President.” The strategy of  a coalition war is very much a civilian thing, “intertwined with international politics and diplomacy.” Keeping China in the war and coordinating Russian and Anglo-American war plans could not have been done by military men alone.28 Most of  the reaction to Dewey’s nomination and acceptance was favorable. A reporter from Massachusetts said it “came up to every expectation of  the delegates and aroused even those who had been lukewarm to genuine enthusiasm.” Even Wendell Willkie tried to send a telegram of  congratulations but was frustrated by Western Union’s wartime regulations against accepting congratulatory messages. The text of  Willkie’s effort, though, hailing the great opportunity now afforded Dewey, was put on the radio and the nominee responded graciously. What some noticed was that Willkie’s carefully crafted message contained no pledge of  support. The New York Times noted that Dewey “was in excellent speaking form, despite the emotional stress of  h is new responsibility as a candidate and the trip from Albany. His voice was clear, firm and resonant.”29

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Meanwhile, the experts and editorialists weighed in on the Dewey nomination. The Los Angeles Times had no doubts about what it meant: As plainly as any such signpost can, it points the way to a Republican victory in November. . . . The seven-year hegira of  cities, States and sections from the New Deal pastures of  g reen excelsior to lusher fields of  R epublicanism is too plain of  portent to be denied or disparaged. . . . By how much it will be augmented by Gov. Dewey’s nomination remains for the polls to tell. But that his choice as the Republican standard-bearer will give it tremendous impetus and increment there can be not the slightest doubt.”30

Pundit Westbrook Pegler, certainly no fan of  Franklin Roosevelt, was not so sure, as he sat down and analyzed the Republican convention and its delegates. “They came here with little confidence of  v ictory in November,” he wrote, “and it would be untrue to report that they are confident even now, although they are giving one another transfusions of  optimism . . . but they do believe the Republic will fall if  M r. Roosevelt and, perhaps, Henry Wallace are President for four years more.” They believe they must “save the nation. . . . And they are raising themselves from their early pessimism to a self-induced hope, if  not a conviction, that it can and might be done.” In four-plus months, they would find out. 31

11

Meanwhile, the Democrats

For the Democrats, their concern began and pretty much ended with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. They felt fairly confident of  v ictory if  FDR headed their ticket in 1944, and they hated to think of  what would happen if  he did not. As far back as December 1942, presidential secretary Marvin McIntyre, in a conversation in the White House with Jonathan Daniels, said that “nobody but the President or someone on whom the President put his finger could be elected in 1944.” Daniels responded that he “doubted if  anybody but the President could be elected in 1944.” But he said that FDR just had to build somebody else up.1 One problem, of  course, was that Roosevelt had not built anyone else up, so that the question seemed to come down to Roosevelt or nobody. The President was keeping his intentions very much to himself, but he had a frank discussion at lunch with Frank Walker in December 1943. He told Walker, his postmaster-general (and at the time also Democratic national chairman), “that if  they nominate Bricker or even Dewey we should try to get Willkie on our side.” When Walker asked him whom he wanted as his vice presidential candidate, Roosevelt replied, “We have three candidates—Sam R[ayburn], Jimmie Byrnes and Wallace.” He went on, “We could give Wallace some international assignment—Sam would be all right but I don’t know whether he would be helpful politically.” Then the President told Walker, “We have to talk politics once a week from now on.”2 122

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One man he seems not to have talked politics with was Harold Ickes, who wrote a friend early in January 1944, “On the Democratic side I don’t know any more than you do.” One thing he did know, though: “If  Roo­ sevelt should not run, the result is likely to be a shambles.”3 Later in January, the Democratic National Committee met in Washington, acceded to Walker’s wish to be relieved of  h is DNC responsibilities, and named Robert Hannegan of  St. Louis as the new national chairman. There was, as could be expected, much buzzing among the assembled politicos about the upcoming election year, and, as columnist Arthur Krock wrote, “less than a dwarf’s handful expressed the slightest doubt Mr. Roosevelt will seek the presidency again.” These politicians, too, discussed with Krock how “acutely aware” they were of  the fact that FDR had given no room to any other Democrat “to attain nominating size.” The only names that were heard as possibilities were of  t wo men who had national reputations before the New Deal came to Washington, Cordell Hull and Harry F. Byrd of  Virginia. Even should Hull or Byrd be nominated (and Byrd would surely be anathema to the President), the thinking went, his prospects of  election would be far dimmer than Roosevelt’s.4 But what were Roosevelt’s prospects? In November 1943, Fortune published a poll taken by Elmo Roper that found 56 percent of  those polled rating Roosevelt as good on domestic problems and 70 percent favoring his conduct of  the war and his foreign policy. But, as we have seen, through the early months of  1944, Roosevelt had more and more trouble with Congress, Democrats as well as Republicans, on those domestic problems. 5 By the end of  March, United Press correspondent Allen Drury noted in his diary, “All over the country there is a great instinctive protest against the continuation of  Roosevelt in power. . . . Deep down under, America is restless under a domination which has continued too long; it just doesn’t feel right about it.” Was Drury on to something, or was he spending too much time hanging around Republican cloakrooms? “It is a curious thing,” he wrote, “this vast psychological protest, unthinking, unvocal, truly instinctive, with which people are hoping so desperately that the Republicans will give them the answer.” Few others seemed to feel this great protest that ate at Drury, so time and events, once again, would tell.6

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To help move things along, Democratic hopefuls fanned out across the country, giving talks to groups of  t he party faithful at JeffersonJackson dinners and other functions. There was little or no talk of  presidential candidacies—such talk held in abeyance until FDR should rule himself  out—but much veiled discussion of  possibilities for the second slot on the ticket. Henry Wallace was no favorite of  old-line party leaders—his strength was mostly with labor leaders and the more leftist enthusiasts—so the party workers were open to many of  the names being mentioned—names of  some of  those on the banquet circuit like Barkley and Rayburn, and other names like Byrnes and Hull. A Gallup poll published on March 5 gave a jolt to some of  these party leaders. It showed that, nationwide, rank-and-file Democrats favored the renomination of  Henry Wallace by a surprisingly wide margin. With six names presented to them as possibilities for the vice presidency, 46 percent of  Democrats queried chose Wallace, with 21 percent for Cordell Hull, 13 percent for Jim Farley, 12 percent for Rayburn, 5 percent for Byrnes, and 3 percent for Harry Byrd. Even in the South, where party leaders had been highly critical of  Wallace, those polled supported Wallace by 42 percent to 20 percent for the next closest name. Anti-Wallace observers, of  course, could decry the poll as being skewed toward the incumbent, of  having unrealistic alternatives such as Farley and Byrd, and of  omitting real possibilities like Alben Barkley. They could (and did) say that the poll actually showed a slight majority of  Democrats supporting anyone but Wallace. Nevertheless, the poll did make things a little tougher for those portraying Wallace as “unelectable.” 7 Wallace was not usually invited to the local Democratic dinners— party fundraisers like Ed Pauley felt that Wallace would inhibit attendance and enthusiasm—so he missed out on these chances for contacts with party workers (and potential delegates) from around the country. Pauley arranged for Speaker Sam Rayburn to speak at the Jackson Day dinners in Los Angeles on March 28 and in San Francisco two nights later. He had convinced Rayburn to make himself  available for the vice presidency and took the opportunity to showcase the speaker in California. The Truman Committee was conducting an investigation in Seattle at about the same time, and Pauley hoped to attract Senator Truman to the same two dinners as well.

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Truman was delayed in Seattle and missed the Los Angeles dinner, at which Rayburn made a fine impression. The Missouri senator made it to San Francisco, and Pauley later told a story of  a meeting in Truman’s suite at the Mark Hopkins Hotel before the dinner. Present in the hotel room were Truman, Pauley, Rayburn, and two of  Truman’s senatorial colleagues, Mon Wallgren of  Washington and Harley Kilgore of  West Virginia. “We were kidding about the coming convention,” Pauley said, “and Senator Wallgren said that Harry Truman was a cinch for the Vice Presidency.” Pauley then responded, “I have to tell you now that I have already announced myself  for Rayburn, and I am for him.” In the awkward silence that followed, Truman relieved the pressure; he laughed and insisted on toasting Rayburn’s candidacy, and he went on to do the same thing when he spoke at the Jackson Day dinner that evening. If  t here was one thing that Harry Truman pretty obviously did not want, it was a nomination for vice president.8 Andrew Higgins, the head of  H iggins Industries in New Orleans, was a most valuable industrialist for the war effort, turning out fourteen thousand combat boats for the U.S. Navy and allies. He and Harry Truman became friends, and Higgins took it upon himself  to write to leading business and political figures his suggestion that Truman should be on the 1944 ticket. When Truman learned what Higgins was doing, he wrote him on June 13, saying, “Please don’t run me for Vice-President. I have no ambition to be the Vice-President. While it is a most honorable office and anyone ought to be honored to fill it, I like my job as a United States Senator, and that is where I want to stay.”9 A political reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Ed Harris, who knew Bob Hannegan well, related that the St. Louis leader confided to him a year before the ’44 convention that he would like to see Truman as FDR’s running mate. He tried as best he could to raise consciousness of  Truman around the country. “Truman was reluctant,” Harris said. “He took Hannegan’s urgings with a chuckle and several grains of  salt. He didn’t want to be the running-mate, anyway, but he half  played-along.” Harris was sometimes in Truman’s office when Hannegan dropped in, “and we would kid about the subject. But Hannegan always was serious, if  not Truman.”10

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Truman aside, if  t here was one man who was adamant that he did not want Henry Wallace, it was Ed Pauley, the California oilman and party treasurer. George Allen, the secretary of  t he DNC, himself  involved in the anti-Wallace wheeling and dealing, said, “Ed Pauley deserves more credit than anyone else for stopping Wallace.”11 Wallace was nominated in 1940 only when Roosevelt said he would not run without him; chances were regarded as slim that FDR would take the same position in 1944. There was a story going around the political gossip circuit that Wallace was somehow involved with a woman in New York City. When Roosevelt heard about it, he was delighted: “if  Wallace was having an affair with a woman, that was at least something he could understand.” Later it turned out that Wallace’s involvement with the lady was “not physical but metaphysical—they were involved together in a quest to discover the true Buddha.” Hearing this, FDR threw up his hands in dismay: “we can handle sex but we can’t handle religion.” Henry Wallace was regarded by most politicos as a strange character.12 Democratic speakers stressed continuity as a necessary function of  a successful wartime and postwar policy, often using the “horses in midstream” metaphor as a handy way of  expressing this. Bob Hannegan, speaking in Buffalo, said the Democrats would win because “our record as a party in this great crisis justifies that victory,” adding that the Republicans would find themselves sadly mistaken if  they expected victory because voters were angry at their rationing board. “Sure, we are sore at these wartime restrictions,” he said, “but we will take it out on Hitler and Hirohito.” Alben Barkley told a Jackson Day crowd in Charleston, West Virginia, “it is unnecessary to emphasize the need for continuity of  leadership in the war and in the peace that is to follow.” Barkley dodged a question as to whether he supported FDR for a fourth term—of  great interest in his case because of  the squabble over the tax-bill veto—but there was not much doubt as to whose “continuity” he was seeking.13 And so the activists in the Democratic Party—Pauley, Hannegan, Walker, Barkley, and others—filled the early months of  the year with the standard efforts to win supporters and raise money with which to run the fall campaign. They tried to make it “politics as usual,” but it really was not. The truly important activity centered, as always, about one man, one seemingly “indispensable” man, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His

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choices, his decisions, his activity would ultimately lay the groundwork for the 1944 election. One factor that apparently had little weight in the president’s thinking was his own mortality. FDR, when he gave any thought to the vice presidential question, was not thinking of  someone who might take his place; he thought of  a candidate who might be easy to nominate, a candidate who would cost him the least number of  lost votes, a candidate who, if  he was vice president, would help Roosevelt get his proposals and programs through the Senate—especially those concerned with the peace to follow the war. It was in this last regard that Henry Wallace, after four years as the Senate’s presiding officer, was particularly lacking; Roosevelt knew how little respect the members of  the upper house had for Wallace.14

12

The Ailing President

Franklin Roosevelt was not well over the winter of  1943–1944. He had come back from the Big Three conference at Teheran in December 1943 looking to concentrate his energies on the war effort, only to find do­ mestic affairs occupying far too much of  his time and mind, including a recalcitrant Congress and a threatened railroad strike. He contracted a rather severe case of  influenza, called colloquially “the grippe,” and he had difficulty shaking it. The Teheran conference seemed to mark some sort of  watershed in Roosevelt’s health. While at the meeting in the Iranian capital, the first with both Churchill and Stalin, the President had an attack of  some kind. Charles Bohlen, a State Department official who was present at the first dinner there on November 28, recorded that FDR “suddenly, in the flick of  an eye . . . turned green and great drops of  sweat began to bead off  his face; he put a shaky hand to his forehead.” Harry Hopkins gestured to the attendants, Roosevelt was wheeled to his room, and Admiral Ross T. McIntire, his physician, said it was indigestion. The next morning Roosevelt seemed fine, and nothing was made of  whatever had happened the night before.1 Other than the November 28 incident, however, Roosevelt ap­ peared to be in good shape at Teheran. Bohlen, his interpreter, noted that FDR never showed “any signs of  fatigue,” and Lord Ismay, Chur­ chill’s chief  of  staff, wrote that Roosevelt “looked the picture of   health.” 2 128

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Still, Sam Rosenman, who saw the President often, felt that the con­ ference in Iran was “the turning point of  his physical career . . . [and] that his physical decline can be dated from Teheran, although at the time we did not see it.” Roosevelt suffered a bronchial affliction there, giving him a wracking cough, and the bronchial condition persisted, later aug­ mented by the flu. He had gallstones. His wife noted that he ran a low fever at intervals all through that winter; she thought he had picked up a bug on the long and taxing trip. “Franklin did seem to feel quite miser­ able, which was not altogether astonishing, considering that he had been through so many years of  strain,” she wrote. 3 Jim Farley, no longer a friend, reported receiving “disturbing reports about Roosevelt’s health” after the return from Teheran. Farley wrote that “hundreds of  persons, high and low, reported to me that he looked bad, his mind wandered, his hands shook, his jaw sagged, and he tired easily.” No doubt there was exaggeration in Farley’s recollection, but there was certainly some deterioration in the President’s health.4 One of  the curious factors in Roosevelt’s health history was the con­ tinuing and influential presence of  his personal physician. Ross McIn­ tire was an ear-nose-and-throat specialist, a Navy physician since 1917, who was recommended to the new president in 1933 by Admiral Cary Grayson, whom FDR had known since Grayson’s tenure as Woodrow Wilson’s doctor. Grayson told McIntire, “The President is as strong as a horse with the exception of  a chronic sinus condition that makes him susceptible to colds. That’s where you come in.” McIntire and Roosevelt became friends, above and beyond the doctor-patient relationship. Mc­ Intire, over the years, took care of  Roosevelt’s sinuses, and FDR took care of  McIntire. As the President’s personal physician, he rose to the rank of  admiral and was eventually named Surgeon General of  the Navy. It was certainly in McIntire’s interest to keep his benefactor and pa­ tient healthy; it also seemed to him to be in his interest to squelch any rumors of  i ll health on the part of  the President. So long as Roosevelt’s main problem was his sinuses, McIntire seemed to be the man for the job (although medical science has since agreed that the medicine he prescribed for FDR’s sinuses tended to raise his blood pressure); as Roo­ sevelt’s body wore down in late 1943 and early 1944, Admiral McIntire was overmatched. 5

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FDR spent Christmas 1943 at Hyde Park. He and Eleanor were joined by two of  t heir sons, Franklin, Jr., and John, as well as their daughter Anna Boettiger, who moved into the White House at her fa­ ther’s request. Anna, whose husband was overseas, became a valued intimate of  her father, helping to fill the voids left by his secretary Missy LeHand, bedridden with a stroke, his longtime appointments secretary Marvin McIntyre, who had died while FDR was in Teheran, and the ailing Harry Hopkins, who moved his family out of  t he White House in December.6 Even on the banks of  the Hudson, though, Roosevelt continued to be troubled by influenza and bronchitis, “and experienced several attacks of  acute respiratory infection in the weeks that followed,” according to McIntire. He was still ailing when he returned to the White House and after two weeks in Washington returned to Hyde Park. Several press conferences during this time were called off, while the President’s illness continued.7 On February 2, Roosevelt journeyed out to the Bethesda Naval Hos­ pital for the removal of  a wen, a benign skin tumor, from the back of  his head. His daughter Anna and his cousin Daisy Suckley accompanied Roosevelt to the hospital and were relieved to see FDR emerge after about fifty minutes, “quite cheerful and normal,” with just a bandage on the back of  his head. Eight stitches closed the wound, and McIntire pro­ nounced it “a perfect performance in every way.” A few days later FDR reported to Ed Flynn the removal of  the stitches and said, “My head is coming along.”8 While the removal of  a small wen had gone well for Roosevelt, this seemed the least of  his problems. On March 21, he was confined to quar­ ters with a reported head cold, and a scheduled press conference was cancelled. Three days later, his secretary Bill Hassett said he was “not looking so well,” though he did hold a press conference that day. Hassett said that every morning, when he asked the President how he felt, the response was “rotten” or “like hell.” And on March 25, Aubrey Williams, former head of  FDR’s National Youth Administration, who had dined at the White House a few nights earlier, told the Atlanta Journal that he thought Roosevelt would not run in 1944; “he looked so tired and worn that I was shocked.” A couple of  days later, gossip columnist Walter

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Winchell visited the White House and concluded that FDR “looked aw­ ful. . . . His voice was so weak, so very weak.”9 In the past Roosevelt had bounced back well from any illness, but in the early months of  1944 he failed to regain his customary vigor. Anna insisted that Admiral McIntire have comprehensive medical testing done of  her father. Accordingly, after Roosevelt, in Eleanor’s absence, entertained Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd at Hyde Park on March 26 (the first time that Lucy had been to Hyde Park), the next day he returned to Washington for his overall physical at Bethesda. He was examined there by a young cardiologist in the Navy Medical Corps, Dr. Howard G. Bruenn.10 Dr. Bruenn found the President to be “very tired, and his face was very gray. Moving,” he observed, “caused considerable breathlessness.” Bruenn administered a battery of  tests and procedures, including an electrocardiogram, fluoroscopy, and X-rays of  the chest. After these were completed, Bruenn diagnosed the President with hypertension, hyper­ tensive heart disease, cardiac failure (left ventricle), and acute bronchi­ tis. “These findings and their interpretation,” Bruenn later wrote, “were conveyed to Surgeon General McIntire. They had been completely un­ suspected up to this time.” Although such a diagnosis made it doubtful that such a patient could lead the country for four more years of  a world war and the peace that would follow, Surgeon General McIntire was not about to spread it on the public record, and he ordered Bruenn to keep his conclusions quiet as well.11 Bruenn recommended that Roosevelt have one to two weeks of  bed rest with nursing care, a daily dosage of  digitalis, “a light, easily digestible diet,” with small portions and restricted salt intake, codeine, sedation, as well as “a program of  g radual weight reduction.” The drug digitalis strengthens the contraction of  the heart muscle, slows the heart rate, and helps to eliminate fluid from body tissues. These recommendations were rejected by McIntire “because of  the exigencies and demands on the President.” Instead, FDR was “placed on modified bed rest and given cough syrup with ammonium carbonate and codeine.”12 On March 28, after Roosevelt returned from Bethesda, he was asked at his press conference how he felt. “You mean personally?” he responded. “Yes,” came back the questioner. “I got bronchitis,” he said,

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to laughter. “But otherwise?” came the question. “But otherwise—fine,” FDR replied.13 By this time Roosevelt’s appearance at his press conferences had worsened, although the reporters did not press the issue. His hearing had deteriorated so that he often had to have questions repeated, and his once booming voice had so weakened that reporters in the rear of  the Oval Office had a hard time hearing him. His hands trembled, and he had occasional lapses in memory, and Steve Early would have to step in with a correction. Merriman Smith later pointed out that, while Dr. McIntire was cer­ tainly at fault for the misleading rosy statements about the President’s condition, so too was the press for not following up on what was plain before them. Smith believed that Early was “completely honest in what he said about Mr. Roosevelt’s condition,” but Early too was getting his information from McIntire.14 Doctor Bruenn saw the President at the White House over the next few days at the end of  March, finding little change and reinforcing his diagnosis of  “some degree of  congestive heart failure.” He continued to urge digitalis, often used to treat such a condition. On March 31, he and McIntire met with “the two honorary medical consultants of  t he Navy,” Drs. James A. Paullin and Frank Lahey. After the two special­ ists went over the history and charts, and after they examined Roo­ sevelt at the White House themselves, they concurred with Bruenn that digitalization was appropriate. The administration of  d igitalis was then begun.15 Lahey also urged that Roosevelt be fully informed of  his condition and what was being done to stabilize or correct it. He knew that FDR had, over the years since his polio attack, maintained a lively interest in the course of  that disease and had fully informed himself  of  the meth­ ods and instrumentalities used in combating it. Franklin Roosevelt was a model patient when he knew what was going on. McIntire demurred and ordered Bruenn to inform no one; Roosevelt was not advised of  his condition and, contrary to his prior practice, it appears he never asked about it. “At no time,” Bruenn wrote, “did the President ever comment on the frequency of  these visits [by Bruenn] or question the reason for the electrocardiograms and the other laboratory tests that were performed

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from time to time; nor did he ever have any questions as to the type and variety of  medications that were used.”16 Of  course, he knew that Bruenn, who now became a regular member of  the President’s entourage, was a cardiologist, so FDR’s incuriosity may well have been calculated. If  he never asked what Bruenn knew or discovered about him, he could answer press conference questions more freely than if  he had been advised that he suffered from congestive heart failure. Roosevelt did call his cousin Daisy the night of  the Bethesda examination to report that they “found nothing drastically wrong, but one sinus clogged up.” And, of  course, Admiral McIntire answered most questions with the stock reply that Roosevelt was in fine shape for a sixtytwo-year-old man.17 The White House press corps, after the Bethesda checkup, pestered Steve Early to make McIntire available for questions, which he did on April 4. The physician blithely reported Roosevelt’s health as “satisfac­ tory” and said, “When we got through, we decided that for a man of  62plus we had very little to argue about, with the exception that we have had to combat the influenza plus the respiratory complications that came along after.” About all he needed, McIntire said, was “some sunshine and more exercise.”18 Roosevelt went to his office on April 7 for the first time since March 28 and met with the White House press corps. The correspondents thought “he looked better than when they last saw him” and “seemed more rested than he did ten days ago.” He appeared to be “in his custom­ ary good humor.”19 Nevertheless, the doctors decided that Roosevelt should have an extended period of  rest and relaxation far from the pressures of  Wash­ ington. Bernard Baruch offered to put up the President and his entourage at his estate in South Carolina, called the Hobcaw Barony, and this invi­ tation was gratefully accepted. On April 10, the White House announced that Roosevelt had left the capital and gone south, though just where was not disclosed for security reasons. He would be away for about two weeks, and he was accompanied by Admiral William Leahy, McIntire, and his two military aides, Wilson Brown and Pa Watson. Three press service correspondents were permitted to accompany the party, to stay in nearby Georgetown, South Carolina, and to file no stories until the

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President’s return to Washington. No mention was made of  Dr. Bruenn, the cardiologist.20 The planned two weeks at Baruch’s estate turned into four, but the stay was a very good one for the President. Eleanor later wrote that “Hob­ caw was just the right place for Franklin, who loved the country and the life there, and he stayed almost a month.”21 Roosevelt awakened each morning about 9:30, had breakfast in bed, and met with Dr. Bruenn. His morning was taken up with reading news­ papers and correspondence, followed by lunch with his staff. After lunch came a nap, and then FDR went fishing, motoring, or meeting with the visitors who came from time to time, including Eleanor, Anna, Daisy Suckley, and Lucy Rutherfurd (not when Eleanor was present), plus “var­ ious important dignitaries on urgent business.” In late afternoon FDR went over the contents of  the daily “pouch” from Washington, followed by dinner at 7, after cocktails. The President usually had one or two dry martinis. The dinner and after-dinner conversation was “animated with the President playing the dominant role,” and around 8:30 or 9 p.m. he would give the signal that the evening was over.22 On April 28, Roosevelt met with the three press service reporters, who had been enjoying themselves in Georgetown with little to do. “I am really having a perfectly good time,” the President told them. “I am doing very little work. I am resting, sleeping, and absorbing all the sun possible. I am sleeping about twelve hours a day, catching up on some of  the sleep I have lost during the past twelve years.”23 On May 6, just before returning to Washington, Roosevelt met again with the three press corps representatives. Asked to “review” his vaca­ tion, FDR said, “I don’t want to review it. In one word, I have rested. Had a very quiet time. Been out in the sun as much as possible. Done some fishing.” He said he felt “fine. Really better.” He seemed quite chipper, although this state was not a constant one.24 Later in the month, the President invited Turner Catledge, the New York Times political reporter, for a private meeting at the White House, presumably to discuss the national political scene. Catledge had not seen FDR for several months, and when he entered the presidential of­ fice he “was shocked and horrified—so much that my impulse was to turn around and leave. I felt I was seeing something I shouldn’t see.” He

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noted that Roosevelt had lost a great deal of  weight, and “he was sitting there with a vague, glassy-eyed expression on his face and his mouth hanging open.” Catledge went on: Reluctantly, I sat down and we started talking. I expected him to ask me about the political situation, but he never did. He would start talking about something, then in midsentence he would stop and his mouth would drop open and he’d sit staring at me in silence. I knew I was looking at a terribly sick man. . . . A doctor had explained to me that it was a case of  a man’s heart not pumping enough blood to his brain, so that at times he simply could not speak or think to his full capacity . . . [M]y talk with him lasted more than an hour . . . I had the impres­ sion of  a man who very badly wanted someone to talk to. And so we talked on, although he never brought up politics. Repeatedly he would lose his train of  t hought, stop, and stare blankly at me. It was an agonizing experience for me. 25

It seemed a characteristic of  the President’s failing health that he could have episodes as described by Catledge, Winchell, Aubrey Wil­ liams, and others, and at other times appear healthy and alert. Neverthe­ less, four more years of  perhaps the most demanding job in the world looked to be quite an undertaking for such a man. Ed Flynn, too, saw Roosevelt after his return from South Carolina and was shocked by his appearance and his apathetic demeanor. Flynn begged Eleanor to keep him from running again, although there is no evidence that she ever tried to do so. Bill Hassett noted in his journal when Roosevelt returned to the White House, “brown as a berry, radiant and happy, insisting he has had a complete rest, the President was in fine form.” Still, he said, the President looked thin and perhaps had not shaken all the effects of  the flu that had bothered him for so long. In any event, however, Franklin Roosevelt was back on the main stage, ready, for better or for worse, to deal with the war, the peace, and the political race, and Dr. McIntire, with his misleading reassurances about FDR’s health, was a major actor in the play.26

13

Will Roosevelt Run?

As the Democrats worked toward their Chicago convention, their unsettled picture was confused in several ways. The first big question was whether Franklin D. Roosevelt would again be their candidate for president; a negative answer to this one, they knew, would be devastating to the party’s chances in 1944. The other question was that of  his running mate, and there were several things that seemed somewhat clear as the time for decision approached: (1) Henry Wallace was the incumbent, favored by labor, liberals, and an unknown mass of  the general public, perhaps simply because he was the incumbent. He was bitterly opposed by leading big-city Democratic bosses and the South. (2) Jimmy Byrnes was the next most probable candidate, although his Southern roots and his religious orientation gave pause to some Democratic leaders. (3) A few other possibilities existed—Alben Barkley, Justice Wil­ liam O. Douglas, Scott Lucas of  I llinois, Sam Rayburn, Governor J. Mel­v ille Broughton of  North Carolina, Judge Sherman Minton of  Indiana, Harry Truman of  M issouri, Paul McNutt, and several others—but no one knew what their respective strengths might be.1 (4) Franklin Roosevelt, who could straighten out the whole mess with a few well-placed words, was doing little to resolve the is136

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sue and seemed to want no more than to have someone else take care of  it for him. Management of  the war effort, of  course, was a pretty good reason for his indecisiveness, as was, perhaps, his declining health. A Roosevelt biographer, however, disagrees with this assessment, calling FDR “the key player of  the vice presidential poker game.” In this view, Roosevelt encouraged so many potential candidates “that none would have a clear-cut majority, while he would let his own choice be known so late that those opposed to the person selected would not have time to coalesce and thwart him.” This theory, of  course, overlooks the obvious, which was that FDR could have announced his running mate early in the game and that would have been that, thereby eliminating much residual ill-feeling.2 Ed Flynn, who knew the President well, thought he understood why Roosevelt was reluctant to take a stand on the vice presidency, why he permitted several outstanding Democrats to believe they enjoyed his favor. “I did not think,” Flynn wrote, “President Roosevelt enjoyed the physical strength and mental vigor he had in the past. He had aged considerably. I believe that in order to rid himself  of  distress or strife and rather than argue, he permitted all aspirants for the nomination to believe it would be an open convention.”3 There was that other major problem outstanding, of  course, which was that FDR had not yet agreed that he would run. As 1944 rolled on, however, the leaders of  the party simply assumed that Roosevelt would run again; any other possibility looked like disaster for the Democrats. As one editorial said, “there appears to be no other Democrat who could hope to defeat Dewey this year.” But FDR again was never a sure thing.4 Late in 1943, the President had written to Governor Herbert B. Maw of  Utah in response to Maw’s letter suggesting that Roosevelt indicate his willingness to run in 1944. “I want to give you, in all frankness, my reasons why I think this statement cannot be made on my behalf  or by me,” the President said. His one consideration was “to win this war . . . a stern and difficult business,” and he would “not be keeping faith with the trust which the people have given me” and with his legal duties as commander in chief  “ if  I were to give any consideration to the Presidential

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election, which is more than a year away.” Similarly, the decisions that had to be made concerning the postwar world should not, he said, be made with any thought of  political advantages or disadvantages. 5 Roosevelt stuck to this line of  thinking for month after month. His evasion of  questions concerning his plans for 1944 became a source of  mirth in his weekly press conferences, as the President tried to spot when and whence the question was coming and the reporters laughed at FDR’s new and novel ways of  refusing to answer it. Despite his wife’s later reminiscence that “I knew without asking that as long as the war was on it was a foregone conclusion that Franklin if  he was well enough, would run again,” it appears that Roosevelt’s uncertainty may have been real enough (with FDR, of  course, one can never simply take him at his word in matters like this). After returning from his South Carolina sojourn, Roosevelt asked Admiral Leahy to make arrangements for a June trans-Atlantic voyage (later scrubbed) and a July journey to Hawaii and Alaska. When Leahy asked about the bearing of  these trips on the approaching campaign, Roosevelt replied, “Bill, I just hate to run for election. Perhaps the war will by that time have progressed to a point that will make it unnecessary for me to be a candidate.” 6 In unscripted moments with his cousin Daisy Suckley, Roosevelt was similarly ambivalent, and it is difficult to imagine him playing political word games with Daisy. In February 1944, he told her he wanted “out of  h is grueling job.” When she asked him in May if  he had decided on a running mate, he said, “I haven’t even decided if  I will run myself.” What would decide him, he said, “will be the way I feel in a couple of  months.” Even in early July she felt he was “rather uncertain in his mind about himself: whether he really is strong enough to take on another term. . . . On the other hand, whether it is not his duty to carry on, as long as he is able.” 7 In June, Ed Flynn was invited with his wife to visit the White House for a weekend. Both Flynns were dismayed to observe how FDR’s health had deteriorated, and Flynn, his personal friendship overcoming his political instincts, urged the president not to run for a fourth term. “I felt that he would never survive the term,” Flynn later wrote. Roosevelt, ignoring Flynn’s plea, asked the Bronx boss to make a survey of  the country’s political feelings to help him come to a decision.8

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Finally, on July 11, with the convention drawing near, as his regular press conference was drawing to a close, Roosevelt said to Merriman Smith of  United Press, the senior correspondent who customarily closed matters, “I have got something else for you and the doors are locked, so you can’t get out. I am interested in preventing accidents.” Having forestalled a mad dash to the telephones, as Steve Early got up and actually did lock the door, Roosevelt answered Bert Andrews of  the New York Herald Tribune, who asked, “Are you going to tell us about the fourth term, Mr. President?” FDR smiled and said, “Well, this time you have guessed right.”9 He stated that he had received a letter from DNC Chairman Han­ negan noting that a majority of  delegates to the forthcoming Democratic convention had already been instructed to vote for his renomination. He then read his response to Hannegan: I feel that I owe to you, in candor, a simple statement of  my position. If  t he Convention should carry this out, and nominate me for the Presidency, I shall accept. If  t he people elect me, I will serve. Every one of  our sons serving in this war has officers from whom he takes his orders. Such officers have superior officers. The President is the Commander in Chief  a nd he, too, has his superior officer—the people of  t he United States. I would accept and serve, but I would not run, in the usual partisan, political sense. But if  t he people command me to continue in this office and in this war, I have as little right to withdraw as the soldier has to leave his post in the line. . . . For myself, I do not want to run. By next spring, I shall have been President and Commander in Chief  of  t he Armed Forces for twelve years—three times elected by the people of  t his country under the American Constitutional system. After many years of  public service, therefore, my personal thoughts have turned to the day when I could return to civil life. All that is within me cries out to go back to my home on the Hudson River. . . . Such would be my choice. But we of  t his generation chance to live in a day and hour when our Nation has been attacked, and when its future existence and the future existence of  our chosen method of  government are at stake. . . . Therefore, reluctantly, but as a good soldier, I repeat that I will accept and serve in this office, if  I am so ordered by the Commander in Chief  of  us all—the sovereign people of  t he United States.10

So FDR was officially a candidate, to the surprise of  very few. As Wendell Willkie said that day, “Is that news?” One paper wrote that it was “not exactly news, because nobody really expected him to decline.”

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Nevertheless, for the Democratic Party and its stalwarts, Roosevelt’s announcement brought a great sense of  salvation. One Washington reporter told of  seeing “the expressions on the faces of  three Democratic Senators in committee this morning when they heard the news. It was as though the sun had burst from the clouds and glory surrounded the world.”11 Herbert Brownell issued a statement, with Tom Dewey’s approval, reading, “Mr. Roosevelt is the first of  thirty-two presidents of  the United States to claim that the title of  Commander-in-Chief  makes him a soldier and to use that title as a pretext to perpetuate himself  in political office.” When a reporter quoted from Dewey’s acceptance speech the statement that it was the duty of  any good American to accept a nomination for president and asked if  that reasoning applied to Roosevelt as well, Brownell harrumphed and replied, “Mr. Dewey’s statement speaks for itself. It was very clear and does not require elaboration by anyone else,” which left a lot of  smiles on reporters’ faces.12

14

Who Runs with Roosevelt?

For some time Roosevelt had been feeling much pressure from various parts of  the Democratic Party concerning his choice for the vice presidential nomination. The CIO-PAC’s Sidney Hillman met with him on November 8, 1943, for forty minutes, telling him that labor was losing confidence in the conduct of  domestic policy as part of  the war effort and that the only man around Roosevelt favored by labor was Henry Wallace. Roosevelt realized that labor was crucial to Democratic success in 1944, but at the same time he was getting repeated versions of  a different message, from party leaders who talked of  the damage Wallace would cause to the national ticket if  he were a part of  it.1 Roosevelt had done little to straighten out the vice presidential mess, and the party, just days before its Chicago convention, opening on July 18, had to face again the question which had been vexing its leaders for so long: who would run on the ticket with Franklin Roosevelt? The afternoon after his press conference in which he agreed to run for a fourth term, Roosevelt called Leo Crowley, head of  the Foreign Economic Administration and a confidant, to his office to discuss a running mate. According to Crowley, FDR said first that “Byrnes would make the best vice-president” but then dismissed that possibility by remarking that “the colored question would come up and then we’d have a lot of  trouble.” Crowley, upset at the rejection of  his friend, ran over to Byrnes’s office to tell him what he had heard.2 141

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That same evening, Roosevelt was having dinner and a meeting at the White House with Democratic leaders, primarily to discuss the vice presidency. The most obvious issue, of  course, involved the incumbent, Henry Wallace. Wallace had been out of  the country, on a fact-finding and goodwill mission to China and Russian Siberia. Wallace’s advisors were concerned that a long absence just before the convention would jeopardize his renomination effort, but Wallace trusted that FDR would look after his interests, while Harold Young, his chief  political aide, would continue efforts to develop delegate strength. The vice president’s supporters pointed to the trip as demonstrating Roosevelt’s trust and confidence, as a sign that he regarded Wallace as capable of  handling the presidency. Wallace’s detractors suggested that sending him halfway around the world at such a time showed that FDR wanted him out of  the way. Wallace left on his trip on May 20. “I have asked the Vice President of  the United States to serve as a messenger for me in China,” Roosevelt said in a statement that day. 3 After seven weeks of  travel, covering some twelve thousand miles in both Siberia and China, Henry Wallace returned to the United States via Alaska on July 5. While Wallace was away, the party leaders opposing him, particularly Ed Pauley, had continued trying to undermine him with the President. No one really knew what Roosevelt’s leanings were; Ellis Arnall, the liberal governor of  Georgia, visited him several weeks before the convention and FDR said it should be Wallace “right down the line.” Of  course, Roosevelt knew that that was what Arnall wanted to hear.4 Wallace arrived back in Washington on July 10 and was told by the White House that, before seeing Roosevelt, he was to meet with Harold Ickes and Sam Rosenman, to discuss domestic politics. Wallace was irked by this required meeting; he wanted to get together with Roo­se­ velt, and he knew that Ickes, in particular, was no friend of  his. He wired Rosenman from Seattle, “Believe should see President before meeting you mentioned.” Nevertheless, the meeting with the two emissaries took place first. 5 Harold Ickes was an interesting choice for this assignment. He and Wallace had engaged in their share of  bureaucratic clashes over the years, and he regarded Wallace as hopelessly impractical in administra-

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tive matters. Ickes had had a revealing meeting with Sidney Hillman, the Vice President’s strongest supporter, on June 18. As Ickes noted, Hillman “was not unaware that there were serious objections to Wallace.” However, the labor leader insisted the running mate “must be a liberal,” with “certain qualities and be able to attract certain types of  votes.” When Ickes suggested Douglas as a liberal alternative, Hillman reacted quite strongly against the justice, saying “that Douglas had never been tested . . . [N]o one knew what he would do under pressure.” Hillman’s reaction was the same to Truman, whom he dismissed as “a rural Missourian . . . out of  the notorious Pendergast machine.” 6 At the meeting with the Vice President, Ickes and Rosenman came right to the point. They informed Wallace that the President had decided not to press for his renomination for the second spot, though he still preferred it, and that the vice president would be well advised to step aside voluntarily. They told him that he would cost the president many votes if  he were on the ticket in November, and that he should step down for the good of  the party and for the achievement of  FDR’s postwar aims. Wallace brushed them off; he would discuss his political future with Franklin Roosevelt, not with them. In any event, he did not believe them and he had no intention of  stepping down voluntarily. He would plead his own case for remaining on the ticket for 1944.7 Wallace did in fact meet with the President later that day, talking for two hours and five minutes. Collared by reporters while leaving FDR’s office, Wallace said, “We had a very lengthy conference about China. We discussed nothing else. The situation is very grave in China.” Asked if  the domestic political situation was discussed, the vice president replied, “No, it was not mentioned.” Was he a candidate? “We’ll have to talk about that at some future time,” though he allowed that he was going to Chicago, as chairman of  the Iowa delegation and as its favorite son.8 Wallace was not being quite candid with the newsmen. After a briefing on the trip to Siberia and China, Roosevelt brought up the political issues at hand. He told Wallace about the reports he’d been getting that the Iowan’s name on the ballot would cost from one to three million votes; nevertheless, he still preferred Henry as his running mate and would say so. Wallace offered to withdraw, but Roosevelt did not take him up on the offer. He did not want Wallace to be humiliated, if  the con-

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vention turned him down, but Wallace said he would take that chance if  FDR still wanted him.9 Roosevelt, of  course, was being slightly disingenuous. He was always unable to deliver bad news face-to-face, and this trait was partially responsible for his assurances to Wallace, for whom he had a personal affection. He had also indicated to Jimmy Byrnes that, deep down, Byrnes was his choice for vice president—but he could not say so publicly because of  Wallace. And soon he would be somewhat committed to a third possible candidate, albeit an unwilling one. The fateful meeting on July 11 took place at the White House, where Roosevelt joined Ed Flynn (who had apparently put the gathering together), George Allen, Mayor Ed Kelly of  Chicago, Postmaster General Frank Walker, Ed Pauley, and Bob Hannegan for dinner. (The Democratic leaders had come in through the east entrance, so their presence would not be noted. Jimmy Byrnes knew they were coming and took the opportunity to intercept Frank Walker before he went in, to have Walker pass along a message to Roosevelt that he, Byrnes, could support a permanent FEPC, thereby, perhaps, removing black objections to his candidacy.) After a leisurely repast, the diners moved upstairs to FDR’s study on the second floor to talk about vice presidential candidates. Here John Boettiger, Roosevelt’s son-in-law, joined them. All of  these men (except Boettiger) had been part of  the anti-Wallace conspiracy, so there was little mention of  the incumbent. They talked about Byrnes, Barkley, Rayburn, Douglas, and Truman. Roosevelt himself  contributed little to the conversation.10 Paul Porter, publicity director of  the Democratic National Committee, related what he was told by Hannegan about the meeting. “They all fenced around trying to get him to speak up,” Porter said, “but the Old Man just wasn’t going to play it that way. He had his own reasons, whatever they were, for being cagey, and he wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction they were after.” So FDR sat back and listened to his guests.11 Jimmy Byrnes, who thought he enjoyed Roosevelt’s favor, was discussed at length. He was well known for his role as “assistant president” for domestic business during the war, but he had drawbacks, and all of  these were brought forth. Blacks, it was said, would look upon Byrnes with disfavor because of  his Southern background and civil rights record,

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including leading the opposition to an anti-lynching bill in the Senate. (His pre-dinner FEPC gambit apparently did Byrnes little good.) Roman Catholics would not favor him, because of  his conversion to Protestantism. Labor was not happy with Byrnes, because he was the man who enforced the wartime “Little Steel” policy of  wage restraint and no strikes. Ed Flynn was a particular foe of  Byrnes, who had helped to humiliate the Bronx politico when he had been nominated by FDR for an ambassadorship, and Flynn now made sure to bring out all of  Byrnes’s liabilities.12 Rayburn was dismissed out of  hand, as a southerner (Rayburn always contended that his hometown of  Bonham was more Western than Southern), and, more importantly, because he could not even give Roosevelt a united state party; the Texas Democrats were bitterly split over the fourth-term question and were threatening to withhold their electoral votes from the national ticket.13 Barkley, it was felt, was too old; the Republicans were trumpeting the youth of  t heir candidates as a subtle means of  questioning Roo­ sevelt’s health, and Barkley on the ticket would make the distinction between the presidential candidates a more glaring one. “Barkley is too old,” Roosevelt said; “he’s even older than I am.” Besides, Roosevelt was still smarting over the fuss Barkley had raised about the tax-bill veto; the Senate leader’s slighting remarks about FDR’s Christmas-tree farm had cut deeper than the Kentuckian realized.14 Roosevelt voluntarily brought up Ambassador John G. Winant and William O. Douglas. Roosevelt had earlier touted Winant to Attorney General Biddle as a possibility (Biddle thought him a “perfectly terrible” choice). Winant’s name at this meeting generated no enthusiasm (among other reasons, he was a Republican and a poor public speaker), but Douglas was discussed more thoroughly. The Supreme Court justice at 53 was considerably younger than the others mentioned (and the President), he was recognized as a liberal thinker without some of  the drawbacks Wallace carried, and FDR said he was a good poker player. The men present, however, were not anxious to take on a relatively unknown quantity in Douglas, so they dismissed his chances by saying he was not well known nationally and could not help the ticket.15 Finally, they talked about Harry Truman, after Roosevelt said, “All right, Bob—start talking.” Hannegan pointed out that Truman had a

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reliable New Deal voting record in the Senate, that his border-state residence would mollify worried southerners, that he was respected by black and labor leaders. His status as a Senate insider should help FDR with passage of  postwar programs. Best of  a ll, of  course, was the excellent public perception of  the Truman Committee, the committee that, in three years under the Missourian’s tutelage, had saved the government billions of  dollars and helped to improve its defense-procurement program. Public awareness of  the great contributions of  this committee was a political attribute of  the highest value.16 Roosevelt again brought up the question of  age for the various possibilities discussed, since this issue had already eliminated Barkley. No one professed to know how old Truman was (although most of  them knew he was 60), so John Boettiger was sent off  to find a Congressional Directory. Somehow he never got back with the information before Roosevelt, realizing that these men had made up their minds, agreed that the choice for a running mate was Truman. He said to Hannegan, “Bob, I think you and everyone else here want Truman.” Accordingly, Hannegan was given the task of  g iving the news to Henry Wallace, while Frank Walker was assigned Byrnes, to tell the “assistant president” that he was no longer being considered. As the meeting was breaking up, Walker suggested to Hannegan that it would be a good idea to get a note or something in writing from Roo­ sevelt, a little protection against a presidential change of  mind. Hannegan agreed and went back to the study and asked FDR to put in writing what they had all agreed on. Roosevelt wrote a note in longhand and gave it to the DNC chairman, who met Walker outside and said, “I’ve got it!”17 The next morning Hannegan visited the White House again, presumably to have FDR’s handwritten note typed on official stationery. The typed note contained the names of  both Truman and Douglas as running mates to whom Roosevelt would have no objection. There is speculation that the handwritten memo of  the night before may have had just Truman’s name; Harry Truman later said that Hannegan showed him a handwritten note from FDR at the convention that had only his name in it—“a piece of  scratch paper about two inches by eight and it had only one name mentioned in it and that was mine”—but no one else has ever seen such a document. (After Hannegan’s death, his widow had

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in her possession a handwritten note from FDR, presumably the one he scribbled that night, with the names of  Truman and Douglas in it.) Another wrinkle arose when Roosevelt’s secretary, Grace Tully, later wrote that the president’s dictation to her placed Douglas’s name first and that Hannegan then had it retyped with the order of  the two names switched. This, too, would seem to be a case of  faulty memory, for the handwritten note had Truman’s name first and there would not have appeared to be any necessity for Roosevelt to “dictate” the note whose typed version matched the handwritten one.18 Hannegan visited Wallace around midday, told the vice president he was no longer a viable candidate, and was virtually shown the door. Wallace wrote of  the meeting, “He said he wanted to tell me that I did not have a chance. He said I ought to withdraw.” Wallace refused to discuss matters with the national chairman; he had lunch scheduled that day with Roosevelt. At that luncheon FDR told him about the previous night’s meeting and the prevailing opinion of  the bosses that Wallace would hurt the ticket. Wallace offered to withdraw—“If  you think so, I will withdraw at once”—but Roosevelt said “he could not think of  accepting it.” As the vice president was leaving, FDR said, “While I cannot put it just that way in public, I hope it will be the same old team” and promised Wallace a job in “world economic affairs” if  he lost out at Chicago.19 So Wallace stayed in, prepared to go to the convention and fight for renomination. He apparently took the president’s words at face value, although he was savvy enough to understand what they really meant, and at this point started to plan a convention struggle. Later, after the convention, Wallace wrote in his diary that “he wanted to ditch me as noiselessly as possible.”20 Word got around the capital about the mysterious meeting at the White House, although not its outcome, amid “a hectic atmosphere of  corridor gossip and rumors, counter-rumors, reports, and counter-reports,” presumably just what FDR wanted. Nevertheless, he continued to give Wallace and Byrnes hope for their candidacies. He told the vice president that he would send a letter to the Democratic convention stating his preference for Wallace as his running mate, and he encouraged Byrnes to stay in the race, implying that he would ultimately support him.21

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The evening of  July 12, after the White House meeting, Roosevelt discussed the whole vice presidential situation with Daisy Suckley and his daughter, Anna. He found it all “thoroughly harassing & wearing” and he was “trying to get it out of  his hands.” He felt either Wallace or Byrnes would probably get it and noted that Wallace was much nearer to his “thoughts and view of  things but is a poor administrator,” while Byrnes “would be a good executive” but had his electoral problems with the Catholics, blacks, and labor.22 Arthur Krock wrote a column in the New York Times discussing the Democrats’ problem. Assuming that Wallace would be dumped, he listed as vice presidential possibilities Byrnes, Barkley, Truman, Douglas, Winant, Kerr, Jackson, McNutt “and one or two horses so dark that at present their outlines cannot be discerned.” Noting then the clearly emerging Republican accent on youth, he went over the ages of  a ll of  the Democratic possibles and noted that the ones most favored by the party leaders—Barkley, Byrnes, Truman, and Rayburn—were all 60 or over and would play into the Republican strategy.23 FDR had on several occasions in the past discussed the vice presidency with Byrnes, who had been considered for the position in 1940, before Roosevelt insisted upon Wallace. Frank Walker, in the spring of  1944, had urged Byrnes to make himself  available. Hannegan spent two hours with Byrnes on June 13, trying to convince him to run for the second slot, and the next day Roosevelt urged it on him. Several days later, at Shangri-La, the presidential hideaway in the Catoctin Mountains of  Maryland, FDR again tried to get Byrnes aboard. Byrnes wrote, “I did conclude that he was sincere in wanting me for his running mate and I found myself  beginning to think about it seriously.”24 On July 6, though, Roosevelt had lunch with Ickes and Rosenman and, according to Ickes, said he could see no political sense to Byrnes as his running mate; recognizing the increasing importance of  the black vote in the big Northern states, he “did not want anyone below the Mason-Dixon line.” That same day Anna Rosenberg, a member of  the War Mobilization Advisory Board, visited Byrnes after a meeting with the President, telling him that Flynn had objected to Byrnes on the ground that the blacks of  New York would vote against the ticket with the South Carolinian on it and cost FDR New York State. The next day Hannegan

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told Byrnes that he had been hearing the same song from Flynn. On July 12, following the prior evening’s dinner meeting at the White House, Walker saw Byrnes, as he had been assigned to do, told him that Flynn had repeated his arguments, and that Byrnes’s “chances for the nomination were not as good as they had been,” with Truman and Douglas “now strong possibilities.” Then Leo Crowley, a close friend of  both Byrnes and Roosevelt, told Byrnes that the President had told him of  Flynn’s strong opposition.25 With Crowley present, Byrnes then called Roosevelt on the phone and said, according to him, “Leo is here in my office and has repeated his conversation with you. I would like to know if  you have changed your opinion about my being a candidate.” Roosevelt, he said, replied, “You are the best qualified man in the whole outfit and you must not get out of  the race. If  you stay in, you are sure to win.” The next morning, July 13, Byrnes visited the President’s office on official business, after which FDR wanted to talk politics. He brought up Wallace’s disinclination to withdraw voluntarily from the race, even though Roosevelt was sure the Iowan could not be renominated. Byrnes agreed that in light of  Wallace’s personal loyalty Roosevelt could not make him withdraw. Roosevelt said he would write a letter stating his personal preference for Wallace but that as president he would not urge his nomination. Byrnes said “that if  he did that, of  course he could not thereafter express a preference for anyone else.” FDR said he would not do so, and, while Byrnes was making his own mind up, “I could rely upon his promise that he would not express a preference for anyone.” Byrnes said that “if  he intended leaving an open field, I would probably be a candidate.” He thought if  he were he should resign as Director of  War Mobilization, but FDR objected to such a step, saying that he was going to the Pacific for several weeks and needed Byrnes to be in charge at home. Byrnes also took advantage of  the moment to argue that there really was no reason for Roosevelt to lose black votes if  Byrnes were on the ticket—how could any blacks vote against Eleanor’s husband?—and that his heavy working schedule would dampen any objections because of  his age (Byrnes was three years older than the president). With that their conversation ended, and Byrnes returned to his own office, noting

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as he left that labor leader Sidney Hillman and another man entered the President’s office.26 On the morning of  Friday, July 14, at about 9 a.m., Byrnes put in a phone call to Harry Truman at his home in Independence. Byrnes, Truman later wrote, “told me that President Roosevelt had decided on him as the new nominee for Vice-President, and he asked me if  I would nominate him at the convention. I told him that I would be glad to do it if  the President wanted him for a running mate.” Byrnes undoubtedly felt that a nominating speech by Truman would eliminate the Missouri senator as a possible rival.27 Truman later noted that, shortly after this call from Byrnes, he received a call from Alben Barkley. The Kentucky senator asked Truman to nominate him at the convention, only to be told, “Why, Alben, I’d be tickled to death to do it, but I’ve already promised Jimmy Byrnes I would nominate him.”28 Later that day, Hannegan and Walker met with Byrnes for lunch at Leo Crowley’s apartment. As matters then stood, they told Byrnes and Crowley that, if  asked about the President’s position, they would have to reply that he favored Truman or Douglas. Byrnes said that this did not agree with what FDR had told him just the day before, which Byrnes then recited in detail. Hannegan, puzzled, said, “I don’t understand it.” Neither did Byrnes, so after lunch he and Crowley went back to his office to put in a call to the President at Hyde Park. Byrnes wrote out several questions in advance and utilized his old skill at shorthand (from his days as a court reporter) to note FDR’s answers. Byrnes: I understood from you that you would write a letter to Henry Wallace. It was my understanding from your statement to me yesterday that you would not authorize any person to quote you as saying you preferred any candidate other than Wallace. FDR: I am not favoring anybody. I told them so. No, I am not favoring anyone. Byrnes: Bob Hannegan and Frank Walker stated today that if  at the convention they were asked about your views, they would be obliged to say to their friends that from your statements they concluded you did not prefer Wallace but did prefer Truman first and Douglas second, and that either would be preferable to me because they would cost the ticket fewer votes than I would. FDR: Jimmy, that is all wrong. That is not what I told them. It is what they told me. When we all went over the list I did not say that I preferred anybody or that anybody would cost me votes, but they all agreed that Truman would

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cost fewer votes than anybody and probably Douglas second. This was the agreement they reached and I had nothing to do with it. I did not express myself. Objection to you came from labor people, both Federation and C.I.O. Byrnes: . . . I just wanted to know if  Walker and Hannegan would be correct in stating to their friends that you believe I will cost more votes than others. FDR: They can state their own opinion but they cannot state mine. I have not given my opinion to anyone. Byrnes: If  t hey make the statement, notwithstanding your letter to Wallace, that you have expressed a preference for Truman and Douglas, it would make it very difficult for me. FDR: We have to be damned careful about language. They asked if  I would object to Truman and Douglas and I said no. That is different from using the word “prefer.” That is not expressing a preference because you know I told you I would have no preference.

The two men then discussed the platform and the convention, and Roosevelt asked, “Will you go on and run?” Byrnes says he replied, “I am still considering it. Before deciding, I wanted to know your answers to these questions and whether you had authorized Hannegan and Walker to make the statement that you preferred other candidates.” Roosevelt went on: “After all, Jimmy, you are close to me personally, and Henry is close to me. I hardly know Truman. Douglas is a poker partner. He is good in a poker game and tells good stories.”29 Byrnes then called Hannegan and read him the “transcript” of  his conversation with FDR. Hannegan, getting a quick education in the wily ways of  Franklin Roosevelt, again muttered, “I don’t understand it.” Byrnes of  course knew nothing about the Truman-Douglas letter that Hannegan had in his possession, a letter in which the President carefully avoided use of  the word “prefer,” which omission apparently justified in his mind what he told Byrnes on the phone. Nevertheless, Byrnes later wrote, “the fact is that if  in our conversation he had told me that he had written such a letter . . . I certainly would not have become a candidate unless he wrote a similar letter regarding me.”30 Byrnes went down the corridor to the office of  Harry Hopkins and told Hopkins what had transpired. Hopkins said that Roosevelt was confident that if  Byrnes entered the race he would be nominated. From there Byrnes told several friends that he was running. As the days dwindled down to convention time, the vice presidential picture continued to be muddled—perhaps even more so than it was at

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the time of  the “clarifying” meeting at the White House on July 11. For this state of  a ffairs, no one was more responsible than Franklin Roosevelt. A rumor swept over the capital that Roosevelt would publicly state on July 14 that he would vote for Wallace if  he were a delegate, without wishing to dictate to the convention. However, July 14 came and went and no such statement appeared.31 Time magazine, on the eve of  the convention, stated that the three men “acceptable” to the President were, in order, Byrnes, Douglas, and Winant. It did list “other candidates”: Barkley, Rayburn, Minton, McNutt, and Truman, possibly even Willkie. But it clearly had no better idea than anyone else. 32 Nevertheless, Democrats from across the country were preparing to set out for Chicago. The convention was to open on Tuesday, July 18. It would all be straightened out then.

15

The Democrats Arrive in Chicago

Though the Democratic National Convention was scheduled to open on Wednesday, July 19, Chicago was abuzz with it for days in advance, as the pundits and politicos made their way to the Windy City on the banks of  Lake Michigan. And, with the question of  the presidential nomination taken off  the table by FDR’s announcement of  July 11, most of  the talk was about the vice presidential nod—with some concern about Southern attitudes. In the latter regard, Senator Burnet Maybank of  South Carolina, a protégé of  Jimmy Byrnes who was not opposed to Roosevelt, talked about what he expected—and hoped for. “It’s my opinion that the southern people as a whole are opposed to the renomination of  Wallace,” he said. He did not realistically expect to get the two-thirds rule reinstated, as some Southern die-hards demanded, but he felt “that the convention will carry out the wishes of  the southern people and there will be no racial equality plank in the platform. If  there is such a plank,” he warned, “the repercussions in the South will be severe.”1 Just before the start of  the convention, Southern opposition to Roosevelt and a fourth term developed, with those votes projected for Harry Byrd of  Virginia. Obviously, there could not be any serious threat to Roosevelt’s renomination; the implied threat involved Southern electoral votes in November. Dixie leaders made a lot of  noise as well about what should and should not be in the convention’s platform; black groups, on 153

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the other hand, indicated that they would push hard for an equal-rights declaration, and Senator Dennis Chavez of  New Mexico said he would try to add a plank to the platform favoring a permanent FEPC.2 Arrangements for the convention were handled well by the National Committee, stressed as things were by wartime conditions. Ambrose J. O’Connell, the DNC vice chairman in charge of  convention arrangements, had managed to round up the necessary five thousand hotel rooms, although he admitted, “Chicago is the only city, I believe, which could successfully undertake the job of  handling both conventions in war time.”3 J. G. Grouzard, in charge of  concessions, said he would have on hand a goodly supply of  hot dogs, soft drinks, and beer. Grouzard had a scare when word came down from Bob Hannegan (a teetotaler) the evening before the convention started that there would be no sales of  beer and whiskey in the stadium, but as it turned out no one enforced the no-alcohol edict and sales went on. Hannegan, advised of  this, said, “Are they drinking beer? Then they are drinking beer, aren’t they? I am very busy.” 4 Arthur Krock of  the New York Times sat down to write about the upcoming gathering and cited “the major potential of  serious party division” to be “Henry A. Wallace’s effort to be renominated and that of  his opponents to prevent it.” Krock felt that the three names carrying the most weight in the contest against Wallace were now Byrnes, Barkley, and Justice Douglas. “The nature of  the backing of  these four men,” he wrote, “. . . provides a cross section of  that dissident group which is loosely and fractiously assembled under the name of  the Democratic party.” Wallace, Krock wrote, was the choice of  the “old” New Dealers, the CIO and its Political Action Committee, the Daily Worker “and its following,” black leaders, left-wing publicists, Democratic organizations where labor was in control (he cited Pennsylvania), and the President. Douglas had strength in all these quarters, as an alternative, but was also favored by some conservative Democrats who felt that the nominee would otherwise be Wallace. Byrnes and Barkley were preferred by the big-city-machine leaders, Southern and non-Southern conservatives, by “a large section of  ‘ liberals’ who think Mr. Wallace is confused or flighty,” and by party members who wanted “to be sure of  a president of  worldly experience and political skill to deal with the post-war world” should FDR pass on.

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Roosevelt, Krock felt, could no longer control his party except in naming himself  for the presidency. Selection of  the vice presidential candidate could, he wrote, provoke an explosion that would tear the party apart, but he felt it more likely that “the bulk of  the seething party front will be maintained until November.” It remained to be seen whether any defections might be large enough to elect the Republican candidates or throw the choice into the House of  Representatives. 5 Bob Kerr, the governor of  Oklahoma and the convention’s designated keynote speaker, pooh-poohed such speculation. “Any time Dem­ ocrats get together there are controversies.” he said. “But . . . after the convention is over, all the controversies will be with the Republicans.” Asked about the Republicans’ “indispensable man” charge, Kerr said that Democrats were not for Roosevelt “because they think he is indispensable. They are for him because they think he is the best man available.”6 All of  which served to cast some of  the limelight on the new chairman of  the party, Robert E. Hannegan of  St. Louis. In the weeks leading up to the convention, Bob Hannegan, called by Life magazine “a blunt and breezy Irishman,” toured the country, speaking to Democratic groups from Manhattan to Oregon. Wherever he went Hannegan assured rank-and-file Democratic workers that he was one of  them, a guy who had long labored to get out the vote on election day. He sometimes put his foot in his mouth (such as saying he favored Roosevelt for a fifth term in 1948), but on the whole Republican politicians who encountered Hannegan were impressed by him.7 But Hannegan’s prominence brought him under fire from some Democrats. It was no secret that the national chairman was among the party leaders urging the President to select someone other than Wallace for the second slot, and the rise of  Harry Truman’s name produced charges that Hannegan was manipulating affairs for the benefit of  his fellow Missourian. A Kentucky delegate sent a message to Harry Hopkins about “the Truman business,” charging that “Hannegan is handling it badly . . . endangering the ticket.” In fact, while Hannegan had worked to move Truman into the ranks of  those being considered, he was fully prepared to back Byrnes or whomever else Roosevelt preferred. He really just needed the President to make—and stick to—a decision.8

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Hannegan’s arrival in Chicago on July 15 was considered news, as was his subsequent disappearance from the ever-vigilant eye of  t he press. He left his train through a rear door and was promptly whisked away in Mayor Kelly’s auto. Inquiries at Kelly’s home brought word that Hannegan was not there; Paul Porter of  the DNC later said the chairman was spending the day “incognito” with his family, but the reporters were buying none of  that. With the platform and the presidential choice all but wrapped up, “the only inference that could be drawn from Mr. Hannegan’s disappearance,” one wrote, “was that the nomination for second place on the ticket remained open, that no agreement had been reached on a candidate and that Mr. Hannegan had been in conference with important leaders of  the party during the day.”9 In fact, that Saturday afternoon Hannegan was indeed in conference with an important party leader—the most important one there was. Between 1:30 and 2:00 p.m. that day, the chairman made his way, along with Mayor Kelly, across the Fifty-first Street railroad yard to where Franklin Roosevelt’s train had stopped to be serviced on its secret journey to the West Coast. The men boarded the President’s specially built car, the Ferdinand Magellan, where they found FDR finishing lunch with his wife, Eleanor, and Sam Rosenman. The two latter excused themselves, and Roosevelt settled down for some political talk with his visitors. The upshot of  it was that FDR told them that Jimmy Byrnes was acceptable to him as a running mate. “Well, you know Jimmy has been my choice from the very first,” Roosevelt supposedly said. “Go ahead and name him.” As his visitors were departing after a fifty-two minute meeting, though, referring to the Byrnes candidacy, FDR allegedly told Hannegan, “Clear it with Sidney.”10 “Sidney,” of  course, was Sidney Hillman of  the CIO-PAC, the man Time called probably “the most important politician at the Democratic national convention in Chicago this week.” Hillman was not a delegate, not even a registered Democrat (he belonged to the tiny, New York– based American Labor Party), but with the importance of  labor to Democratic hopes in 1944, he loomed very large indeed over the upcoming gathering.11 Byrnes, back in Washington, knew about the planned meeting with Roosevelt, so he was waiting for Kelly’s phone call. “The President has

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given us the green light to support you and he wants you in Chicago,” Kelly told him. He said that when Byrnes arrived the next morning he should go straight to the mayor’s home for breakfast with him and Han­negan.12 Byrnes immediately left for Chicago. The next morning he arrived there, was driven to Kelly’s Lake Shore Drive house, and had a happy breakfast with the mayor and Bob Hannegan, who was already planning for the Roosevelt-Byrnes ticket. Hannegan did mention to Byrnes the President’s directive to clear the Byrnes candidacy with Hillman, but both men thought this just a formality. That evening Byrnes, Hannegan, Kelly, Walker, and Leo Crowley, who had come out on the train from Washington with Byrnes, had dinner, celebrating the apparent end of  the vice presidential puzzle, with Jimmy Byrnes slated to be the man. It was the high point of  the Byrnes candidacy. As the Byrnes victory party was breaking up, Hannegan remarked to Kelly, “Ed, there is one thing we forgot. The President said, ‘Clear it with Sidney.’”13 The next day, two things took place that doomed Byrnes’s effort. The first was that Ed Flynn, who staunchly opposed Byrnes, arrived in town and was told by Hannegan, “It’s all over. It’s Byrnes.” Flynn immediately made it his business to do whatever he could to derail the Byrnes express, principally with his predictions about the loss of  the black vote and what it would do to the ticket in places like New York, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. The second and more important occurrence was Sidney Hillman’s veto of  the Byrnes nomination. Hannegan and Walker met with Philip Murray and Hillman, who made it clear that the CIO-PAC was solidly against Byrnes, that the South Carolinian was regarded as impossible for labor to support. As a result, that Monday evening, at about 6:45, Flynn, Hannegan, and Walker got together in Flynn’s suite and put through a phone call to Roosevelt’s train. They told the President what had happened that day with the Byrnes candidacy, particularly the Hillman rejection. Roosevelt said that, now that it had turned out that Byrnes was a “political liability,” it was clear what had to be done: when Walker got on the line, FDR told him, “Frank, go all out for Truman.”14 Leo Crowley was then designated to relay the final word from Roosevelt to his friend Byrnes, and he dutifully carried out this unpleasant

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chore, telling the assistant president that he would be a “political liability” for the ticket. Byrnes’s aide, Walter Brown, who was there when Crowley arrived, wrote in his diary that the news “knocked JFB cold.” The stunned Byrnes went to sleep that night knowing he was suddenly out of  the race.15 Still, characteristically, he made it his business to put in a call to the presidential train the following morning. When he got Roosevelt on the line, Byrnes asked the President if  he had called him a “political liability.” Roosevelt denied that but made it clear that Truman was to be the candidate, acknowledging to Byrnes for the first time that he had written a letter in so many words accepting the Missouri senator.16 That afternoon, Hannegan visited Byrnes, who told him that FDR denied calling him a “political liability,” which startled Hannegan. He said “that if  he never saw his children again he would have to say that it was the exact truth.” The chairman went over by chapter and verse the times that Roosevelt had turned down Byrnes, described the Truman letter, and restated the conclusions of  the day before. That afternoon, Byrnes saw his friend and supporter Alexander Whitney, boss of  the A FL Brotherhood of  R ailroad Trainmen. Whitney had talked that morning with Hillman, who had stated again that the CIO-PAC would not accept Byrnes. The Byrnes candidacy was dead.17 Byrnes sat down and bitterly wrote a letter to Burnet Maybank, the chairman of  the South Carolina delegation, which was released at 11:15 Wednesday morning: Dear Burnet: In deference to the wishes of  t he President, I ask that my name not be placed before the convention as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Vice President. The action of  t he delegation in declaring its support of  me for this honor and in insisting that my name go before the convention is deeply appreciated by me.18

While Byrnes was mulling over all this, he got a call from Alben Bark­ley, asking what had happened to his candidacy. Byrnes invited Barkley over to his room, and for nearly two hours the embittered excandidates (Barkley knew by this time that his candidacy was a nonstarter) licked each other’s wounds. Byrnes, knowing that the Kentuckian had been tapped to give the President’s nominating speech, said, “If  I were you I wouldn’t say anything too complimentary about him.”

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Barkley gently pointed out that he could not very well nominate a man without being complimentary, “but I told him I would think it over.” Indeed, Barkley did think it over and, as he did so, became more and more unhappy with the way he had been treated by Franklin Roosevelt.19 Another wrinkle that developed on Monday the 17th was the disclosure by Senator Jackson, the permanent chairman of  the upcoming convention, of  the long-rumored letter he had received from President Roosevelt regarding Henry Wallace. FDR offered “my own personal thought in regard to the selection of  a candidate for Vice President.” The easiest way of  putting it is this: I have been associated with Henry Wallace during his past four years as Vice President, for eight years earlier while he was Secretary of  A griculture, and well before that. I like him and I respect him, and he is my personal friend. For these reasons, I personally would vote for his renomination if  I were a delegate to the Convention. At the same time, I do not wish to appear in any way as dictating to the Convention. Obviously the Convention must do the deciding. And it should— and I am sure it will—give great consideration to the pros and cons of  its choice. 20

The anti-Wallace forces immediately labeled the Roosevelt letter the “kiss of  death” to Wallace’s hopes, pointing out that four years earlier Roosevelt had insisted on the Iowan’s nomination while this letter clearly left the choice up to the assembled delegates. The Wallace forces, on the other hand, emphasized the letter’s favorable references to their candidate. On the whole, however, most non-aligned observers felt that the letter was Roosevelt’s kindly way of  letting Wallace go. Columnist Ernest Lindley said the letter “was so left-handed that it helped Wallace only to the extent that it aroused sympathy for him.”21 Wallace himself  arrived in Chicago on Wednesday morning and held a short press conference at the Iowa headquarters in the Sherman Hotel. “I am in this fight to the finish,” he stated, although he had not “the slightest idea” of  his chances to win. He said that he had suggested to the President the letter to Jackson; “I told the President in justice to himself  and to myself,” he continued, “there should not be anything in the nature of  a dictation to the convention. The letter did exactly what I suggested.” When Wallace was asked if  he had seen Sidney Hillman, the press conference abruptly terminated, although the vice president then arranged a strategy meeting with Hillman and Phil Murray.22

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Through all this, Harry Truman had been preparing his nominating speech for Byrnes and soliciting delegate votes for the South Carolinian. Before leaving for Chicago, late in the afternoon of  July 13, Truman gave a statement to the press, stoutly denying any desire for the vice presidency. “Frankly,” he said, “I think I can be of  much more help in winning the war continuing the work I have been doing than I could possibly contribute as Vice President.”23 After the Monday evening phone call with the President, Hannegan came to see Truman and tell him that he was FDR’s choice. Truman replied, “Tell him to go to hell. I’m for Byrnes.” He went on, “Bob, look here, I don’t want to be Vice President.” He must have suspected that Roosevelt had once again changed his mind, after telling Byrnes that he was the one, and that the mercurial president could easily do so again.24 In addition to his own reluctance to take the position, Truman also felt that it was unlikely that Roosevelt really wanted him. The President had ignored him through most of  his senatorial career, had supported Lloyd Stark in the 1940 Missouri primary, and must have resented from time to time conclusions of  the Truman Committee critical of  the administration. On Tuesday morning, Truman had breakfast with Sidney Hillman in the labor leader’s hotel suite. He asked Hillman to support Byrnes, and Hillman of  course refused. He said labor was for Wallace. If  Wallace couldn’t make it, however, there was another candidate labor could support: “I’m looking at the other one,” he told an astonished Truman. 25 Truman refused to acknowledge his candidacy, so Hannegan arranged a phone call that Wednesday afternoon to Roosevelt in El Paso, on his way to the West Coast. Walker, Flynn, Kelly, George Allen and Frank Hague, the boss of  Jersey City, were in the chairman’s suite in the Blackstone Hotel, along with Truman, when the call came through. Hannegan held out the receiver so that everyone in the room could hear Roosevelt’s voice when he asked Hannegan if  he had gotten “that fellow” lined up to run. Hannegan said, no, he was acting like “the contrariest Missouri mule I’ve ever dealt with.” “Well,” said FDR, “you tell him if  he wants to break up the Democratic Party in the middle of  a war, that’s his responsibility.” As the President hung up the phone, Hannegan looked at Truman and said, “Now what do you say?” The Senator from

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Missouri muttered, “Jesus Christ!” but he knew he was most likely on the ticket.26 On the eve of  the convention, July 18, a Gallup poll was published that reported the questioning of  Democrats across the country as to their choice for vice president. At this point in time, it was reported, Henry Wallace received the support of  65 percent of  the respondents, with Alben Barkley finishing second with 17 percent. Following them came Sam Rayburn with 5 percent, and Harry Truman and Justice Douglas with two percent each. Just something else for the 1,478 anxious delegates and party bosses to chew on; the poll may have reflected name recognition more than anything else, but who could be sure? The night before the convention was to open, a radio forum from the grand ballroom of  the Stevens Hotel was broadcast over the Mutual network. Six reporters and radio commentators expressed their opinions about the upcoming election, splitting almost evenly. Two predicted a Dewey victory, one said it looked to him like a toss-up, while two others thought Roosevelt would win. All felt Wallace unlikely to win renomination, with Truman his probable replacement. Several experts said an end to the war before Election Day would definitely hurt Roosevelt’s chances.27 That same evening the Texas and Louisiana delegations voted in caucus to join the action of  the Mississippi delegation of  the night before and vote for Harry Byrd of  Virginia in the presidential voting. With Virginia reported ready to throw an additional 24 votes to its senator and with four Florida delegates pledged to Byrd, it appeared that there were at least 118 convention votes that would not be cast for Franklin Roosevelt. After their caucuses, these Southern delegates held a party in the Palmer House hotel “to celebrate the revolt from the philosophy and control of  the New Deal.” Those attending whooped through an endorsement of  Byrd for president, opposition to any platform planks calling for equality of  the races, and restoration of  the two-thirds rule. Former governor Mike Conner of  M ississippi declared that “We want a party real southern Democrats can support. We want states’ rights.” How this would all play out in the convention itself, particularly with the “regular” Texas delegation facing a credentials challenge from a pro-FDR delegation, would soon be seen.28

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The minor boom for Senator Byrd suffered a slight hitch when a suite at the Stevens, originally assigned to the Virginia senator, was instead given to an attractive young Washington newswoman. She was plagued with calls of  potential Byrd supporters, until the morning she was awakened by a knocking on her door, another group of  Byrd delegates come to visit their man. The young lady opened the door wearing nothing but a sexy negligee and, when asked by an embarrassed voice, “Is Senator Byrd in?” she answered sweetly, “Why, the Senator is asleep now.” She later told friends, “I guess that’ll fix the Byrd boom.”29 Governor Kerr of  Oklahoma had been chosen keynoter by the DNC’s arrangements committee in late May, with Senator Samuel Jackson of  Indiana as permanent chairman. The little-known Jackson was a bit of  a surprise; a bald, dark-visaged 49-year-old, he had been appointed to fill a vacancy in the Senate earlier in the year and was not running to hold it but was a candidate rather for governor. The convention over which Jackson was to preside was ready to commence on Wednesday, July 19. An editorial in the New York WorldTelegram focused on the major issue to be decided: Because that would-be indispensable man is not as young or as vigorous as he once was, which increases the possibility that he would not finish his fourth term if  elected, the Democratic Vice Presidential nominee must be picked consciously as a potential President. Hence the unusual public and party concern over the second man on the ticket, who may become first. 30

While the Republican convention in the same hall was universally dismissed as dull, the Democrats promised to put on quite a show.

16

Democrats in Convention

On Wednesday, July 19, at four minutes past noon, Robert Hannegan banged his gavel and called the 1944 Democratic convention to order. The temperature in Chicago Stadium was in the low 80s, still warm but far more comfortable than the 100-degree heat that the Republicans had to contend with in the same building. The seats were about half  fi lled when Hannegan got things under way. A Catholic monsignor delivered an invocation, soprano Eleanor Steber of  the Metropolitan Opera sang the national anthem, and the national committee secretary read the official call of  the conclave. Hannegan then introduced Chicago’s Mayor Kelly, whose speech of  welcome was followed by one from Illinois Senator Scott Lucas. After Lucas came Thomas Courtney, the Democratic candidate for governor of  I llinois, who was followed by party treasurer Ed Pauley (who reported the party’s poor financial condition) and Chicago Congressman William L. Dawson, the only black member of  the House. With a recess until the evening, the first and most peaceful session of  the convention was over. While these activities were going on, the platform subcommittees were holding open hearings, giving numerous witnesses an opportunity for short speeches of  five minutes or less, despite the general understanding that most of  the platform had already been written in the White House, with the committee in Chicago just doing some tinkering.1 The evening gathering was a good bit more entertaining. One of  the first things to stir up the crowd was the arrival of  Henry Wallace, as he 163

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pushed his way in to his Iowa delegation. Parts of  the crowd whooped and hollered, the band played “Iowa, That’s Where the Tall Corn Grows,” and a brief  demonstration followed. Chairman Hannegan called the festivities to order at a few minutes after 9 o’clock. After a talk from the lady who headed the party’s women’s division, Hannegan electrified the capacity crowd by reading a bulletin announcing the resignation of  H ideki Tojo and his Japanese war cabinet. This news produced a genuine demonstration of  roaring joy, a demonstration that would have been far louder had the delegates known that at about that very time a German officer was placing in an East Prussian bunker an explosive intended to kill Adolf  H itler. (The attempt, unfortunately, failed.) After this, the chairman introduced the convention keynoter, Governor Kerr of  Oklahoma. Kerr gave a stem-winder of  about an hour’s length, touching all the required bases. “Do you remember,” he boomed, “the twelve long years from 1920 thru 1932 when America ‘hardened’ under Harding, ‘cooled’ under Coolidge and ‘hungered’ under Hoover?” He said the “mantle of  Herbert Hoover” had been “placed upon the shoulders of  his cherished disciple, Thomas E. Dewey.” But, shouted Kerr, it was no mantle but a shroud! Kerr ridiculed Dewey’s attack upon the administration’s “tired old men,” pointing out that Admiral Chester Nimitz was 59, Admiral Halsey 62, MacArthur 64, Admiral King 66, and General Marshall 64. “No, Mr. Dewey,” he continued, “we know we are winning this war with these ‘tired old men,’ including the 62-year-old Roosevelt as their commander in chief.” As Kerr came to his conclusion, he received the “applause merited by an hour’s vocal toil,” and brought the night’s formal activities to an end.2 The major drama of  the night was yet to transpire. Alben Barkley had been visited during the afternoon by Ed Flynn and Frank Walker, who told him that the President’s choice for vice president had fallen upon another man—Truman—and that Barkley would not be considered. The Kentucky senator, brooding upon what he considered his mistreatment by Franklin Roosevelt and thinking over what Byrnes had urged upon him, decided that he would not give the nominating speech for FDR the following day. The text of  his talk, already given to the press, was withdrawn. His refusal would obviously be headline news. Late in

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the evening of  the 19th, some Kentucky politicos, fearing that Barkley would do himself  great harm by backing out of  the speech, urged Wilson Wyatt, the young mayor of  Louisville, to talk to the senator to see if  he would change his position. Wyatt was doubtful that he could accomplish anything, but he agreed to try. 3 Around midnight, Wyatt took a cab to Barkley’s hotel and hesitantly knocked on the senator’s hotel room door. When he was ushered in, Wyatt found himself  in the presence of  some party heavyweights—Jim Farley, Les Biffle (sergeant-at-arms of  the Senate), and several of  Barkley’s fellow senators. As he entered, Wyatt heard Farley say, “Alben, you have been double-crossed by the boss—just as I was.” Nevertheless, Barkley told Wyatt to speak his piece. Wyatt told the senator that his action would likely be completely misunderstood by his Kentucky constituents, that it would look like nothing so much as sour grapes, and that he should go ahead with the speech. His backing out, with the publicity his action would generate, Wyatt said, “could never be explained in a way that would be complimentary to Senator Barkley. It was not a matter of  being fair to Roosevelt,” he went on, “but of  not being unfair to himself.” When Wyatt finished, he was surprised to hear Farley say, “Alben, the mayor is right.” With that reversal by the old pro, the group and ultimately Barkley agreed that he should go on with the nominating speech. As it turned out, the withdrawal and reissue took place between newspaper editions, so the whole business was pretty much unpublicized.4 Another late-night meeting of  resentful southerners was called by Governor Chauncey M. Sparks of  A labama and Governor Prentice Cooper of  Tennessee. They met, according to Henning of  the Chicago Tribune, “to consider ways and means of  combating the radical threat [meaning Sidney Hillman and his CIO-PAC] to the influence of  the old line Democrats of  their section.” They were not very happy with Harry Truman as the alternative to Wallace, as they called for a “real southerner” for the second spot on the ticket. What they hoped to do about the situation, however, was left up in the air. 5 It was the hope of  the DNC leaders that the convention could be wound up on July 20, after the evening session—in other words, in two days. They planned for that second day to adopt the platform, nominate the President, hear FDR’s acceptance, and then move on to the vice

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presidential selection, finishing up the night with a final adjournment. Whether such a procedure was realistic or not, the day’s activities would tell them. Thursday’s first session, after Senator Jackson of  Indiana had been formally installed as permanent chairman, featured a major credentials battle. The convention managers should have seen this one coming, because it had been well advertised. In May, the Texas Democratic convention, meeting in Austin, had slated a delegation of  forty-eight members, all but three of  them anti–New Deal and anti-Roosevelt, leading the FDR supporters to march out, hold a rump convention, and name a contesting delegation. Both groups came to Chicago and made themselves noisily evident. Inevitably, the claims to be seated of  the two factions, the “regulars” who opposed Roosevelt and the “rump” delegates who supported him, were heard by the convention’s credentials committee headed by Senator Abe Murdoch of  Utah. After much oratory and a plethora of  parliamentary moves, pro and con, the credentials committee passed a resolution giving each of  the two factions half  of  the Texas seats, with each delegate (forty-eight on each side) having one-half  vote apiece. When Murdoch reported the decision of  the credentials committee to the full convention, he touched off  another roaring battle on the floor. When the full convention upheld the committee’s compromise and voted down an amendment offered by the anti-Roosevelt delegates, thirty-three of  them marched out of  Chicago Stadium singing “The Eyes of  Texas Are upon You.” 6 As the departing Texans went off  to hold further meetings and plan for consolidating Southern sentiment against the fourth term, the convention adopted the party’s platform. At about 1,500 words, it was one of  t he briefest such documents ever promulgated, although it was still considerably longer than what the President had originally suggested. Basically, the platform stated in effect that the party would stand or fall on Franklin Roosevelt’s record. Its plank on the race issue, a waffle of  t he first order, was displeasing to the South but hardly more satisfactory to black leaders, especially since the Republicans’ plank had supported a permanent FEPC, anti–poll tax legislation, and other specific remedies. The Democratic offering declared: “We believe that racial

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and religious minorities have the right to live, develop and vote equally with all citizens and share the rights that are guaranteed by our Constitution. Congress should exert its full constitutional power to protect those rights.” 7 Walter White, secretary of  the NA ACP, said the Democrats’ production was hardly a plank, “best characterized as a splinter.” He went on: “Badgered by professional bigots from the south and dictated to by northern political machines more interested in votes than principle, the Democratic mountain labored and brought forth a mouse of  evasion.”8 Nevertheless, the platform was adopted by acclamation, although there were some loudly voiced “nays,” from such as Senator Kenneth McKellar of  Tennessee. From there the convention moved on to the nomination for president. Barkley, with perspiration pouring down his face, placed in nomination the name of  Franklin Roosevelt and touched off  a thirty-five-minute demonstration, with all but four Southern delegations (Virginia, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas) included in the parade through the hall. Wilson Wyatt said later that Barkley’s speech “was delivered with such fervor that no one would have guessed that, just a few hours before, an angry decision had been made not to deliver it at all.”9 In his speech, the Kentucky senator referred to what everyone in the hall knew had to be addressed, the tax-bill veto from early in the year. “I have not always agreed with this man who has been honored beyond his fellows,” Barkley said. “Though recognizing his more intimate knowledge and greater responsibility, I have on occasion found myself  in disagreement with him. . . . But it is one thing to differ from a friend,” Barkley went on, “though he be President, on some course of  action that seems fundamental; it is quite another thing to discard a leadership unsurpassed if  ever equaled in the annals of  A merican history.” The audience cheered. When he offered, at a few minutes before 4 o’clock, “the name of  one who is endowed with the intellectual boldness of  Thomas Jefferson, the faith and indomitable patience of  Abraham Lincoln, the rugged integrity of  Grover Cleveland, and the scholarly vision of  Woodrow Wilson— Franklin Delano Roosevelt,” the delegates burst into cheering, chanting, singing, and parading. It was what most of  them had been waiting for.10

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The placards and the state standards bounced up and down as the joyful delegates marched around the hall, while the band played rousing songs including, of  course, “Happy Days Are Here Again.” The Pennsylvania delegates, wearing red, white, and blue hats, carried a stuffed Democratic donkey, which other delegates kissed as it passed by. After the Roosevelt demonstration calmed down, Mrs. Fred Noonan of  Florida appeared on the rostrum to nominate Senator Byrd. There were a few boos for her effort, but Senator Jackson rebuked those. Mrs. Noonan said that Byrd believed in the traditional notion that two terms was enough for any president, and a number of  Southern delegates cheered. When she finished, the standards of  Virginia, Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana were waved, but there was no music and no parade. When the call of  the roll reached Iowa, Henry Wallace came toward the speaker’s stand to second the Roosevelt nomination, touching off  a three-minute pro-Wallace demonstration. Wallace first appeared in a small office under the platform to wait for the demonstration to end and found there, of  a ll people, Ed Pauley talking on the telephone. Before Wallace could back out, he became aware that Pauley was speaking with FDR about Harry Truman. When an embarrassed Pauley noticed Wallace there he said, “Well, at least you’ve heard it play-by-play.” All Wallace said was, “This is my campaign speech,” tapping his briefcase; “this is the one that will do it.”11 Henry Wallace’s speech, in which he threw his own liberalism into the faces of  his conservative detractors, was one of  the sensations of  the convention. Life magazine called it “a speech no practical politician would have ventured to make at such a critical moment.”12 Calling Roosevelt “the greatest living American,” Wallace said, “the Democratic party in convention assembled is about to demonstrate that it not only is a free party but a liberal party.” “Three times,” the vice president continued, “the Democratic party has been led to victory by the greatest liberal in the history of  the United States. The name Roosevelt is revered in the remotest corners of  the earth. His name is cursed only by Germans, Japs and certain American troglodytes.” “The future,” he declared, “belongs to those who go down the line unswervingly for the liberal principles of  both political democracy and economic democracy regardless of  race, color, or religion!” Wallace

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called for the extinction of  the poll tax and said, “The future must bring equal wages for equal work regardless of  sex or race. Roosevelt stands for all this. That is why certain people hate him so. That also is one of  the outstanding reasons why Roosevelt will be elected for a fourth time.”13 This speech touched off  another rousing demonstration, this one more for Wallace than for the man whose nomination he had just seconded. “Whether conservatives squirmed or southerners saw red or New Dealers cheered,” said Time magazine, “Henry Wallace’s speech was the first that riveted the delegates’ attention.” It was blunt and challenging. But even a Northern liberal like Senator Theodore Green of  R hode Island, who said Wallace was “sincere, able . . . a great liberal,” called the seconding speech “tactless” and devoid of  “good judgment.” “It easily explained,” Time concluded, “why Henry Wallace was the best loved and the best hated man in the stadium.”14 After the Wallace address, the vote for the presidential nomination was recorded. Although there was never any doubt as to the outcome, there was considerable curiosity as to the size of  the anti-Roosevelt vote. The final tally was 1,086 votes for FDR, 89 for Senator Byrd, and one vote for Jim Farley. The votes for Byrd came from Alabama (2), Florida (4), Louisiana (22), Mississippi (20), New York (1/2, from Farley himself), South Carolina (31/2), Texas (12), Virginia (24), and West Virginia (1). Two New York delegates gave a half  vote each to Farley. The convention then recessed until the evening, when it would hear from the President accepting his nomination and, probably, nominate a vice president. Just before the evening session of  the convention, Bob Hannegan released to the press the letter he had obtained from Roosevelt after the July 11 meeting in the White House. Dated July 19, 1944, to match up with the opening of  the convention, and neatly typed on White House stationery, it read: Dear Bob: You have written me about Harry Truman and Bill Douglas. I should, of course, be very glad to run with either of them and believe that either one of them would bring real strength to the ticket. Always sincerely /s/ Franklin D. Roosevelt 15

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The letter naturally stirred up many questions from the reporters covering the Democratic conclave, and Hannegan fended them off  w ith aplomb, questions about the date, when Hannegan received it, why it covered only Truman and Douglas, and others. Questions arose about Douglas: did he know he was included in the Roosevelt letter, was he a candidate for the vice presidency, and, as a matter of  fact, where was he? Douglas at the time of  the convention was on a pack trip in the Wallowa Mountains of  Oregon, as far out of  Democratic maneuvering as he could get. He knew that there had been mentions of  his name throughout the year, and he knew that Washington insider Tommy Corcoran had been attempting to pull certain strings to bring Douglas to the fore. The justice, however, had been privately telling his friends to stop political activity on his behalf. When he came out of  the mountains and learned what had been going on, he wrote to Roosevelt, saying the mention in FDR’s letter “was a great compliment . . . and I want you to know that it touched me deeply.” He added that “some of  the boys were whooping it up for me—much against my will. But I succeeded prior to the Convention in subduing that mild uprising.” Nevertheless, if  the nomination had somehow come his way, Douglas surely would have accepted it.16 In any event, the Truman/Douglas letter from FDR seemed to the assembled press a good bit stronger than the Wallace letter the President had sent to Senator Jackson. The Wallace letter made no mention of  bringing strength to the ticket. The evening session opened at 9:04 p.m., with talks by former movie star Helen Gahagan Douglas, the beautiful wife of  actor Melvyn Douglas, and war correspondent Quentin Reynolds. The brunette Miss Gahagan, as she was usually called, spoke as a Democratic National Committeewoman from California and a candidate for Congress. Her real purpose for appearing at the podium was to counteract in some manner the effect that the appearance of  Clare Boothe Luce had given to the Republican convention. The decorative Miss Gahagan called the Democratic Party “the true conservative party,” conserving “hope and ambition in the hearts of  our people.”17 By the time Reynolds had finished his talk, at about 10:15 p.m., the floor, aisles, and galleries were so packed with people that it was almost impossible to move. Veteran observers said they had never seen so many

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people—an estimated thirty thousand, in a building that held far fewer than twenty-five thousand—jammed into Chicago Stadium before. The CIO and the Wallace people had rounded up a huge mob, mostly of  union members, and gotten them into the hall, one way or another. Senator Jackson called for silence, as the voice of  Franklin Roosevelt, speaking from the naval base in San Diego, filled the hall. Roosevelt, his familiar tones ringing clear, accepted the nomination, “in spite of  my desire to retire to the quiet of  private life.” His decision, he said, was “based solely on a sense of  obligation to serve if  called upon to do so by the people of  the United States.” A caveat: “I shall not campaign, in the usual sense, for the office. In these days of  tragic sorrow, I do not consider it fitting. And besides, in these days of  global warfare, I shall not be able to find the time.” But, a word of  warning to the opposition: “I shall, however, feel free to report to the people the facts about matters of  concern to them and especially to correct any misrepresentations.” “What is the job before us in 1944?” he asked. “First, to win the war—to win the war fast and to win it overpoweringly. Second, to form worldwide international organizations . . . to make another war impossible within the foreseeable future. And third, to build an economy for our returning veterans and for all Americans—which will provide employment and provide decent standards of  living.” Now, the key issue: The people of  t he United States will decide this fall whether they wish to turn over this 1944 job—this worldwide job—to inexperienced or immature hands, to those who opposed lend-lease and international cooperation against the forces of  aggression and tyranny, until they could read the polls of  popular sentiment; or whether they wish to leave it to those who saw the danger from abroad, who met it head-on, and who now have seized the offensive and carried the war to its present stages of  success—to those who, by international conferences and united actions have begun to build that kind of  common understanding and cooperative experience which will be so necessary in the world to come. They will also decide . . . whether they will entrust the task of  postwar reconversion to those who offered the veterans of  t he last war breadlines and apple-selling and who finally led the American people down to the abyss of  1932; or whether they will leave it to those who rescued American business and agriculture and industry and finance and labor in 1933, and who have already planned and put through much legislation to help our veterans resume their normal occupations in a well-ordered reconversion process.

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The president went on: We have made mistakes. Who has not? Things have not always been perfect. Are they ever perfect, in human affairs? But the objective, the objective at home and abroad has always been clear before us. Constantly, we have made steady sure progress toward that objective. The record is plain, plain and unmistakable as to that—a record for everyone to read.

He concluded by paraphrasing Lincoln’s second inaugural address, “to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.”18 The Washington Post remarked on the Roosevelt speech editorially, saying, “Mr. Roosevelt’s voice sounded crisp and clear. The cadence of  his phrases fell musically on the ear. His address had the same seductive quality which has wooed and won millions of  his countrymen.” Still, the editorialist went on, “we sensed an unctuous overtone” as the President tried to persuade the nation of  his indispensability. “Certainly you have to be unctuous in saying that you are indispensable. You have to deny, in the succeeding breath, that you are capable of  being succeeded.” The keynote of  the acceptance speech, the editorial decided, was the claim of  indispensability “and a denial of  fitness to the man who seeks the succession.”19 There was one other problem that was not known at the time but soon would be. George Skadding, a Life photographer, had snapped a series of  photos of  Roosevelt delivering his talk in San Diego, and in one of  them at the exact moment of  the camera click the President’s mouth hung open listlessly and he looked haggard, thin, and worn. It was a terrible picture, and, as Skadding later explained apologetically to Steve Early, it was accidentally sent out to the wire services with all the other shots of  the Roosevelt speech without Skadding actually looking at the photos (he would have killed it, he said). The picture ran in newspapers the next day, though, and the Republicans seized upon it with high glee, saying it showed the nation that its chief  executive looked like a drooling idiot.20 The Roosevelt speech ended at 10:35 p.m., and the packed house cheered for three minutes before Senator Jackson cut things short, having the band play the national anthem. At this point it became clear why

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Chicago Stadium was jammed far beyond its capacity. The throng was there, not to cheer for Franklin Roosevelt, but to pressure the delegates on behalf  of  Henry Wallace. A persistent chant of  “ We Want Wallace” was heard throughout the hall, and the convention organist, Al Melgard, inadvertently aided the tumult by striking up “Iowa, Iowa, That’s Where the Tall Corn Grows.” With the schedule calling for the vice presidential nomination to be next taken up, a Wallace stampede seemed suddenly a very real possibility. The party leaders were horrified at what seemed to be happening. Ed Pauley felt the first thing to be done was to stop the organist, but he was unable to reach him by telephone. As Pauley was directing his assistant to find a fire ax and cut the organ’s cable, Ed Kelly told Hannegan that as mayor he could declare an overcrowded hall a fire hazard. Hannegan agreed that the session should be ended, and he designated Mayor David Lawrence of  Pittsburgh to make the motion. First, though, he watched in alarm as Senator Claude Pepper of  Florida, one of  the Wallace floor leaders, muscled his way toward the platform, obviously to move an immediate vote on the vice presidential nomination. Hannegan screamed at the presiding officer, Senator Jackson, to recognize Lawrence first and to acknowledge the motion to recess having carried. Jackson dutifully did as he was instructed and at 10:54 ruled Lawrence’s motion carried, despite the voice vote having been loud for both the “ayes” and the “nays.” The convention was recessed until Friday morning, and the microphones and spotlights were immediately cut off.21 The weary delegates and bosses trudged back to their hotels for a sound night’s sleep. The next morning’s session was not scheduled to start until 11:30 a.m., so there would be plenty of  time in the morning for Pauley, Flynn, Hannegan, and the rest to visit various state delegations and remind them that Truman was the man because Roosevelt wanted Truman. There would be an opportunity to vote for favorite sons on the first ballot, but, remember—Roosevelt wants Truman. Harry Truman had an odd chore to perform that Thursday night. He and Hannegan and the others had decided that his Missouri colleague in the Senate, Bennett Champ Clark, was the natural choice for Truman’s nominating speech. The problem came with finding Clark, who

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had been drinking heavily that night. Truman finally tracked him down at about 6:30 a.m. in the Drake Hotel, got a big pot of  coffee to sober Clark up, and told him what he had to do later that day. As it turned out, Clark came through with a nominating speech for his fellow Missourian, though the state Democratic chairman was standing by as a substitute if  Clark had shown up still drunk.22 Sidney Hillman, attempting to pack the hall for the Friday session as he had Thursday night, had gotten hold of  thousands of  special yellow tickets that Mayor Kelly’s organization had had printed up for its ward heelers and committeemen to attend the session. As soon, though, as Hannegan learned what was happening, with union men armed with the yellow tickets pouring into the stadium, he informed the guards that the yellow tickets were invalidated and their holders not to be admitted. There would be a crowd of  Wallace supporters in the gallery—they would make themselves heard—but it would be nothing like the night before. They would not stampede the convention. The final session of  the ’44 convention opened with a string of  nominating speeches, as twelve men were placed in contention for the vice presidential nod. In addition to Wallace and Truman, those named were senators John H. Bankhead of  A labama, Joseph C. O’Mahoney of  Wyoming, Barkley of  Kentucky, Lucas of  I llinois, and Elbert Thomas of  Utah, governors J. Melville Broughton of  North Carolina, Kerr of   Oklahoma, and Prentice Cooper of  Tennessee, War Manpower Commissioner Paul McNutt of  I ndiana, and Supreme Court Justice Frank Murphy of  M ichigan. Senator Lister Hill of  A labama led off  the festivities as he brought forward the name of  his senatorial colleague Bankhead. As he reached the climax of  his speech, a chorus of  boos and cries of  “No! No!” were heard from the galleries, as placards of  “ We Want Wallace” were waved. Chairman Jackson banged his gavel and said, “The delegates are entitled to make any demonstration they want in favor of  or against any candidate. The nature of  their demonstration will be limited only by good taste.” Then, glaring up, he went on, “As for visitors, their taste will be limited by the convention!” Judge Richard Mitchell of  Iowa nominated Wallace, who, he said, “has made the Vice Presidency everything the founding fathers wanted

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it to be. He is the first assistant to the President; a partner in fact.” Richard Frankensteen, a CIO leader from Michigan, made a fiery seconding speech for Wallace, attacking the party bosses. “When a party is dominated by party bosses,” he roared, “that party is soon swept out of  office. The people are through with smoke-filled rooms and political bosses.” Frankensteen went on: “Do a few men from Jersey City speak for the American people?” From the galleries came “No!” “Do a few men from Chicago or Tammany Hall or Kansas City speak for the American people?” “No” came back the answer. “Franklin D. Roosevelt speaks for the American people and he spoke for them when he said he would vote for Henry Wallace,” Frankensteen concluded. After ten minutes, chairman Jackson sought to cut the Wallace demonstration short but Senator Joseph Guffey of  Pennsylvania, one of  the key Wallace lieutenants, intervened and got ten minutes more of  parading and shouting for the Iowan. Senator Pepper, speaking from the floor, made another seconding speech for Wallace. He attacked the party’s political bosses and told the Democratic Party that it “dare not let this man be repudiated” after his recent mission to the Soviet Union and China. He called on the convention to nominate Wallace, “the choice of  the American people,” and a roaring ovation shook the hall as a cluster of  balloons and “We Want Wallace” placards came forth. Senator Clark did his best for Harry Truman, declaring that his Senate colleague was “doing more to win the war than any other man except the President” and called him an expert on transportation, which puzzled some listeners. Mayor Kelly came forward to present Lucas, naming his man amid a chorus of  hisses and boos from the Wallace supporters in the gallery. When the catcalls continued, Kelly glared up at the gallery and demanded “respect” for his position as mayor of  Chicago.23 McNutt was nominated by Frank McHale of  Indiana, Barkley by former governor Keen Johnson of  Kentucky, Cooper of  Tennessee by Representative Estes Kefauver, and Thomas of  Utah by his senatorial colleague Abe Murdoch. Robert Kerr was put forward by William G. Stigler, the recent winner of  the special congressional election in Oklahoma, Broughton of  North Carolina was named by a former governor

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of  that state, Clyde Hoey, and Governor L. C. Hunt of  Wyoming presented O’Mahoney. The hall was rocked alternately by cheers, hisses, boos, and a general tumult as the convention prepared to make its final and, as it turned out, most momentous decision. It was expected that Wallace would lead on the first ballot, and he did. He received 4291/2 votes, while Truman got 3191/2, with the rest going to favorite sons whose backers hoped they would be in a good position in case of  a deadlock. John Bankhead received 98 votes, all from Southern states, while Scott Lucas got 61, all but three from Illinois. Barkley had 491/2, and Broughton attracted 42 Southern votes. Paul McNutt picked up 31 (21 from Indiana as well as six from the Philippines, where he had been governor). O’Mahoney got 27, Cooper got 26 from Tennessee, Kerr received Oklahoma’s 23, and Governor Herbert O’Conor got 18 from Maryland. Claude Pepper, Frank Murphy, Sam Rayburn, and Elbert Thomas split up another 17 votes, while newsman Bascom Timmins got one vote from Texas. Henry Wallace was far short of  the 589 needed for nomination, and it was generally understood that the first ballot would show the maximum strength of  the vice president. When the roll began for the second ballot, Alabama added two Wal­lace votes and Colorado gave him 81/2 more than on the first ballot. Delaware, though, switched its eight votes from Wallace to Truman, and Maryland’s Governor O’Conor announced that his state was turning the votes cast for him on the first roll call to Harry Truman. When Kerr’s 23 Oklahoma votes were switched to Truman, the rout was under way. State after state then threw its votes to the Missouri senator, and the Truman count had passed the needed 589 when the Illinois delegation came back from a caucus and announced that 55 of  its 58 votes were for Truman. When the stampede was over, Senator Jackson announced the final tally as Truman 1,031 and Wallace 105. A delegate from Tennessee asked what had become of  the 26 votes that its delegation had cast for its Governor Cooper, and Jackson had to confess he did not know what had become of  them. In any event, the deed was done: Harry S. Truman of  M issouri was the Democratic vice presidential candidate. Truman was summoned to the podium for his acceptance speech, and he gave one of  the shortest on record, completing it in less than a minute. He said he appreciated the great honor conferred upon him: “I

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accept the nomination with all the humility a United States citizen can assume under these circumstances.” A happy-looking Truman posed for the photographers. A brief  benediction followed, Jackson banged his gavel for the final time, and the 1944 Democratic Convention passed into history.24

1.  Off to the Teamsters dinner. Clifford Berryman cartoon, September 23, 1944, Washington Star (Library of Congress).

2.  Alben Barkley, Henry Wallace, and Harry Truman (Temple University Libraries, Urban Archives, Philadelphia).

3.  Official 1944 election war ballot mailer.

4.  Wendell Willkie campaigning in Richland Center, Wisconsin, March 16, 1944 (Wisconsin Historical Society).

5.  John Bricker’s speech to the Republican convention, Chicago, June 28, 1944 (Library of Congress).

6.  Thomas Dewey waves to the Republican convention, with Chairman Joseph Martin standing by, June 28, 1944 (Library of Congress).

9.  MacArthur, Roosevelt, and Nimitz at lunch, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, July 26, 1944 (U.S. Army Signal Corps).

7. (facing, top) George Skadding photo of Roosevelt’s acceptance speech, San Diego, with his son James and wife, July 22, 1944 (National Archives).

8. (facing, bottom) Truman wins the vice presidential nomination, with Senators Bennett Champ Clark (left) and Samuel Jackson, July 22, 1944 (National Archives).

10.  Republican items from 1944 campaign. 186

11.  Dewey signs autographs in Louisville, September 11, 1944 (Library of Congress).

12.  Dewey speaks in San Francisco, September 21, 1944, with Governor Earl Warren (right) listening (Library of Congress).

13.  Harry Truman and Franklin Roosevelt, lunch on the White House lawn, August 18, 1944 (National Archives).

14.  Roosevelt and Voters Committee of the Arts, Sciences, and the Professions at the White House, October 9, 1944. Left to right: Van Wyck Brooks, Hannah Dorner, Jo Davidson, Jan Kiepura, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Gish, Dr. Harlow Shapley (National Archives).

15.  Churchill, Roosevelt, and Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King at Quebec (U.S. Army Signal Corps) (Library of Congress).

16.  FDR’s motorcade in New York City, October 21, 1944 (National Archives).

17. (facing, top) Roosevelt at Foreign Policy Association, New York, October 21, 1944, and (left to right) Wm. W. Lancaster, Henry Stimson, James V. Forrestal, and Herbert Lehman (National Archives).

18. (facing, bottom) Franklin Roosevelt and Admiral Milo Draemel, Philadelphia, October 26, 1944 (Temple University Libraries, Urban Archives, Philadelphia).

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19.  Democratic campaign buttons and ticket to FDR’s Chicago speech.

20.  John Bricker formally accepts vice presidential nomination, French Lick, Indiana, September 12, 1944 (Library of Congress).

21.  Harry Truman at Central Junior High School, Madison, Wisconsin, October 24, 1944 (National Archives).

22.  Dewey concedes the election, November 8, 1944 (Library of Congress).

23.  Roosevelt, Truman, and Wallace returning to Washington, November 10, 1944 (Library of Congress).

24.  Roosevelt’s fourth-term inaugural, Washington, January 20, 1945, with Vice President Truman and Roosevelt’s son James looking on (National Archives).

17

Campaign on the High Seas

The nation’s media had a fine old time with the Democrats’ convention. The New Yorker, for instance, had this to say: Radio listeners found the latest Chicago convention louder and funnier than the GOP one. The brash Democrats have an engaging way of  broadcasting their family squabbles so that the whole nation can listen in.1

Life magazine commented that the Democrats, even with one eye on the war, still put on “one of  their rousing, old-fashioned political jamborees, complete with parades, mobs, wirepulling and loud, irritable bickerings.” It was, the writer continued, “unlike the Republican convention where harmony and dullness prevailed.” Everybody was heard: “labor leaders, southerners, political bosses, visionaries, and reactionaries followed each other to the platform. Delegates cheered first one, then the other. Sometimes they cheered just to hear themselves cheer.”2 Jonathan Daniels, a White House staffer, was “appalled by the ruthlessness with which Hannegan carried out” the elimination of  Henry Wallace. “So were many other New Dealers,” Daniels wrote. “And Wallace was not the only personage who felt he had a right to feel that he had been done in in the dark. Jimmy Byrnes, believing he had a go sign from the President, definitely felt that way.”3 Columnist Marquis Childs called the convention “a ratification meeting” for a fourth term, “presented . . . as an unhappy necessity called forth by the demands of  the hour.” Still, he went on, “the convention 200

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might have been directed in a way that would have left fewer hurt feelings at the end.” (See Jimmy Byrnes, Alben Barkley, Henry Wallace, and a few others.) While many might put the blame for that on Hannegan, it should be remembered that he was only doing the job assigned him by Roosevelt, who, according to Childs, “seems to have forgotten all about the business of  politics.” While much of  this resulted from the needs of  the war effort as well as from FDR’s confidence of  his place in history, Childs predicted that “events in the campaign may compel the President to come down off  Mount Olympus.” 4 Drew Pearson, in his “Washington Merry-Go-Round,” concurred with Childs, finding plenty of  delegates sore at the end of  the convention. “What they objected to was that the convention should be run by the city machines of  Chicago, the Bronx, Jersey City and St. Louis, which threw their weight in favor of  the man who owed his political start to the city machine of  K ansas City.” Pearson went on to say What many delegates wondered was what Prosecutor Candidate Tom Dewey would do with a Democratic ticket on which the Vice President was a product of  Pendergast, picked by Pendergast’s old cronies. Senator Truman is a man of  scrupulous honesty, with a great reputation for cleaning up war inefficiency. But nevertheless, many argued that a city-boss product, picked by city bosses, would just be playing right into the hands of  Dewey. 5

Later, Pearson quoted Dewey commenting on Roosevelt’s dumping of  Wallace, saying, “Why, Herb [Brownell] ought to send him a check for that. Truman will help us more than he’ll help Roosevelt.”6 The New York Herald Tribune, a good Republican paper, in its editorial commented on “the unanimity with which every speaker at Chicago went out of  his way to defend the tired and aging leadership of  the Roosevelt administration and attack Mr. Dewey’s youth.” But, it said, “twelve years is too much for any group of  men to direct a country, and the President has been, himself, stubborn in refusing to bring new and younger blood into his Administration.” 7 And, of  course, Colonel McCormick, on the editorial page of  t he Chicago Tribune, wanted to give his slant on the goings-on at Chicago Stadium. “They call it the Democratic national convention but obviously it is the CIO convention,” said his editorial. “Mr. Roosevelt is the

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candidate of  t he CIO and the Communists,” it continued, “because they know that, if  elected, he will continue to put the government of  t he United States at their service, at home and abroad.” It concluded by stating “that the CIO is in the saddle and the Democratic donkey, under whip and spur, is meekly taking the road to communism and atheism.”8 “Everybody knows,” the Tribune said editorially after Roosevelt’s nomination, “that Roosevelt is the Communist candidate, but even the Communists cannot be sure where their place will be if  he wins. His purpose is to overthrow the Republic for his own selfish ambitions . . . [but] it is the holy duty of  every American to oppose the Great Deceiver.” Colonel McCormick did not like Franklin D. Roosevelt.9 In the meantime, the Democratic National Committee met on Saturday, July 22, and re-elected Bob Hannegan as its chairman, along with its other officers. The committee had on hand a cash balance of  only $116,000, but its members knew it had to raise millions more for the campaign. And the new vice presidential candidate held a press conference in Chicago. Senator Truman made public an exchange of  telegrams with President Roosevelt. “I send you my heartiest congratulations on your victory,” the President’s wire read. “I am, of  course, very happy to have you run with me. Let me know your plans. I shall see you very soon.” Truman’s message in reply read, “Thank you, Mr. President. I am happy to be your running mate. I will be in Missouri until August 1, our primary day. I am at your command and want to see you soon.” He told the reporters, “I’m going to find out what the national committee and the commander in chief  want me to do before deciding campaign plans,” although he recognized that he would probably bear the brunt of  the campaign while FDR gave his time to the war. The senator said that he would soon resign his committee chairmanship; “I do not want to get the committee into politics. I think it has much work to do yet.” Finally, Truman added that he was very fond of  Henry Wallace. “There is one thing in all this that hurt me,” he said, “and that was I had to beat him.”10 Wallace, for his part, played the good-soldier role in vowing to support the ticket. The cause of  liberalism had been “advanced by what has taken place at this convention . . . ,” he told reporters. “I will do everything

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possible to help Mr. Roosevelt in this campaign.” And at the stadium, Sidney Hillman said, “We believe Sen. Truman is eminently qualified for vice president. He will make a splendid running mate for the President.”11 Many Democrats were unhappy with the apparent complicity of   Franklin Roosevelt in ditching Henry Wallace. Ickes wrote to Wallace that “that convention did the President no good, and for that I am truly sorry.” Columnist Frank Kent wrote that the facts added up to “a plain doublecross. Beyond a doubt Mr. Wallace would have been renominated but for the active opposition of  M r. Roosevelt. . . . At any rate, no man in politics has been given shabbier treatment, with less reason, in a long time.” Indeed, when Anna Boettiger, FDR’s daughter, sent word through a friend to DNC official Paul Porter that she thought him “a son of  a bitch” for his treatment of  Wallace at Chicago, Porter replied, “You go tell Anna Boettiger, ‘So’s your old man.’”12 With the two conventions now behind them, the two tickets were squared away. Dewey and Bricker, the two younger men, had already been on the hustings since their nomination in June. The Democrats had a couple of  factors to consider as the campaign started. First, their candidate, the President, was on the West Coast with secret trips to Hawaii and Alaska ahead of  him before any real campaigning could begin. Second, as Ed Flynn put it, “the President’s increasingly frail health had to be taken into consideration when the matter of  making speeches was determined.” It was in this context that Truman’s schedule became important.13 On another front, a bitterly disappointed Jimmy Byrnes surreptitiously slipped a knife into the Democratic electoral effort. Byrnes had stayed at the convention through Thursday night, sitting in his box at the stadium with his wife, Maude, to listen to Roosevelt’s acceptance but conspicuously not joining in the cheering and standing ovation that most of  the others in the hall gave that speech. Later, Byrnes used his friendship with Turner Catledge of  the New York Times to publicize Roosevelt’s alleged dictum to Hannegan to “Clear it with Sidney,” which of  course Byrnes had not himself  heard. Catledge knew that his use of  the incident would likely be traced back to Byrnes, so he turned the story over to Arthur Krock, who wrote it up in the Times on July 25. Krock, in his column, turned it into “Clear everything with Sidney” and

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the Republicans seized upon the phrase with relish, to demonstrate that the Democratic convention (as McCormick had said) was run by the CIO-PAC and the Communists, with whom Hillman was always paired. From then until the election the Republicans regularly chanted “Clear everything with Sidney.”14 While the city of  Chicago tidied up after the Democrats left town, and the nation’s media opined on what it had all meant, Franklin D. Roosevelt donned once again his commander-in-chief’s hat and headed across the Pacific to Hawaii, there to meet with his senior military commanders and organize what was planned to be the final push against the Japanese. There were divergences of  opinion between the army and the navy on where the major offensive against Japan should take place. On March 11, Admirals King, Nimitz, and Leahy had visited the White House to fill the President in on the issues between the navy and MacArthur. The latter, motivated in part certainly by his pledge that “I shall return” made when he was spirited out of  the Philippines early in 1942, as well as by his own strategic thinking, felt that the recapture of  the Philippines had to be a central part of  the effort against Japan. King and Nimitz felt equally strongly that the Philippines should be bypassed, as other enemy strong points had been, and that the drive across the central Pacific should aim at taking the island of  Formosa, as a final staging area before the invasion of  the Japanese home islands. At that time, Leahy, FDR’s chief  military advisor, “felt that Roose­ velt recognized that perhaps disagreement in the Pacific grew out of  a clash of  personalities, and he made up his mind that he would make a personal inspection trip in the Pacific as soon as he could.” The journey in late July 1944 was the result.15 Shortly after midnight on July 22, Roosevelt and his party slipped out of  San Diego harbor on the heavy cruiser USS Baltimore. The party included Leahy, Admiral McIntire, “Pa” Watson, Rosenman, Rear Admiral Wilson Brown (FDR’s naval aide), and Brown’s assistant. Doctor Bruenn, the cardiologist, was never mentioned, but he was aboard as well. (“One other member of  the party,” the New York Times later reported, “was Fala, his Scottie, but Fala has to stay on shipboard because of  quarantine requirements.”) The President enjoyed his voyage, nap-

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ping, reading, and watching motion pictures. Four destroyers escorted the ship, guarding against enemy submarines, and the cruiser pursued a zigzag course in the daytime and, with lights out, ran straight at night. The Baltimore arrived at Pearl Harbor on the afternoon of  July 26 with a well-rested president on board.16 As FDR’s cruiser edged into its dock, it was met by a considerable number of  A merican warships, with their crews standing on their decks at attention, and, on shore, a vast crowd of  civilians behind restraining ropes. Roosevelt was greeted by Admiral Chester W. Nimitz and about forty other top officers of  the navy and army, all in dress uniform. Missing from the welcome was Douglas MacArthur, and Roosevelt inquired about him. MacArthur had received a wire from George Marshall on July 6, directing him to “arrange your plans so as to arrive in Honolulu July 26. It is of  the utmost importance that the fewest possible number of  individuals know of  your expected departure or of  your destination.” Hearing nothing further, MacArthur wired Marshall on July 18: “Will I receive further instructions? I know nothing of  the purpose of  my orders.” The next day Marshall sent him a cable: “Purpose general strategical discussion . . . I will be in Washington but you will see Leahy, etcetera.” The “etcetera” of  course had to refer to the President, for whom Leahy was the chief  military advisor.17 MacArthur left Brisbane on a twenty-six-hour flight (with a couple of  stops) to Hickam Field in Hawaii, complaining dramatically about “the humiliation of  forcing me to leave my command to fly to Honolulu for a political picture-taking junket.” He pouted that he had “never before had to turn my back on my assignment.” He claimed to know nothing about the meeting he was headed for, but that was clearly protesting too much. MacArthur knew he was not going to Hawaii just to have his picture taken with Bill Leahy.18 When MacArthur and his party landed in Hawaii, they were met by Nimitz, who rode with the general to his quarters at Fort Shafter. When the President’s ship docked, Nimitz was there to meet it, but Mac­ Arthur was not. After about an hour of  small talk, FDR prepared to go ashore. At that point, a long red convertible (secured from Honolulu’s fire chief), with siren blaring and accompanied by MPs on motorcycles,

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pulled up to the dock. A resplendent MacArthur emerged, clad in a fresh uniform, field marshal’s cap, flying jacket, and Ray-Bans, carrying a corncob pipe.19 When he reached the deck of  the Baltimore, MacArthur reached down to shake the President’s hand. “Mr. President,” he said, “it is so nice to see you again after all these years. . . .” “Hello, Douglas,” FDR responded. “What are you doing with that leather jacket on? It’s darned hot today.” “Well, Mr. President,” MacArthur answered, “I’ve just landed from Australia. It’s pretty cold up there.” Roosevelt went on: “I guess you know what this conference is for.” “No, Mr. President,” the general replied, somewhat disingenuously, “I am completely unprepared.” Here Leahy stepped in and said that photographs would be taken.20 After the photographers got through, MacArthur returned to Fort Shafter and Roosevelt was taken to an estate on Waikiki Beach where he was to stay. The following day, Leahy, Nimitz, MacArthur, and the President spent six hours inspecting various installations in and around Pearl Harbor. Dinner that evening, July 27, saw MacArthur, Nimitz, Leahy, and Admiral William Halsey joining the President at his place on Waikiki Beach. After dinner, MacArthur, Nimitz and Leahy met with Roosevelt in the mansion’s living room for a full and frank discussion of  the Pacific war situation, the ostensible purpose of  the gathering. The meeting was civil and civilized. As Leahy put it, “After so much loose talk in Washington, where the mention of  the name MacArthur seemed to generate more heat than light, it was both pleasant and very informative to have these two men who had been pictured as antagonists calmly present their differing views to the Commander-in-Chief.” The presentations by Nimitz and MacArthur had not ended when midnight rolled around, so the discussion resumed the next morning, lasting until noon.21 In these meetings, Leahy said, “Roosevelt was at his best as he tactfully steered the discussion from one point to another and narrowed down the area of  d isagreement between MacArthur and Nimitz . . . in the end only a relatively minor difference remained—that of  an operation to retake . . . Manila.”22

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The outcome of  the meeting was that MacArthur was permitted to continue with his planned invasion of  the Philippines, the “relatively minor difference” mentioned by Leahy. With this result, MacArthur was in effect the winner in Hawaii. FDR held a press conference on July 29, although the reporters were not allowed to submit their stories until the presidential party had returned to the continental United States. Roosevelt said, “I have had quite a full three days. Accomplished a great deal. . . . I have seen many things here.” Then he went on, playfully, “Where I am going, I cannot tell you. When I am to get back, I cannot tell you. And where I am going on my return, I don’t know. That’s a lot of  good news, and it can’t be released until I am ready.” He said that he and the military men had discussed “the strategic question” over “two very successful days with Nimitz, Mac­A rthur and Leahy, talking about future plans.”23 Asked whether “unconditional surrender” was still the objective, Roosevelt said, “Yes. Practically all Germans deny the fact they surrendered in the last war, but this time they are going to know it. And so are the Japs.”24 Finishing his business at Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt and his party returned to the Baltimore and sailed on to Alaska. The party was missing one member, as Sam Rosenman flew back to Washington from Hawaii. While on the way, Roosevelt was advised of  the death from cerebral thrombosis of  h is former beloved secretary, Marguerite “Missy” LeHand. FDR visited bases at Adak and Kodiak in the Aleutians and then headed back south. From Juneau the presidential party sailed aboard the destroyer USS Cummings, which was better suited than the larger Baltimore to negotiate the narrow straits of  the Inland Waterway along Canada’s Pacific coastline. Plans were for the President to make a nationwide radio broadcast about his trip once he arrived back in the state of  Washington. He wound up making it at the Puget Sound Navy Yard in Bremerton. Roosevelt delivered it from the slanted forecastle deck of  t he Cummings on August 12, to several thousand shipyard workers and sailors. Since Rosenman, his usual speechwriter, had left him in Hawaii, FDR dictated the message himself  a nd, contrary to custom, revised it only once before delivering it. Rosenman later wrote, “While this was not

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an important speech, it was a major one, and deserved more attention than that.”25 For some reason, Roosevelt came out onto the deck of  the Cummings fifteen minutes before the talk was scheduled; he was loudly cheered by the crowd when he appeared but by the time the radio broadcast began there was very little crowd enthusiasm behind him. He delivered the talk standing up, which he had not done for some time, and accordingly had to wear his leg braces that, because of  his recent weight loss, no longer fit well. The braces cut into his flesh and caused him pain. The place where Roosevelt stood was not level and the ship rocked in the wind, all of  which made it hard for him to keep his balance. The stiff  w ind also made it difficult for him to hold together the pages of  his speech. “The speech he made,” said Secret Service-man Reilly, “was, I think, the poorest in his life. The text, most of  it ad libbed, was dull and wandering and, for some reason, even the magnificent Roosevelt delivery was missing.” There was little audience reaction, because the wind and distance made it difficult for those standing on the docks to hear what the President was saying. Rosenman commented that “the American people expected that the President had something to say and would say it. But the speech had nothing to say, and said it poorly.”26 On top of  everything else, during the early part of  the thirty-fiveminute talk Roosevelt suffered a severe pain in his chest that moved up into his shoulders and continued for about fifteen minutes. Roosevelt told no one about this episode except Dr. Bruenn, but he felt that he had to cancel a planned inspection tour of  the navy yard. Within an hour after the speech, Bruenn administered an electrocardiogram and checked FDR’s white blood cells, but these showed no irregularities.27 Immediately thereafter the presidential party proceeded to Seattle, where the President was joined by his daughter, Anna. Everyone then boarded the Ferdinand Magellan, the President’s special train, for the long journey back to the nation’s capital. There were eighty-seven days to Election Day. Public opinion polls taken after the Bremerton speech showed a drop in the support registered for Roosevelt and, with that, a considerable jump in Dewey’s numbers. The Republican whispering campaign about the President’s health was also stepped up.

18

The Republicans Go to Work

While the Democratic leaders met in convention, nominated their candidates, and then worried about repercussions from the Bremerton address, the Republicans were not idle. On June 29, the day after Governor Dewey’s nomination, he had breakfast in Chicago with John Bricker, held a press conference, and then attended a series of  meetings with Republican National Committee (R NC) members to discuss the forthcoming campaign. Selection of  a new national chairman was deferred, while Dewey and a special subcommittee of  six went over the possibilities. At his press conference Dewey was asked whether he approved Cordell Hull’s policy of  reciprocal trade agreements. He snorted, “You mean the Republican reciprocal trade agreement program which Secretary Hull has been carrying out,” referring to long-past initiatives of  McKinley and Taft. “That has always been a Republican policy, which Secretary Hull has carried out ably, and which I hope the Republicans will continue to carry out.”1 The Republican nominee promised to elaborate on the planks in the party’s platform, because, as he said, it was the product of  inevitable compromises. Dewey measured his words carefully in the course of  the thirty-five-minute press gathering, stating among other things that he thought the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was one of  the best things the Roosevelt administration had done, though he was not happy with the way the SEC was being run. Asked if  he was satisfied with 209

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gasoline rationing, he smiled and said, “Do you know anybody who is?” He had “no cabinet views at this time” but did not rule out the possibility of  appointing a Democrat.2 The next day, June 30, Dewey’s close friend and associate Herbert Brownell, Jr., was elected chairman of  the Republican National Committee. The selection of  Brownell came as a shock to Ed Jaeckle, the Buffalo boss and New York state chairman, who expected that his long service to Dewey would be suitably recognized. In July Jaeckle decided to sever connections with Dewey and the Republican Party but held off  announcing his decision until November 15 for fear of  damaging the fall campaign. 3 Werner W. Schroeder of  I llinois, an avowed enemy of  Wendell Willkie, was chosen as party vice chairman, in what some thought was a deliberate slap by Dewey at the 1940 nominee; as the New York Times pointed out, R NC officers were not chosen without the approval, at least, of  the party’s nominee. Besides Schroeder’s selection, there was the displacement of  Senator Sinclair Weeks of  Massachusetts, a follower of  Willkie, as party treasurer. These moves looked to some like a deliberate effort to reduce Willkie’s waning influence in the Republican Party.4 That evening, Dewey and his party headed home from Chicago by train, arriving the next morning at the Union Station in Albany, where the local Republican politicos turned out a respectable crowd of  about ten thousand to greet the party’s presidential nominee. While Dewey went to the Executive Mansion for lunch and then returned to his desk at the capitol to catch up on things, Herb Brownell arrived in New York City, arranged for the headquarters of  the Dewey campaign to be set up on the tenth floor of  the Hotel Roosevelt there, and said he would meet with the candidate after the Fourth of  July holiday to discuss campaign plans. 5 When they did so, they considered Republican prospects as they appeared at the start of  the election drive. Several trends looked favorable. One was the apparent swing to the party over the last couple of  elections; Republican governors presided over states holding about three-quarters of  the votes in the Electoral College. All that Dewey had to do was to hold these states and he would win. Another favorable omen was the split between the Northern and Southern wings of  the Democratic Party and

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the probability that that split would widen at the upcoming Democratic convention. The Republicans hoped to do very well in the farm states. A survey taken by a reporter for the Chicago Tribune revealed two hurdles for the GOP in the corn belt—first, suspicion of  Dewey as an “easterner” and, second, the fact that farmers were well off  fi nancially as a result of  the New Deal’s farm policy—but still found a majority of  farmers “visibly angry at the present administration.” Restrictions, red tape, and market conditions turned them away from Roosevelt, and, in addition, ironically, “their prosperity is causing many farmers to turn Republican. They are paying off  their mortgages at a rapid rate. When a farmer owns his own land and has a heavy investment in livestock and machinery, he is one of  the most conservative men in the world.” This new conservatism should benefit Dewey.6 With the pro-black plank in the party platform, with its endorsement of  a permanent FEPC, Republicans hoped to bring many black voters back to the party to which they once belonged. Since 1932, the traditional loyalty of  black Americans to the Republican Party, based more on legend than for any constructive program that the party offered for the improvement of  black conditions, had sharply declined when the Democrats had offered them relief  and jobs. The New Deal, in aiding the poor and underprivileged, necessarily helped black people. The GOP platform writers knew that the Democratic platform could not possibly be as favorable to blacks as theirs, because of  the Southern walkout such a plank would provoke, but they worried about the personal allegiance that so many blacks felt toward Franklin and especially Eleanor Roosevelt. Dewey received endorsements from some black leaders and black newspapers, but these endorsements were offset by such events as the resignation from the New York State Employment Discrimination Commission of  Channing H. Tobias, one of  the country’s most influential black spokesmen, and six other members, accusing Dewey of  shelving legislation to protect black employment rights in the state. There were other worries for Republican campaign planners. One was Wendell Willkie; would he and those liberal Republicans who supported him give their full support to Dewey in the fall? (It was well known that Willkie disliked Tom Dewey.) Another concern was the

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effect that the state of  the war in October and November would have upon the voting public; they knew well that the Democrats would ride hard on the “horses in mid-stream” bit. As June came to an end and July started, American troops had liberated the city of  Cherbourg but were tied down in the hedgerows of  Normandy. Where those troops would be as the election neared was obviously a question. The Republicans suspected that the eleven million fighting men and women wanted no change that might retard their progress even slightly (this, of  course, was a major reason for the Republicans’ difficulty over servicemen’s voting), and they feared that the families and friends of  those troops overseas might reach the same conclusion as they approached their ballot boxes at home. Finally, another major question mark was the residual personal popularity of  Franklin Roosevelt, assuming (as they had to) that he was to be their opponent. Another real danger for Dewey’s campaign was the division among Republicans on foreign policy—internationalists, personified by Wendell Willkie, and isolationists, who now, in the midst of  war, called themselves “nationalists.” Dewey, a pre-war isolationist turned moderately internationalist, had to walk a careful path in between. After the convention, Senator Arthur Vandenberg dwelled upon this danger in a letter to Dulles. “Now that we have survived Chicago,” wrote the senator, “I think it is desperately important that we should take every care to survive any split during the campaign. There is no blinking the fact that the Middle West is dangerously touchy upon this subject.” Vandenberg noted that he would be meeting Dewey at Albany in a few days, and he would try to coordinate any speeches he made on foreign policy with those made by Dewey, to “allay any resurgent Middle Western ‘suspicions.’”7 Turner Catledge of  the New York Times, analyzing the Republicans’ foreign policy dilemma, noted that both at Mackinac in 1943 and at Chicago in 1944 “the essential purpose on both occasions was to write a declaration so broad that it could cover all elements which then, or at any other time, had called itself  Republican or might otherwise be fair game in the 1944 vote hunt.”8 Congratulations on his nomination poured in on the New York governor upon his return to Albany. Senator Harold Burton of  Ohio wrote, “You made a grand start on Wednesday and we are all anxious

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to help. We must win this time.” William Cox, a lumberman and the former owner of  t he Philadelphia Phillies (expelled from baseball by Commissioner Landis for gambling), said, “Your election in November is the only means of  correcting the fabulous mistakes of  the past twelve years.” And, of  course, Wendell Willkie wired Dewey, “Hearty congratulations on your nomination. You have one of  the great opportunities of  h istory.”9 It was noted that Willkie’s message said nothing about supporting the GOP nominee. A worried Willkie confidant, Bartley Crum, wired the 1940 candidate about what his telegram meant. One of  Willkie’s secretaries answered: “Telegram dictated by common courtesy. No change in sentiment. Period of  watchful waiting to continue some time longer.” That period of  “watchful waiting” became somewhat agonizing for the men running the Dewey campaign.10 On July 10, delegations from Vermont and Massachusetts visited Dewey. For the Vermonters, Senator Warren Austin pronounced himself  satisfied with Dewey’s foreign policy views. When the Massachusetts group left, Sinclair Weeks said he too was OK with Dewey’s foreign policy positions but declined to say whether Willkie would be. “I think Mr. Willkie has very deep and sincere convictions,” Weeks said, “and I think he will be governed by those convictions.” House leader Joe Martin thought that Willkie would support the ticket.11 Dewey met with another close Willkie associate, Samuel Pryor, on July 12; after the meeting Pryor said they had not discussed Willkie’s possible stand. Wendell, he said, “speaks only for himself.” A couple of  days later, Congressman Charlie Halleck, another former Willkie supporter, met with Dewey and then told the waiting press, “My view is he will support the ticket.” Asked about this statement, Willkie laughed and said, “I don’t believe I have had a talk with Charlie in two years.” Watchful waiting continued.12 The Republicans decided to get together their twenty-six state governors in St. Louis at the beginning of  August, to work out a unified campaign with Dewey and Bricker and to put their state political machines to work for the national ticket. Dewey said he had talked with all twenty-five of  his colleagues, and they would all be there, for “a working meeting, with no speeches.”13

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Governor Dewey left Pennsylvania Station in New York, heading west at midnight on July 30. The first stop was in Pittsburgh, where Governor Edward Martin planned for Dewey a series of  meetings to discuss the problems of  industrial reconversion from a wartime to peacetime economy.14 In Pittsburgh Dewey emphasized in his press conference that the election in November would be choosing a mostly peacetime president, serving from 1945 to 1949, rather than a wartime commander in chief. “We’re making gratifying progress in the fighting in the war,” he said, “but governmentally we’re making no progress in preparation for what will follow.” He said the country in peacetime could not stand any more of  the “Roosevelt depression” and, asked about the Democratic slogan of  not changing horses in mid-stream, said, “That argument was demolished in Chicago when they changed one-half  of  the horse.”15 In Springfield, Illinois, the next day, the candidate made his first rear-platform speech, in which he advised the crowd that over the next four years “we shall build the best peace the world has ever seen.” Dewey went off  to place a wreath on Abraham Lincoln’s tomb and dine with Governor Dwight Green before spending the night on his train in the Springfield railroad yard. Then, it was on to St. Louis, to meet with the Republican governors. These governors, first at Mackinac Island in 1943 and again at the convention in Chicago, had made it clear that they wanted to have a substantial voice in party policy making. What came out of  the St. Louis meeting was, in effect, a second party platform dealing with domestic issues. Dewey needed their whole-hearted support for his electoral effort, with their myriads of  state employees working for the national ticket and, as a side benefit, he hoped to erase any lingering personal animosity resulting from his conduct at the earlier Hershey conference, where some of  his colleagues thought him “aloof  and haughty.” If  St. Louis could produce “further emphasis on the domestic needs of  the country,” that would be a plus in the race against Roosevelt the commander in chief.16 Dewey spent his first couple of  days in St. Louis in virtual seclusion with his fellow governors as they worked on a fourteen-point domestic program. The resulting reports were issued on fourteen different areas, from agriculture to water resources. The reports assailed the federal gov-

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ernment for invasion of  areas under state jurisdiction, but the governors did not rule out federal financial aid. The report on postwar reconversion accused the Roosevelt administration of  “standing squarely in the path of  the future employment of  our returning veterans and millions of  displaced war workers.”17 Governor Dewey also took the opportunity to have a day-long series of  private meetings with representatives of  agricultural, business, labor, blacks, veterans, professions, and industrial groups. Showing the cold efficiency for which he was noted, Dewey arranged to meet with one group in one conference room while the next group was being assembled in the next room, to which he would walk when the first meeting was over. One observer noted that Dewey walks in, “smiles, pops his eyes once or twice and invites questions.” The meetings were kept informal while the Dewey staff  gathered as much information as possible for future analysis.18 On the afternoon of  August 3, three hours were spent on a nutsand-bolts discussion of  politics and the means by which the twentysix governors could be welded into a smoothly functioning machine for the Dewey-Bricker ticket in November. Brownell ran this session and later reported that his highest hopes had been exceeded. Complete agreement on plans for coordinating state activities with the national campaign was reached, he chortled, and “we know now we’ll work as a team.” Dewey himself  said after the conference’s end, “I am convinced that the Republican party will win in November, regardless of  t he war news.”19 While Dewey was riding his train back to Albany, the Republican National Committee put out a statement saying the governors’ conference “gave the nation a sample of  the kind of  co-operation that will characterize the national administration after next January 20.” Scoffing at the Democrats’ claim that the GOP ticket was “immature and inexperienced,” the statement said that Dewey and Bricker proved “that they are just the opposite—by their actions. If  anything either immature or inexperienced happened at the conference, it escaped the wary eyes of  scores of  experienced Washington reporters.”20 Dewey held a press conference on his train, in the course of  which he said the problem of  industrial reconversion was so great that “it re-

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quires a degree of  competence never yet shown by the present national administration in anything.”21 After the governors’ conference, Thomas E. Dewey settled down to a month pretty much out of  the public eye. When reporters asked about him, in Albany or at his farm in Pawling, the stock answer was that he was unavailable and working on speeches for the campaign. At one point in late July, Dewey attempted to disengage and distance himself  from Congressman Hamilton Fish, the ultra-conservative representative from Orange and Putnam counties, New York, when Fish said the Jews were for Roosevelt. Dewey said injecting a religious issue into a political campaign was “a disgraceful, un-American act,” only to receive what the New Yorker called a “thumping endorsement” of  his own candidacy from Fish. Dewey, the magazine said, was “totally unprepared for this crushing bear hug from the man he thought he had made his enemy.”22 There were various rumors about the campaign, and it finally was revealed that a speech in Philadelphia on September 7 would kick off  t he Dewey drive, with a tour to the West Coast to follow. In the meantime, the Republican strategists were content to have public at­tention occupied by war news rather than political doings; should Germany collapse in early fall, that development would aid the GOP contention that the election was to choose a peacetime president, not a commander in chief. The major exception to Dewey’s disappearance for much of  August involved the issue of  foreign policy and its place in the campaign. Scheduled to open on August 21 was a conclave of  representatives of  the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union, to be held at a nineteenth-century, federal-style mansion called Dumbarton Oaks in the Georgetown section of  Washington. The purpose of  the conference, chaired by U.S. Undersecretary of  State Edward R. Stettinius, was to work out a structure for the postwar international peace organization, for which the three nations had set forth preliminary proposals. On August 16, Dewey issued a statement in Albany attacking the upcoming meeting, calling it “the rankest form of  imperialism” to “coerce” the smaller nations and demanding that all the nations of  the world be given “their full rights” in the proposed world organization. Dewey said, “There appears to be a cynical intention that the four great Allied powers

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[which included the not-very-great Chinese government of  Chiang KaiShek] shall continue for all time to dominate the world by force.” He said, “If  we get off  on the wrong foot of  c ynical power politics, we will have lost the war before we have won it,” and then added “that this represents the attitude of  the Republican party.”23 Democrats on Capitol Hill were aghast at the Dewey statement. Senator Tom Connally of  Texas, Foreign Relations committee chairman, said, “There is no basis for the Governor’s alarm . . . [L]et us keep bipartisan and not drag down into the mire of  partisan politics this great undertaking in behalf  of  world peace.” Joseph O’Mahoney of  Wyoming called Dewey’s statement “a cynical and shocking act of  political sab­otage.” Cordell Hull answered the Dewey blast with calm, cool reasonableness, saying no arrangement as described in Dewey’s statement “is contemplated or has ever been contemplated by this government or, as far as we know, by any of  the other governments.” He said that the United States was on record with its hope to establish “a general international organization, based on the principle of  sovereign equality of  a ll peaceloving states and open to membership of  a ll such states, large and small, for the maintenance of  international peace and security.” This was the basis upon which the American delegation to Dumbarton Oaks was acting. Hull answered a reporter’s question whether he would be open to a meeting with the Republican candidate by welcoming such meetings “with others who come solely in a nonpartisan spirit and with a will and a disposition to sit down in conference and offer any feasible cooperation entirely free from personal political partisanship. I would welcome such a conference with Governor Dewey.” The next day Hull was reproved privately by the President for his invitation, which Franklin Roosevelt saw as permission to the opposition party to move into an area that the administration was handling.24 On the 18th, Dewey wired Hull that he accepted the secretary’s “invitation” to consult and said that he would send John Foster Dulles as his representative. That evening Dewey received a telegram from Hull, welcoming a meeting with Dulles. Dulles held an August 19 press conference in Albany, with Dewey sitting in, at which he discussed what he

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hoped to accomplish in his get-together with Hull, an elucidation of  the American plan to be submitted at Dumbarton Oaks. When a reporter asked if  the result would be to eliminate foreign policy discussions from the campaign, Dulles demurred. “I don’t think it is healthy or desirable,” he said, “to eliminate from the campaign a discussion of  these international problems. The only way in which a democracy makes up its mind, and makes up its mind in a way that sticks, is by having these issues debated and discussed.”25 Informed observers were puzzled by Dewey’s August 16 statement and the remarks by Dulles at his press conference because they could not believe, as Arthur Krock wrote, what was apparently true, that Dewey and Dulles did not know what was in the security plan drawn up by the State Department, even though it had been already published. Willkie pointed out that Dewey could have learned all the details the same way he did, “by asking any of  several people in Washington.” Republican senators in the capital, who had been kept fully informed by Cordell Hull, thought that perhaps Dewey knew something they didn’t know or else “there was some campaign strategy involved of  a nature so subtle they couldn’t grasp it.” Administration leaders found it hard to believe that Dewey and Dulles were not as knowledgeable on the subject as Willkie was.26 Indeed, Dulles had written a letter to Hull many months before, analyzing the Moscow Declaration of  autumn 1943, which embodied the U.S. position to be submitted at Dumbarton Oaks, and acknowledging that it marked “a very great step forward along the lines . . . deemed to be sound and conducive to a just and durable peace.”27 I. F. Stone, in the Nation, said that “Dewey’s statement, taking into account its content, timing, and shoddy vagueness, seemed designed primarily to rally the Polish and other national minority votes for the GOP ticket. That incidentally it might throw a monkey wrench into the Four Power Meeting was a risk the Republican candidate cheerfully accepted.”28 So there was reason for some suspicion, which Roosevelt felt, of  the Dewey motives in questioning the structure of  the international security body, but Hull duly scheduled a meeting with Dulles for August 23 at the State Department in Washington.

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Dewey decided to use the upcoming Dulles-Hull meeting as a lever to entice Wendell Willkie into his camp. At about 11:30 on the night of  August 19, Dewey’s confidant Elliott Bell, with the governor standing by, called the Willkie residence in New York. Mrs. Willkie answered and, when Bell asked for her husband, said, “I am sorry. Mr. Willkie has retired.” Dewey immediately followed up with a telegram saying he was sorry to have missed him but, after consulting extensively with Dulles that day, “I should like to have the benefit of  your views if  you could join us at any time” in the next couple of  days before Dulles went to Washington. The next morning Dewey called Willkie at his home and asked if  the wire had been received. Willkie said he’d received it but he had just gotten up “and I will answer it before long.” Dewey persisted with his request for a meeting of  the three of  them (with Dulles) and Willkie again said he would send Dewey an answer “in a little while.” “Couldn’t we arrange it on the telephone?” Dewey pressed. Willkie: “I have had a number of  people here and I will reread the telegram and send you an answer.” Willkie’s wire said he would not go to Albany to confer with Dewey but would be happy to consult with Dulles in New York, on his way to Washington.29 “Boy! Did hell break loose,” Willkie later exclaimed. “Next thing I know my newspaper friends all over town have me on the phone. Jim Hagerty, the Governor’s press man, had tipped them off  about the great big conference and was keeping them informed of  every development. When will it be? Where? Why? Bulletins were flying all around.” Dulles called Willkie on Monday morning, and the two agreed to meet quietly at Dulles’s home, at a time not to be set, to avoid the press. Late in the afternoon, Willkie ducked out of  his office, headed uptown, and slipped unseen into Dulles’s home. “No cameras, no newsreels, no reporters.” The two men had a calm chat and then issued a short, measured public statement, “not animated by partisan consideration.”30 Having been frustrated in the effort to get some sort of  endorsement of  Dewey from Willkie, Foster Dulles was off  to Washington on August 23. He arrived at about 3:30 that day for his meeting with Hull. The two met for two and a half  hours, with their conversations scheduled to resume the following day. A major part of  the discussion that first day was

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whether the word “nonpartisan” rather than “bipartisan” should be used to describe the process of  keeping the United Nations organization out of  politics. Dulles strongly favored “bipartisan,” which to him seemed to signify some involvement of  his party in the formation of  the peace organization, while Hull was firmly convinced that “nonpartisan” was the right term to use. Dulles thought Hull very stubborn, but he finally agreed to the secretary’s position. At 6 p.m. Dulles emerged from Hull’s office for an impromptu press conference, at which he said, “We covered a lot of  ground. I think we’ve made considerable progress in exploring the possibility of  bipartisan cooperation.”31 Two more days of  talks between the two resulted in an agreement to keep out of  the election campaign reference to the ongoing discussions and meetings regarding the postwar peacekeeping organization. On August 25, after the conclusion of  the talks, Dewey wrote to Hull expressing his gratification with the result. With the Dumbarton Oaks issue presumably behind him, Governor Dewey prepared for his major Western swing with some confidence. Things looked promising. At the end of  July, Herb Brownell said that “polls taken on a non-partisan basis” confirmed private Republican soundings and indicated that Dewey would carry at least twenty-five states in November, with 311 electoral votes, well more than needed. In late August a reporter in Michigan estimated “a minimum lead” of  50,000 for the Dewey-Bricker ticket in that state, which Willkie carried in 1940 by 6,936 votes. Dewey, of  course, was being pushed there as a native son. And Walter Bacon, governor of  Delaware, wrote the candidate that “your strategy in St. Louis and since that time, has been excellent, and is helping our campaign a great deal.” Presidential fever was in the air. 32 Shortly before the end of  August, John Bricker got involved in a needless hassle that re-emphasized the Republican reluctance to ease military voting. Ohio law required that ballots be marked with a black lead pencil. Democratic leaders and CIO officials demanded that Bricker convene a special session of  the legislature to amend such a requirement, since frontline soldiers might have no access to a black lead pencil. Bricker said the provision was a “clean election law,” and he was instructing election boards to count only those absentee ballots marked with a black pencil. A Democratic official said he would go to court to force

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the state to send a black lead pencil to every soldier seeking a ballot. The next day, following the inevitable brouhaha this all produced, Bricker backpedaled and agreed to the special session. 33 The Republican leadership decided to make use of  its wealth of  state governors by having several of  them make nationwide broadcasts for the Dewey-Bricker team. This effort kicked off  on August 29, when Warren of  California, Green of  I llinois, and Baldwin of  Connecticut took to the airwaves. Both Warren and Green “greatly toned down” the text that the R NC handed to them. A week later Walter Edge of  New Jersey, Arthur Langlie of  Washington and Harry Kelly of  M ichigan made their pitches for Dewey; this time “the three speakers . . . stuck closely to the advance texts released in New York” by the R NC. 34 Meanwhile the Republican National Committee issued to the party faithful a 63-page booklet entitled What to Talk About. The booklet emphasized that “every speech should be an attack speech” and every one should have some material deliberately designed to appeal to women, since 60 percent of  the votes on November 7 would be cast by women. Stress that the next administration will be a peacetime, not a wartime, one. The “basic issue in the campaign,” the R NC said, “is the fourth ter m—16 years in office, over a decade and a half.” It went on: “All the communists are for Mr. Roosevelt. . . . The Nation’s cor rupt politica l m achines are for Mr. Roosevelt. . . . Worst of  a ll is the support Mr. Roosevelt is receiving from Hillman’s politica l action committee.”35 Just before Labor Day, Harry Luce invited Brownell and Willkie to dine together with him at the Waldorf. Luce, as always a good Republican, thought he should do his part to secure Willkie’s allegiance to the Dewey-Bricker ticket. Both men agreed to the meeting, although with some misgivings, Brownell because he thought the meeting could be rather unpleasant, Willkie because he still mistrusted Dewey. The campaign provided Willkie ahead of  time with a copy of  Dewey’s upcoming Philadelphia speech, hopeful that the foreign policy remarks might win Willkie over. When the three men met at the Waldorf, Willkie said that Dewey’s speech was indeed acceptable but then delivered a nasty diatribe against the Republican candidate’s character. After dinner and a few rounds of  whiskey, Willkie launched into another attack, as Brownell

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and Luce listened in dismay. After Willkie left around midnight, the two men said nothing for several minutes before commenting that they hoped that Willkie “has rid his system of  accumulated bile.” Luce assured the party chairman that he would do what he could to goad Willkie into rallying to Dewey’s support. How successful that would be no one had any way of  k nowing at that stage of  the game. 36­­

19

Dewey Heads West

On September 7, Governor Dewey headed to Philadelphia, and his first major campaign swing of  1944 was under way. With sixty-five representatives of  the press and radio chains and thirty-three Dewey staffers in the eleven-car special train, it presented itself  as quite a caravan. The candidate was met at Thirtieth Street Station in Philadelphia on his arrival at 11 a.m. by Governor Edward Martin, Mayor Bernard Samuel, a band, and a big crowd waving flags and pushing to get a look. Dewey was feted at a luncheon in the Bellevue Stratford Hotel, visited Independence Hall in the afternoon, met with small-town newspaper publishers, dined with Mrs. Dewey in their hotel suite, then headed to Convention Hall for his 9:30 p.m. speech, to be broadcast nationwide. A crowd of  about 13,500 (with 1,500 empty seats) cheered when Martin introduced the governor of  New York, who set forth the theme of  his campaign’s domestic attacks on his opponent. Dewey called the Roosevelt administration a “tired, exhausted, quarreling and bickering administration . . . conceived in defeatism, which failed for eight straight years to restore our domestic economy.” (Of  course, as a Republican he did not say how the domestic economy got into the shape it was in when Roosevelt entered office.) Picking up on an offhand remark by Selective Service Director Lewis B. Hershey, Dewey charged that the administration planned to keep soldiers in the army after the war because there would be no jobs waiting for them at home.1 223

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Hershey, who in fact had no jurisdiction or authority over demobilization of  the armed forces, had responded to a hypothetical question posed to him in Denver in August with the comment that “we can keep people in the army about as cheaply as we could create an agency for them when they are out.” Hershey later pointed out that he had no policy-making power in the area in question, which was in the hands of  Henry Stimson and the War Department, and that he himself  was a military man and non-political although he had been and was still a Republican. As a matter of  f urther fact, on the day of  Dewey’s Philadelphia speech, the War Department had published what the New York Times editorially called its “excellent plan for a prompt partial demobilization of  the army, following the defeat of  Germany.” Nevertheless, Hershey’s remark would be a staple of  Republican electioneering throughout the campaign.2 Dewey, in Philadelphia, went on to say that the New Deal had done the worst job of  r unning the government that had ever been done. He asserted that the postwar occupation of  Germany and Japan should be carried out by volunteer forces, a position widely characterized as unrealistic and impractical, given the problems sure to be faced in those two conquered nations and the unknown lengths of  time the occupations might take. Harold Ickes, addressing a union audience in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a few days later, noted with relish the partially empty house to which Dewey had spoken in Philadelphia. Ickes said, “The candidate in the blue serge suit made his opening bow in Philadelphia last Thursday night. For one, I regret that there were so many empty seats in Convention Hall on that occasion. My own belief  is that the more people who see and hear the Republican candidate the easier our task will be.”3 From Convention Hall it was back to the railroad yard, where the Dewey train was waiting to depart for Louisville, Kentucky, with no stops planned along the way. The plan for the trip was for seven major speeches, in Philadelphia, Louisville, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Oklahoma City, several press conferences, and very few rear-platform appearances, although the number of  these was increased along the way from what was originally planned. The Dewey caravan was a lesson in efficiency and split-second timing; the train was never permit-

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ted to be late, and if  it arrived at a destination earlier than scheduled, it sat in the railroad yard until it could arrive at the station platform exactly on time. Reception committees were given detailed advance plans, including such items as the height of  the lectern to be provided for the governor. Dewey’s entrances were carefully rehearsed. Press conferences were carefully structured. The candidate’s speeches ran no longer than twenty minutes, for he believed that anything said after that time was wasted. Arthur Krock wrote that the Dewey methods lacked “a certain amount of  warmth” but were “efficient and informing.” 4 On the other hand, observers were baffled by the determination to avoid big cities and back-platform appearances. Detroit was passed by on the trip into Michigan, and in Chicago the train stopped in an inaccessible part of  the railroad yard and Dewey never left it. Even Omaha was skipped. The route of  the train was kept, to the extent possible, hidden from the people who lived along the line, to avoid crowds. On the way West from Louisville, Dewey and his party would head for Lansing, Michigan (with an overnight stop for the governor in his hometown of  Owosso, visiting his mother), then to Des Moines, Valentine, Nebraska, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and Spokane, before arriving at his next speaking point, Seattle. At the intermediate stops Dewey intended “to devote his time to conferences on governmental and party subjects.”5 In Louisville, Governor Dewey spoke to the National Federation of  Women’s Republican Clubs, setting forth some of  his views on foreign policy issues and backing an international body with “cooperative means to prevent or repel military aggression.” He went on to define “such means” as “the use of  force as well as the mobilization of  international opinion or moral pressure and of  economic sanctions” with a “world court to deal with justiciable disputes.” The New York Times editorially called upon the governor to develop further what his views really meant. A major question had arisen as to whether the “use of  force” required congressional action in each instance, a question that Dewey had not addressed. Dewey again attacked the General Hershey remark, saying the New Deal was afraid to discharge soldiers because it was not prepared to give them jobs and adding that he as president would leave military service after the war to those who wanted to remain in the army.

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Wendell Willkie, a couple of  weeks later, wrote to Governor Leverett Saltonstall of  Massachusetts “that I don’t think Governor Dewey’s Louisville speech clarified the situation [the party’s foreign policy position]. On the contrary, it further muddied the problem.”6 After Louisville, the next stopover was in Lansing, Michigan, where Dewey held a press conference, followed by an extemporaneous address from the steps of  the city hall in Owosso, some thirty miles farther on, where twenty-five thousand people showed up to welcome him to his native town. The next morning the governor, his wife, and his mother went to church in Owosso.7 From Michigan the Republican candidate’s train rode on to Iowa. In Ames, it picked up Harrison Spangler, the former Republican national chairman, and Governor and Mrs. Bourke B. Hickenlooper, who rode with Dewey in his private car into Des Moines. When he reached Des Moines, Dewey was met by a crowd of  three thousand at the station, where he specially praised Hickenlooper, who was running for Guy Gillette’s U.S. Senate seat. Dewey went on to a press conference, at which he said that the Roosevelt administration made absolutely no preparation for the war and that it was equally as incapable of  preparing for peace. He also criticized a recent Collier’s article by Wendell Willkie, which sharply attacked the foreign policy planks of  both parties. From Des Moines, his entourage moved on to Valentine, Nebraska, where Dewey was to spend the better part of  t wo days. In Valentine, Dewey on his first day beamed with pleasure as he reviewed the results of  the September elections in Maine, which showed a seven-point increase for the Republicans over the 1940 results and the election of  a ll three Republican congressional candidates. “The people of  Maine,” Dewey said, “have demonstrated the rising confidence in the leadership of  the Republican party which I have found everywhere I have been.” He said that if  the seven-point gain prevailed generally, it would mean the election of  “no Democrats anywhere.”8 The next day Dewey talked about Douglas MacArthur, praising his generalship in extravagant terms in combination with a dig at Roosevelt. In line with the standard Republican position that the Pacific area was given short shrift by FDR (and ignoring the basic policy agreed upon

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with the allies that Germany should be defeated first), Dewey said, “Naturally the selection of  the over-all commanding officer [in the Pacific] involves a great many problems. I do have this view: now that General MacArthur is no longer a political threat to Mr. Roosevelt, it would seem appropriate that his magnificent talents be given greater scope and recognition.” He added, “General MacArthur has performed miracles with inadequate supply, inadequate air power and inadequate force.”9 The New York Times promptly took Dewey to task for implying that supplies had been withheld from MacArthur “for political reasons,” when Dewey knew it was because of  the agreed decision to beat Hitler first. Dewey, the editorial said, had the right if  he so chose “to challenge the wisdom of  the whole basic policy under which our main attack was directed first in Europe,” but not to accept the policy and then complain of  inadequacies “which this very policy imposed on other fronts.” Nevertheless, the MacArthur remarks were pleasing to isolationist Republicans who were not altogether happy with Dewey’s Louisville talk on foreign policy.10 Having tossed MacArthur into the race as a potential issue, Dewey left to attend a rodeo in Valentine before rejoining his train for a trip to Sheridan, Wyoming. As the train went on its way, newsmen in the entourage took note of  the fact that Dewey up to then had drawn only fair crowds to any appearances that were open to crowds; there was, they reported, “none of  the tumultuous excitement that has featured past campaigns,” even in the rural Middle West, considered safely Republican territory. The people with Dewey attributed this lack to the young men being off  in the service while others were busy with war work, but the reporters still wondered. Was Thomas Dewey, with his mellifluous baritone radio voice, entrusting his whole campaign to his radio broadcasts?11 On September 14, apparently picking up on these observations, Dewey changed tactics and made three rear-platform speeches, in Sheridan, Wyoming, and Hardin and Billings, Montana. He attacked the New Deal as offering only the dole for returning servicemen and, before a big crowd at the Billings railroad station, promised the Democrats a real fighting campaign. After being introduced by Montana’s Governor Sam Ford, Dewey said there was no such thing “as one indispensable man

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out of  our nation of  130,000,000 people,” and he blasted the Democrats’ “continuity” theme, saying, “We will change administrations and fight the war more effectively because we did so.” He said that his four Pacific Coast speeches would spell out the details of  his domestic program, and he paid tribute to Governor Ford, in a manner that needlessly put down Wendell Willkie, whose support he was still seeking. Ford, he said, had carried Montana by 57,000 votes in 1940 while the head of  the national ticket lost the state. “That shows,” Dewey went on, “the people of  Montana have discrimination.”12 In a subsequent press conference in Billings, Dewey declined to say whether he would have made a different allocation of  supplies to MacArthur, waffled when asked whether allocation of  supplies was not being decided by the Chiefs of  Staff, and said he meant no reflection on Willkie with his remark about the 1940 Montana results, for which, he admitted, he had given the wrong figures in any event. He then got back on his train, which left Billings at 4:45 p.m., headed for Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and then on to Spokane and Seattle. When he met the press in Spokane, Dewey’s major theme was that Roosevelt and the New Deal had neglected the West. He said he was pledged to its “limitless development” and promised to appoint a cabinet member from the West. Asked by a reporter if  he had conferred with the last president from the West (Herbert Hoover), Dewey said, “I haven’t had the benefit of  his advice.” He added that some had asked him if  he would get rid of  Harold Ickes as his first act and he had responded that “it would be an act very high on any list, and that it would be a high patriotic service.” Ickes, back in Washington, commented that he hoped Dewey “is not letting me get into his hair.”13 In Seattle, on September 18, Governor Dewey gave the first of  the four speeches in which he planned to lay out his domestic platform. In a talk broadcast nationwide, the Republican candidate made his pitch for the support of  labor, which was strong in Seattle, laying the blame for wartime labor troubles squarely on Franklin Roosevelt. With a standingroom crowd of  about 7,500 in the Civic Auditorium, Dewey said that he supported the National Labor Relations (Wagner) Act (“a good and necessary law”), vowed to remove the bureaucratic entanglements that tied labor’s hands, and promised to appoint a secretary of  labor from labor’s

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own ranks. Under a Dewey administration, business, agriculture, and labor would have real equality. He charged the administration’s labor policy with breeding class division, hatred, and insecurity and said the only labor policy at the present time was the caprice of  the President. The Wagner Act had not worked well because the government could not keep its hands off  the legally established processes; in addition, too many administrative bureaus had smothered the proper working of  the NLR B—“more than twenty-five Federal agencies pulling in opposite directions,” he said. The Smith-Connally Act should be allowed to expire at the end of  the war; while decrying the effect of  this law, which he said had not reduced strikes, Dewey neglected to say that the bill was passed with heavy Republican support or that FDR had vetoed it. “The New Deal,” Dewey went on, “is exclusively responsible for most of  the serious wartime strikes. The chief  blame goes directly into the White House and to its agency created at the top of  a ll this chaos of  agencies, the War Labor Board.” The practice of  this board, he charged, “has been to stall . . . for weeks, months, and sometimes years—before issuing decisions,” causing suffering for the working man and his family.14 Dewey, of  course, had no hopes of  cutting into the CIO’s support for Roosevelt, and his pitch was clearly aimed at the American Federation of  Labor. The A FL was ostensibly non-partisan, and the Republicans hoped that A FL resentment of  the CIO’s activities would work in their favor. The Seattle address was designed to further this effort. Back in New York, Herb Brownell predicted that “there would be a definite labor swing to Governor Dewey” after the Seattle speech, and that labor leaders had examined the records of  Dewey and Bricker and found them to be “progressive and fair to all.”15 From Seattle, the Dewey train headed south toward Portland. Sixty miles north of  the city, however, at Castle Rock, Washington, his special train crashed into a stopped passenger train. Dewey, sitting in the bedroom of  his car, was shaken but not hurt by the collision; his wife struck her head against a wall. Luckily the Deweys’ engineer was able to slow his train down some before hitting the stopped train and only the front car (the baggage and darkroom car used by photographers) was severely damaged, although there was broken glass in cars farther back. Two correspondents and two porters were injured badly enough to be

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hospitalized, and Dewey visited with those who were shaken up by the collision, including passengers on the train that was hit. An automobile was commandeered to take the candidate on to his speaking engagement in Portland. Speaking at the Ice Coliseum in Portland to a nationwide radio audience, Dewey challenged the idea of  “an indispensable man.” He argued that a change was the indispensable necessity, because of  the “quarreling and bickering within the New Deal,” the impossibility of  harmonious action between president and Congress because Roosevelt had tried “to undermine Congress,” and the consistent bungling of  the New Deal in “the job of  handling the country’s domestic economy.” Dewey went on to stress that the peace of  the world should not hang on the slender thread of  the acquaintance of  any two or three men, countering the Democratic position that Roosevelt’s relationship with Churchill and Stalin was an asset to be valued.16 South from Portland, on his way to San Francisco, Governor Dewey spoke to a crowd of  about three thousand from his train’s rear platform in Eugene, Oregon. Introduced by Senate candidate Wayne Morse, Dewey called for “the most complete house-cleaning” in the country’s history with the election of  a Republican president, House, and Senate. The country needs, he said, “to wipe out the dismal years of  the New Deal” and “go forward a united and prosperous nation.”17 As the Dewey campaign train headed into California, Kyle Palmer, the political editor of  the Los Angeles Times (and a longtime Republican activist), sized up Republican chances in the Golden State. Democratic registration in the state was considerably higher than the Republican, and Roosevelt had carried the state impressively three times, partly because Republicans had had so much difficulty in composing factional differences. But in 1944, Palmer wrote, “for the first time in two decades Republican leaders here are working together harmoniously, industriously and effectively.” Plans for the campaign were well worked out, and the state, he felt, was “ripe for a complete reversal of  its 12-year record.”18 An estimated fifty thousand lined the downtown streets to watch the Dewey auto caravan take the candidate the two miles from the San Francisco railroad station to his hotel. Some fourteen thousand listeners attended Dewey’s speech that evening in the Civic Auditorium, with

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many more outside, unable to get into the jam-packed hall. The GOP candidate spoke of  “the American way” to solve the country’s domestic problems, between New Deal regimentation and unregulated business and finance. He said that the reforms of  the New Deal would not disappear in a Dewey administration but would be made to work better. The government, he said, would necessarily intervene from time to time in the American economy, to see that the worker had a job, the farmer a price for his crop, and business a fair chance to carry on its activities. The government would also be involved in keeping interest rates stable. “Whether we like it or not, and regardless of  the party in power,” Dewey said, “government is committed to some degree of  economic direction. Certain government measures to influence broad economic conditions are both desirable and inevitable.” The editors of  the New York Times listened to Governor Dewey’s talk and concluded: With his speech last night at San Francisco it seems to us that Mr. Dewey just about completed the process of  r unning for the Presidency on the domestic platform of  t he New Deal. This process, of  course, was pretty well under way before Mr. Dewey reached California, or even before he entrained for the West Coast. It began at Chicago, when the Republican party borrowed for its platform practically all of  t he New Deal’s major legislative enactments of  t he last ten years. Since then Mr. Dewey has added other items. Last night in San Francisco he succeeded in eliminating all but a few traces of  a ny still lingering division between the Republican position and the New Deal position on three important domestic issues [credit, wages, and agriculture].19

With Dewey’s next talk scheduled for the massive Los Angeles Coliseum on September 22, Hollywood Republicans determined to put on a show. An afternoon reception for the Deweys as well as for Governor and Mrs. Earl Warren was staged by David O. Selznick. The honored guests shook hands with Lionel Barrymore, Walter Pidgeon, Randolph Scott, Ginger Rogers, Gary Cooper, Adolph Menjou, Edward Arnold, Ann Sothern, and William Bendix. In the evening, the festivities started off  w ith actor Leo Carillo leading a troop of  “ Wild West” cowboys and cowgirls in a riding exhibition around the coliseum infield. Then, with Cecil B. DeMille acting as master of  ceremonies, the 93,000 in attendance heard short speeches extolling Dewey from numerous Hollywood celebrities including Hedda Hopper and Walt Disney.

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It was interesting to note that the turnout of  Hollywood folk for Dewey was far less than the number of  Roosevelt supporters listed by the Hollywood Democratic Committee in a telegram sent on September 20 to FDR, Truman, and Henry Wallace. The 250 names in that wire included among many others Fannie Brice, Count Basie, Eddie Cantor, Olivia DeHavilland, Judy Garland, Katherine Hepburn, Rita Hayworth, Al Jolson, Harpo and Groucho Marx, Edward G. Robinson, Frank Sinatra, Lana Turner, and Artie Shaw. The next day the committee added a few more names: Paul Muni, Zachary Scott, the Three Stooges, Franchot Tone, James Cagney, Tallulah Bankhead, Keenan Wynn, and Van Johnson. The Dewey list was dwarfed by that aggregation, but the 93,000 turnout for his speech was gratifying.20 At exactly 7:45 p.m., the gates at the far end of  the stadium opened wide and the Deweys entered in an open yellow automobile, with motorcycle escort and flares, followed by a second car bearing the Warrens. They twice circled the field, waving to the crowd. Ginger Rogers, representing “Hollywood for Dewey,” introduced Warren, and the California governor presented Dewey to the vast throng. The presidential candidate launched into his address, summarizing all the things he had said or advocated earlier in his trip—the great future of  the West, his commitment to total victory and a lasting peace, his support for labor, and his pledge of  peacetime jobs without the loss of  personal freedoms. Then Dewey got into his new proposals—broadening the Social Security system (and criticizing the New Deal for not having done so) so everyone would be included, extension of  unemployment insurance to those not covered, return of  employment services from the Federal government to the states, and the assurance of  medical services to those who might need them but could not pay for them. He acknowledged that there might be some administrative burdens in carrying out all that he proposed, but, he said, “we shall find a way.” Life magazine called Dewey’s L.A. effort “a sound but sedative speech on social security.”21 The next day Dewey held a series of  meetings with radio executives, newspaper publishers, labor representatives, and the GOP strategy committee for Southern California before boarding his train at L.A.’s Union Station for the return east. Mae Stoneman, for the California A FL, said

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her people were happy with their conference. “I was most impressed with Governor Dewey’s warm and sincere attitude regarding our problems,” she said. “He talks like a real champion of  A merican labor.” The local politicos assured the candidate they expected to carry the state for the Dewey-Bricker ticket, and Dewey told Earl Warren, before leaving, how gratified he was by his reception in California. As the train pulled away, Warren waved and shouted, “So long, Tom, and the best of  luck to you.” However, Tom Dewey was not quite done with California. He gave a rear-platform address to 7,500 people standing in a hot sun at San Bernardino, promising “a government by people who know the West” and poking at the idea of  “an indispensable man.” At Barstow, Dewey shook hands with people in a small crowd there. And, finally, at Needles, just before crossing the Colorado River into Arizona, he told a small crowd that for twelve years the country had “stood exactly still,” which he promised to change. Then he retreated to his personal car and tried, unsuccessfully, to get Franklin Roosevelt’s speech to the Teamsters dinner on his radio, which had, it turned out, been damaged in the Oregon train crash.22 In the meantime, the New York Daily News was running a series of  editorials, predicting horrible consequences for the nation should Franklin Roosevelt be elected to a fourth term. the fourth ter m is the issue it headed its editorial on August 27, summarizing its point by saying, “Whatever the Roosevelts have in mind, the fact is if  they get a fourth term our remaining democracy will be on its way out.” The point was reiterated in an editorial of  September 7, and three days later the paper was much more explicit. It noted that Roosevelt had four sons, all “ambitious, lusty, courageous young men,” all making good service records. Elliott lived in Texas, Franklin, Jr., in New York, and James and John in California, but James would have “little trouble . . . to reestablish his old residence in Massachusetts.” During Roosevelt’s fourth term, the editorial said, he would likely have James go back to Massachusetts and then have all four run for governor in their respective states, where they would probably all win. Then, when the President was ready to step down, he would select the most successful of  h is governorsons to succeed him, and the monarchy would be in place. “This is the kind of  thing we’ll be asking for,” the editors concluded, “if  we give Roosevelt a fourth term.”23

20

The Battle Is On

Franklin Roosevelt’s speech at the Statler in Washington on September 23 heartened the leaders of  the Democratic Party as they recognized that “the Champ,” as they liked to think of  FDR, was in the fray at last. The same speech infuriated Thomas E. Dewey, when he got to read the text of  it, after being frustrated in trying to hear the President on his radio. The final broadcast speech of  the Republican candidate’s Western tour was scheduled for September 25 in Oklahoma City, and Dewey directed Herb Brownell, his party chairman, to add another radio network for the talk. Accordingly, to the 141 outlets of  the National Broadcasting Company were added the 170 stations of  the Blue Network. In the meantime, on the 24th, at a brief  stop in Belen, New Mexico, Dewey handed to reporters a statement that Roosevelt, in his Teamsters speech, had “dropped the mask” of  not campaigning “in the usual partisan sense” and that he, Dewey, would “feel free to examine his record with unvarnished candor.” In six speeches so far, Dewey said, he had started to show the country the course it should take in the critical years ahead. “My opponent, in his speech last night, indicated that he had no program and has sunk to mere quoting from ‘Mein Kampf’ and to charges of  ‘ fraud and falsehood.’” It had become clear, the statement read, “that four terms as President is too much for any man and that 16 years would be far too long.”1 The Republican candidate’s staffers felt that their man had achieved one of  h is aims, in forcing President Roosevelt down from his non234

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political ivory tower and into the fight. Now they would see how the country reacted to FDR’s new role and how Tom Dewey would keep up with him. As the Dewey tour neared its end, political watchers attempted to assess what it had accomplished to date in terms of  t he overall presidential canvass. Those who covered the tour were not sure how it had turned out; some noted the “spontaneity” of  t he audiences, while Life magazine quoted another who said that “not since Charles Evans Hughes [in 1916] has a nominee crossed America and left such a chill behind him.”2 Columnist Ernest Lindley pointed out that, while most of  the Republican vote would be an “anti” vote, which was most likely already locked up, there were still several groups of  voters whose place in the ’44 election was not fixed. One group was independents, still in doubt in their own minds, while another was Roosevelt-friendly folks who might not take the trouble to register or to vote, because they took Roosevelt’s re-election for granted. There were also those who planned to vote for FDR if  the war with Germany was still on but who might swing over to Dewey if  Germany was done. Dewey’s speeches on the West Coast, Lindley felt, by going quite far in adopting the social and economic doctrines of  the New Deal, were designed “to appeal to doubtful voters and to lull Roosevelt supporters of  the lukewarm type” who might sit out the election if  they had no fear of  a reversion to the policies of  Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. The Democrats were aware of  a ll this and, as a result, would put more pressure upon Roosevelt to respond with speeches like the one on the past Saturday night. 3 James Wechsler, in the liberal journal the Nation, wrote that Dewey’s trip was “a magnificent display of  efficiency” but also “monotonous, uninspired.” He wrote that in the first phase of  the trip Dewey was “the attentive listener,” consulting and listening to various groups. The second Dewey emerged at Seattle, with follow-ups in his California presentations. As Dewey seemed to take over the New Deal, with the “disconsolate murmurings of  the Old Guard” becoming louder, observers felt the Republican campaign at last began to make sense—to realize that the Old Guard votes belonged to them but had not added up to victory in previous elections and so to try to lure away some Roosevelt voters. “Then,” said Wechsler, “Mr. Roosevelt went on the air.”

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No future historian, he wrote, would have any trouble probing for the election’s turning point. “In a single speech he [FDR] had exploded the ‘tired-old-man’ charge. He displayed a warmth and wit that emphasized the political frigidity of  his opponent. He infused fighting human content into a drab race.” The reporters listening on the Dewey train, regardless of  their personal politics, “were unanimously bowled over” by the Teamsters dinner speech. Thomas E. Dewey’s reaction—and perhaps the future course of  his campaign—would be revealed in Oklahoma City.4 When he arrived in Oklahoma City on the morning of  the 25th, the governor held a press conference. When asked about Roosevelt’s speech, Dewey responded, a trifle sanctimoniously, “I thought it a tragedy for a nominee for President of  the United States to find it necessary to bolster a waning cause by importations from the language of  our enemies and by sinking to the level of  mudslinging, through the use of  the words ‘fraud’ and ‘falsehood,’ but since Mr. Roosevelt has raised the issue of  f raud and falsehood I shall deal with it point by point tonight on the radio at 9 o’clock. I shall undertake the unpleasant duty of  ascertaining where the truth lies.” A reporter asked, “Unpleasant for whom?” “I leave that to you,” Dewey said, “but I shall not sink to mudslinging or the use of  epithets now or at any other time. I leave that to my opponent.”5 That evening a crowd of  seven thousand filled the Municipal Auditorium and heard warm-up pep talks from Governor Andrew Schoeppel of  K ansas and Senator E. H. Moore of  Oklahoma. Then came Governor Dewey, as one reporter wrote it, “reflecting the fighting anger to which the Republican candidate has been whipped by the way Mr. Roosevelt ridiculed the Republican campaign to date.” Dewey had been up with his chief  advisor, Elliott Bell, until 2 a.m. the night before, polishing and revising this speech. Now he was ready to let it go. He called Roo­se­ velt’s address “a speech of  mud-slinging, ridicule and wisecracks, which plumbed the depths of  demagogy, inciting hatred and distrust.” Tom Dewey, with little sense of  humor himself, could hardly let the President indulge in his without a sour retort. He said, “The winning of  the war is too sacred to be cast off  in frivolous language.” He called “Mr. Roo­

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sevelt’s record desperately bad.” He said FDR was to blame for the nation being unprepared for war, repeated the Hershey quotation to show that Roosevelt had no plan for speedy discharge from the service, and talked again about the Roosevelt depression. Dewey charged once more that Roosevelt considered himself  “ indispensable.” “Let’s get this straight,” he said. “He is indispensable to Harry Hopkins, Madame Perkins, to Harold Ickes, to a host of  other political job holders.” Warming to his subject, Dewey went on, “He is indispensable to those infamous machines in Chicago—in the Bronx, and all the others. He is indispensable to Sidney Hillman and the Political Action Committee, to Earl Browder, the ex-convict and pardoned Communist leader.” But, the New York governor said, he would “not join my opponent in his descent to mud-slinging. If  he continues in his desire to do so, he will be all alone.” Then, showing one part of  the Teamsters speech that had really gotten to him, Dewey said, “I shall not use the tactics of  our enemies by quoting from Mein Kampf. I will never divide America. These tactics I will also leave for my opponent.” What he overlooked, of  course, was that Roosevelt had not accused the Republicans of  simply quoting from Hitler’s book but of  actually adopting a tactic from it, that of  the “big lie.”6 Tom Dewey, after the Oklahoma City speech, soon started receiving all sorts of  plaudits—“pour it on, Tom” messages—from Republicans, most of  whom were relieved that their candidate had gotten away from adopting parts of  the New Deal. Arthur Vandenberg said, “The ‘indispensable’ man met his match,” while Robert Taft said, “It is a great satisfaction to have a candidate able and willing to fight in the open against false claims. The first round is over and Dewey is the victor.” Senator Clyde Reed of  K ansas called Dewey’s talk “a first-class fighting speech.” And Colonel McCormick wired Dewey from Chicago, “full of  praise for your last night’s speech. It has aroused enthusiasm which previously was lacking.” 7 Back in Albany, Herb Brownell said Dewey’s speech was one of  the greatest political addresses ever. “Few times before in American history,” he enthused, “has a single speech aroused such spontaneous enthusiasm from all sections of  the country, among Democrats as well as Republi-

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cans.” He went on to say, “The speech inspired Republicans, converted independents, and crystallized the antipathy to the New Deal in the ranks of  the Democratic party. It has even stirred the Solid South into a rebellion against the New Deal. It has the fourth termers desperate.” All of  which was a bit hyperbolic, even for a party chairman.8 The Democrats, of  course, were not silent after Dewey’s speech. New York Senator James Mead, speaking the next day in Geneva, New York, called it “an attempt to cover up twelve long years of  Republican misrule, depression and isolationism.” He went on: “If  there is anything American people do not want, it’s another Harding peace, another Coolidge speculation, another Hoover depression.”9 Max Lerner, in PM, wrote a long and devastating rejoinder on September 26 to Dewey’s charges, citing Republican congressional votes and quotes, many from Dewey as well as other members of  t he GOP, to refute the claims and accusations in the speech. “It was Dewey the lawyer speaking. . . . It made good dramatics,” Lerner said. But he scoffed at Dewey’s claim that he wanted to run a gentlemanly campaign until the President started the rough stuff. “It was not the President but Dewey who risked splitting the war unity of  t he nation in the charge about playing politics with General MacArthur. It was not the President but Dewey who made the charge that our soldiers would be left to languish in the army after the war, and clamored about bringing the boys back home. In terms of  political morality, it is hard to imagine anything more divisive of  t he nation’s unity than such charges.” It was a thorough demolition of  t he Oklahoma City speech, but of  course very few of  Max Lerner’s readers were likely to vote for the Dewey-Bricker ticket in any event.10 The next morning, the train stopped in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, where Dewey’s wife, Frances, had grown up and served as valedictorian of  her high school class. A crowd of  fi fteen thousand turned out to welcome her home for a three-hour visit. Then it was on to Tulsa for a five-hour stay, with Dewey giving a brief  extemporaneous speech to twenty thousand at the railroad station. He spoke about the coming “largest and best housecleaning that anyone ever did,” and he particularly emphasized how he would “clean out” Hillman and “the gentleman whom my opponent had to pardon so that he could help wage this campaign,” the Communist

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party secretary Browder. It would soon be noted that the Republican campaign, from Dewey on down, was directed as much against Hillman and Browder as it was against Roosevelt.11 In Tulsa Dewey received an unexpected visit from a Colonel Carter Clarke, who presented him with an envelope marked “Top Secret” from General George C. Marshall. It had come to Marshall’s attention that an unidentified army officer who disliked Franklin Roosevelt had leaked to Dewey the charge that Roosevelt had had access to broken Japanese military codes before December 7, 1941, and thus must have known of  the impending attack. Because of  reports that Dewey would use in a speech an attack on the President for having invited the Pearl Harbor bombing, Marshall, loathing the idea of  getting involved in politics but seeing his duty, felt he must inform Dewey (without telling FDR that he was doing so) that the broken Japanese codes were still being used by the enemy and contributing vital information to our military. Marshall’s letter said: I am writing to you without the knowledge of  a ny other person except Admiral King. . . . The conduct of  General Eisenhower’s campaign and of  a ll operations in the Pacific are closely related in conception and timing to the information we secretly obtain through . . . intercepted codes. They contribute greatly to the victory and tremendously to the saving in American lives. . . . Our main basis of  i nformation regarding Hitler’s intentions in Europe is obtained from Baron Oshima’s [the Japanese ambassador to Germany] messages from Berlin reporting his interviews with Hitler and other officials. . . . These are still the codes involved in the Pearl Harbor events.

Marshall went on to explain the broken codes’ part in the Midway battle and in subsequent operations and the great loss it would be to our army and navy if  a speech by Dewey caused the Japanese to discover that we were still reading their codes.12 However, Dewey had declined to read the letter, because Marshall asked him not to read further than the first paragraph unless he could agree not to pass the information enclosed on to others. Dewey was immediately suspicious that this was some sort of  Rooseveltian trick, that Marshall would not have written such a letter without the President’s knowledge. Clarke assured him that Marshall had written the letter on his own. Dewey, still skeptical, agreed to meet Clarke again back in Albany.13

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Some days later, Clarke met Dewey and Elliott Bell in the Executive Mansion, and fresh arguments ensued. Bell told Clarke that a lot of  people knew the Japanese codes had been broken; the Chicago Tribune had printed that fact after Midway. Dewey exclaimed, “Well, I’ll be damned if  I believe the Japs are still using those two codes.” Clarke assured him that, strange as it might seem, they still were. Clarke left the meeting with no commitment from Dewey. The governor, however, after discussions with Bell and Brownell, agreed that releasing the contents of  the Marshall letter would open him to a devastating response from Roosevelt or his surrogates, that he had given important information to the enemy. Dewey made no Pearl Harbor speech.14 Dewey made several more back-platform talks that night after leaving Tulsa, in Oklahoma and Missouri. The next afternoon, Dewey gave a brief  talk at Muncie, Indiana, where he referred to Browder as “the head of  the Demo—I mean Communist party,” before a stop in Bellefontaine, Ohio, where he praised his running mate Governor Bricker. He told the crowd there that “the biggest job of  a ll will be to see to it that we do not go back to those dreary days when the WPA set the standard of  living in this country,” hoping of  course that memories would not run back to the days before WPA when “Hoovervilles” set that standard. Then the train headed back to Albany to complete the 6,700-mile journey.15 Warren Moscow, covering the Dewey tour for the New York Times, looked at the campaign after his arrival back home. “Mr. Dewey took what many observers held to be his greatest gamble in the Oklahoma City speech,” he wrote. “It is too early to tell whether he can win by his reversal of  form. There is no question that GOP morale went up on the fighting speech. But will he gain or lose the independent votes which he must have, as a result? This correspondent does not know.” The “fierceness of  t he personal attack on the President” was the first part of  t he gamble; the second was the flat declaration that FDR’s failure to prepare the nation for war cost countless American lives. On this issue, Moscow felt, both parties were vulnerable, but the Republicans more so. On a tactical level, he thought, Roosevelt’s Teamsters speech “advanced the campaign about three weeks overnight,” but the Democrats were surprised that Dewey was able to recover and lash back as quickly as he did.16

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Wechsler, in the Nation, wrote that in Oklahoma City Dewey had “junked overnight” the basic strategy of  his campaign. “It was an aggressive reply” to the Teamsters address, “ably delivered and containing some effective passages.” But what it really was “was fundamentally the reply of  a Republican conservative, fighting on the line where his party had suffered so many defeats in the Roosevelt era.” Dewey had become, Wechsler said, “John W. Bricker’s running mate.” It made the Republicans happy, as it always had, to hear Franklin Roosevelt called names; whether it was an effective strategy Thomas E. Dewey must choose as he entered the decisive October phase of  the campaign.17 Toward the end of  the campaign, conservative columnist George P. Sokolsky analyzed what had happened. “Mr. Dewey set out,” he wrote, “to make serious minded speeches on issues and problems and had a mountain of  research done in preparation. Then Mr. Roosevelt delivered himself  to the Teamsters and Dewey replied in Oklahoma and it has been back and forth, give and take between the two of  them ever since.”18 As part of  that back-and-forth, the Republicans adopted an aggressive radio advertising campaign. Their radio director, Ford Bond, set forth the three objectives of  this campaign: (1) “Republican Registration: To obtain a great increase in the registration of  Republican voters, to balance and outweigh New Deal strength in Democratic strongholds,” (2) “Spot Campaign: Through one minute and chain break announcements, to set before the electorate, to pound home, drill in, and instill by repetition, strong and irrefutable reasons to vote for Thomas E. Dewey, or against Franklin D. Roosevelt,” (3) Get Out the Voters: To bring to the polls, on Election Day, more Republican voters in each state than the Democrats could muster.” To do this, Bond and his staff  identified 357 radio stations broadcasting in areas in the Northern states where the GOP had a plurality of  5 percent or better in 1942, and they had to be low-intensity stations so their signals could be heard only in the counties selected. Early in July, Bond said, they started to write the spot announcements, concentrating on three themes, “Clear Everything with Sidney”; the Truman-Pendergast tie, which, “by indirection, called attention to the President’s health”; and “Peacetime Years,” based on the General Hershey statement. The ads were sent out to the state committees, with

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notice of  the 373 stations selected for this effort. The state committees duly followed recommendations, purchased spots on 364 stations in 27 states, and spent almost a million dollars in doing so.19 One of  the ads the R NC sent out started with the words: “clea r everything w ith sidney.” It went on, for fifty-six seconds: Those are the actual words spoken by President Roosevelt, as reported by the New York Times. Roosevelt said these ominous words to Bob Hannegan, Democratic chairman. And what did they mean? They mean that radical Sidney Hillman was put in charge of  t he Democratic convention! Hillman put on a show of  backing Wallace—but mark this, voters, and mark it well. If  H illman had really wanted Wallace, he would have gotten Wallace. But who did get the nomination for Vice President? A man named Harry Truman—hand-picked by Hillman. Why? Because Truman has shown before that he will do as his boss tells him. So, the Hillman-Browder Axis know they can handle Harry Truman. He’s handle-able. That’s why the President had to tell Hannegan to cle a r ev erything w ith sidney. Voters, let’s stop this underhanded business and “bossism.” Vote for a man who will cle a r ev ery thing with Congress—and with you, the American people. Vote Republican. Vote for Thomas E. Dewey.

Another ad, one for nineteen and a half  seconds, ran like this: What’s in store for the men in service? Do you want this kind of  New Deal planning, expressed by General Hershey, Roosevelt’s Director of  Selective Service, who says it is as cheap to keep people in the Army as it is to create an agency for them when they’re out. Or, do you want Thomas E. Dewey’s promise to release the men at the earliest possible moment after Victory. Make sure the peacetime years will be good years—vote for Thomas E. Dewey.

There were more than ten of  these ads, including a couple sent out by Bond early in October, emphasizing “the terrible catastrophe to this country of  the possibility of  Harry Truman becoming President.” Bond finished his letter to the state chairmen with, “Keep on running Clear Everything and Fourth Term spots. Pour it on!”20

21

The October Campaign Kicks In

With Dewey back from the West Coast and Roosevelt officially in the campaign after his speech to the Teamsters dinner, the 1944 presidential race was on, even though Life called “the most striking thing about this election . . . the seeming apathy of  the voters.” The reason for this supposed apathy, of  course, was that people’s attention was focused on the war. Despite Republican hopes that the war with Germany could end before the election, thereby considerably dampening the Democratic “horses-in-midstream” theme, it was becoming clear that the war in Europe would not end that quickly.1 Progress was being made; the Red Army was systematically working its way into Eastern Europe and the Balkans, and the Western Allies had landed on the island of  Crete and had even penetrated a little way into Germany itself. But the just-concluded fiasco of  Operation Market Garden—the ill-fated airborne assault on Nijmegen and Arnhem in Holland, which cost over fourteen thousand British, American, and Polish casualties and prisoners—had cast a pall over operations for the time being. Hanson Baldwin, the New York Times’s military correspondent, wrote that a winter and possible spring campaign would be required to defeat Germany. And German V-2 rockets were landing regularly in London and its environs.2 On the home front, baseball fans watched as the St. Louis Browns, who had never won anything, dueled with the Detroit Tigers, led by 243

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their two pitching aces, Hal Newhouser and Dizzy Trout, for the American League pennant, while the other St. Louis team, the Cardinals, had the National League flag just about sewn up. On Broadway, Mary Martin sang in her 400th performance of  One Touch of  Venus, and Orville Prescott in the Times reviewed Friedrich A. Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom as “this sad and angry little book,” little suspecting the impact it would have on postwar political thinking. 3 The Republican campaign seemed to be pretty much settled. Governor Dewey planned a number of  set speeches, on various topics, with some of  t hem to be responses to whatever talks President Roosevelt made. Dewey had little interest in personal appearances, much preferring carefully crafted talks and press conferences that he could keep under control. Governor Bricker would make tours of  h is own, particularly in conservative areas where he would be favorably received. Dewey, Bricker, and other Republican orators would stick to a few themes. Dewey’s West Coast tour had allowed him to spell out the more liberal elements of  h is thinking, perhaps bringing in some independent votes, but October was the time to emphasize the “tired old men,” the plethora of  New Deal agencies, rules, and regulations, and especially the “capture of  t he Democratic party” by Sidney Hillman and his CIOPAC and Earl Browder and his Communists. If  t he depiction of  H illman happened to stir up some anti-Semitism, well, that might bring out a few extra Republican votes. GOP orators and editorial writers would jab at Truman’s ties to the Pendergast machine. The national committee made available to local leaders five separate one-minute radio transcriptions featuring the Hershey quote on keeping men in the service. And Dulles was on hand to keep Tom Dewey from getting off-message on foreign policy. By the end of  September U.S. News & World Report looked at the country as the election approached, felt that Dewey was gaining but needed “a closing sprint to come out ahead,” and predicted that Roose­ velt seemed like a narrow winner with 290 electoral votes. The Middle West, it said, was “solidly for Dewey,” the South the same for Roosevelt. The Pacific Coast would give 33 of  its 39 electoral votes to the Democratic ticket. With the border states divided, that left the big Eastern states as the decisive battleground. The election would be won or lost in New

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York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, with their 114 votes, which of  course was why the Republicans had picked Tom Dewey. FDR, the magazine thought, would probably win if  he carried New York or if  he carried Pennsylvania plus either New Jersey or Massachusetts. “In brief,” it concluded, “Dewey’s campaign task is slightly more difficult than Roosevelt’s. He must stage a fast finish.” 4 The Democratic campaign, by the very nature of  its principal candidate, had to be different from that of  the Republicans. Roosevelt made it clear from the beginning that he would not electioneer in the oldfashioned way; the war and its demands upon him mandated that, and his physical condition worked to the same end. Harry Truman had met with the President at the White House on August 18 and mapped out with him the basic workings of  the campaign. Truman wrote his wife that “you’d have thought I was the long lost brother or the returned Prodigal.” Roosevelt “gave me a lot of  hooey about what I could do to help the campaign and said he thought I ought to go home for an official notification.” Roosevelt in effect said that he was so busy with the war that Truman “would have to do the campaigning for both.”5 Truman came out of  t he White House luncheon and told the press, “I hope I will not have to make an extensive speaking tour because I’ve still got a job to do in the Senate.” The Senate, however, would have to wait. The vice presidential candidate ended up making fifty-four speeches on the way to November 7, including twelve major addresses. He later wrote in his memoirs that “the campaign of  1944 was the easiest in which I had ever participated,” primarily because he found little difficulty in “telling the people of  the accomplishments of  the Democratic administrations under President Roosevelt,” but it was pretty hectic at the time.6 The Democratic surrogates—mainly Truman, Harold Ickes, and, surprisingly, Henry Wallace—pulled the laboring oar for the party through most of  the campaign, touring the country and making tough political speeches. Others who contributed talks for the ticket included New York mayor LaGuardia, Attorney General Francis Biddle, senators O’Mahoney and Pepper, Averell Harriman, Ambassador Winant, and Russell W. Davenport, a prominent Willkie advisor in 1940. Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, winner of  a ll three nominations for his Harlem congres-

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sional seat, campaigned for FDR in New York, Boston, Chicago, and elsewhere. Even Secretary of  Commerce Jesse Jones, widely suspected of  being behind the springtime anti-FDR movement in Texas, went on the air on Halloween night to urge votes for Roosevelt. A group called Young Americans for Roosevelt sponsored a speech at Carnegie Hall in New York by Frank Sinatra, delivered to an overflow crowd made up mainly of  teen-age girls who could not vote. Hannegan and the party leaders opened a national campaign headquarters in the Biltmore in New York City, a couple of  blocks away from the GOP headquarters in the Hotel Roosevelt, and the Democrats went to work. The DNC had found the man it wanted as its radio director, J. Leonard Reinsch, who worked for James M. Cox at the Atlanta Journal. Cox, who had run for president in 1920 with Roosevelt as his running mate, was perfectly amenable to letting Reinsch go. Paul Porter of  D NC, in a letter to Steve Early, said Reinsch was “known and respected throughout the Radio Industry” and possessed “the technical qualifications to do the complicated time-buying job incident to a nation-wide political campaign.” Porter added that “wartime limitations may result in radio having added importance in this campaign,” a prediction that became ever so true.7 Reinsch took over the DNC’s radio operations on June 15 and quickly showed why the committee had been wise to get him on board. He worked out several methods of  getting the Democratic message out. Starting in mid-September, there were numerous five-minute radio buys, at the end of  popular shows like Fibber McGee’s, with a variety of  speakers getting across a quick, punchy theme. Early in October Reinsch sent out a letter “To Party Leaders Everywhere,” listing the transcriptions of  speeches “available immediately without charge.” He called them “inspiring speeches on major issues by well-known Administration spokesmen,” such as Robert Wagner, Carl Hatch, Congressman Albert Gore, Wright Patman, Truman, Ickes, and others. He suggested they could be used for big rallies or for fifteen-minute radio buys on local stations. Since most of  t he talks ran about twelve minutes, there was a space of  about three minutes left for the local candidates to join in.8

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On October 14, Reinsch sent out to party leaders a schedule of  national broadcasts for the upcoming week, featuring Harold Ickes, several by Truman, movie stars Paulette Goddard and Edward G. Robinson, Fannie Hurst, and Orson Welles.9 A couple of  days later, Reinsch made some more spots available, in the form of  five records, including such personalities as Clifton Fadiman, Frank Sinatra, Joseph Cotten, opera star Robert Merrill, and Ethel Merman, as well as unknown, “man-on-the-street” voices recalling the apple-selling days of  the Depression.10 Off  the airwaves Hillman’s PAC (rechristened the National Citizens Political Action Committee after the convention, with former Senator George W. Norris of  Nebraska as honorary chairman) did much of  the hard labor in the trenches, registering voters and making sure they got to the polls, supplementing (and in some cases, supplanting) the work of  the Democratic committeemen and women.11 The Democrats put together several groups of  celebrities in different fields to talk it up for the Roosevelt-Truman ticket. These included Educators for Roosevelt, a group of  sixty college presidents, deans, and professors, including John Dewey and Albert Einstein, and the Independent Voters Committee of  the Arts, Sciences and Professions, over six hundred writers, actors, artists, musicians, and scientists, headed by sculptor Jo Davidson and including conductor Serge Koussevitzky, Ethel Barrymore, Bennett Cerf, and Thomas Hart Benton.12 The Republicans produced a like gathering called The Independent Artists and Writers Group for Dewey, ten prominent writers headed by Louis Bromfield and including also Booth Tarkington, Kenneth Roberts, and Mary Roberts Rinehart. Roberts, the author of  Arundel and other historical novels, said that he had seen a lot of  candidates for office but none “so well equipped for the office he was seeking as is Dewey.”13 The Democrats threw a festive party at the end of  August for Harry Truman to come back to the little town of  Lamar, Missouri, where he was born sixty years earlier, there to “accept” formally his party’s vice presidential nomination, as suggested by FDR at the August 18 lunch. Before about seven thousand people under a full moon, Truman stressed again and again the danger of  installing inexperienced leadership in the critical jobs of  warmaking and peacemaking. He went on to talk

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about Roosevelt: “At no time in our history has the President possessed such knowledge of  foreign leaders and their problems. None has ever so completely won their confidence and admiration.” This, of  course, was putting a warm Democratic gloss upon some of  the decisions and non-decisions that Roosevelt had made, particularly in his dealings with Stalin, but it was a faithful rendition of  the party line. As Life magazine said, “The theme: the indispensable man.” But it was a good way to kick off  Senator Truman’s campaign.14 Harold Ickes was on the hustings early in August, ridiculing Dewey in a manner that regularly got under the Republican candidate’s skin. Dewey, of  course, put the name of  Harold Ickes first on his list of  those he was going to “houseclean” come next January 20, while Ickes pointed out that perhaps Dewey was not familiar with “the primary school fact” that all members of  an outgoing president’s cabinet automatically retired with their chief. Ickes carried on with his speaking up to the eve of  the election, with enthusiasm and energy, in large part because of  his manifest disdain for Tom Dewey.15 Ickes, recalling Dewey’s pledge in his September tour to do much more for the West, spoke in Salt Lake City on October 10 about the Rooseveltian record in the West, a record that had “not been written in forgettable words but in unforgettable facts, such as great dams and reservoirs, roads and bridges, power lines and aqueducts, restored range and protected forests.”16 Henry Wallace’s speechmaking was in a class of  its own. The vice president had met with Roosevelt for lunch on the White House lawn on August 29, and after some small talk on various subjects, the two men got into an uncomfortable discussion about the Chicago convention. After Wallace told Roosevelt he knew “exactly what happened” at Chicago but that he would continue to support him as a symbol of  liberalism, they talked about the future. Roosevelt hoped to retain Wallace in his cabinet and told him he could have any post except the State Department, where FDR would not remove Cordell Hull. Wallace knew that Roosevelt planned after the election to bounce his arrogant Commerce secretary, Jesse Jones, one of  Wallace’s archrivals in Washington. Wallace asked, “why not let me have Secretary of  Commerce?” He added, “There would be poetic justice in that.” Roosevelt agreed.17

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With this assurance behind him, Wallace undertook a vigorous campaign. One correspondent called him “a lonely voice of  d isembodied liberalism.” His tour included stops all over the Midwest and wound up in New York’s Madison Square Garden on October 31. Wallace paid his own expenses and was free of  Democratic National Committee supervision or consultation. He seldom mentioned Harry Truman, but he stressed the liberalism of  Franklin Roosevelt. A Washington correspondent reported that “politicians hereabouts don’t think he is campaigning purely out of  a ltruism”—they speculated that he might try to form a third party for 1948 on whose ticket he could run for president. They also noted that Wallace in his 1944 stumping strongly crusaded for the rights of  minorities, especially blacks. Whatever his motives, a future candidacy or the post-election position promised by Roosevelt, Wallace worked hard for the ticket.18 In September, while Dewey was making his tour of  the West, President Roosevelt met with Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Quebec, with two principal items on the agenda, first, the continuation of  LendLease to Britain after the defeat of  Germany but while the war with Japan continued, and, second, military arrangements for the Japanese conquest. Dewey was suspicious of  the timing of  the Quebec meeting as “an amazing coincidence,” and the Republican managers watched carefully for any use of  the conference by Roosevelt to advance his political campaign. In fact, Churchill had been pleading for such a meeting, and Roosevelt had finally agreed to it. The Republicans kept a close eye on Churchill, whom they rightly suspected of  favoring the re-election of  his friend in the White House. But Churchill was too canny a politician and statesman to slip up by overtly supporting a candidate in another country’s election, and Roosevelt had no need to do any politicking in Quebec. The simple fact of  his appearance there with the prime minister was all the politics he needed. “Don’t change horses . . . ,” etc.19 The Chateau Frontenac in Quebec was taken over by the Canadian government for the conference. The British got the Lend-Lease extension they were seeking, it was decided to make no immediate change to the existing division of  commands in Asia, and there was discussion of  postwar Germany. This latter produced most of  the subsequent headlines from Quebec.

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Henry Morgenthau, Jr., the Secretary of  the Treasury, accompanied the President to Quebec in the absence of  the ailing Cordell Hull. Morgenthau, Hull, and Secretary of  War Stimson had recently been named a cabinet committee to devise policy for administering a defeated Germany. There were considerable differences among the three on such policy, and it appeared that Roosevelt, after meeting with the committee on September 6, leaned toward Morgenthau’s ideas. FDR’s basic theory was that this time, unlike in 1918, Germans must be made fully aware of  the fact that they had been utterly beaten. Morgenthau’s proposal started with the destruction of  the German armament industry and international control of  the heavy industry in the Ruhr and Rhineland. It led to a plan to convert Germany into a primarily pastoral, agricultural country, with industry destroyed, mines closed, and large landholdings dispersed into small farms.20 Morgenthau’s ideas were presented to the British at Quebec. Chur­ chill was unimpressed at first but apparently was convinced by his advisors that a pastoral, non-competitive Germany would be good for Britain’s economy. (One Roosevelt biographer felt that there may have been an interrelationship between the generous Lend-Lease arrangements and the British acceptance of  t he Morgenthau proposal.) Churchill dictated an unpublished memo on the plan that he and Roosevelt approved, regarding “the best measures to prevent renewed rearmament by Germany.” The memo concluded, “This programme for eliminating the war-making industries in the Ruhr and in the Saar is looking forward to converting Germany into a country primarily agricultural and pastoral in its character.” It was initialed by both Churchill and Roosevelt on September 16, the same day the conference ended.21 It was not long before the “Morgenthau Plan,” as it quickly became known, drew heavy opposition. Stimson violently opposed it. Hull was against the plan and against Morgenthau’s meddling in a field that was not his. Drew Pearson wrote an accurate account of  t he cabinet disagreements on September 21, and Arthur Krock did a story on the plan the next day. On September 23 the Wall Street Journal added details of  the plan and the secret agreement signed at Quebec. Soon, the President was visibly backing away from it, particularly as critics contended that such a proposal would stimulate Germans to fight to the bitter end.

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In a September 29 press conference, Roosevelt rather obliquely repudiated the Morgenthau Plan, while denying that that was what he was doing, and on October 3 he told Stimson, “Henry Morgenthau pulled a boner.” Surprisingly, at first the Republicans did not hammer the Morgenthau Plan as hard as they might have, although Dewey did add it to his list of  FDR’s failures, claiming it had been the equivalent of  “ten fresh German divisions” by inspiring German soldiers on to last-ditch resistance.22 Roosevelt held a little-noticed but important meeting on September 29 with three key black leaders, Walter White, Mary McLeod Be­ thune, and Channing H. Tobias. In a 25-minute get-together, the President agreed to push for a permanent FEPC, to urge federal legislation to protect military personnel from civilian assaults, to stop a proposal for racially segregated furlough-rest facilities for servicemen, and to move forward after the war with reorganization of  the military on a non-segregated basis. White called the meeting “a most interesting talk” and felt that “real progress was made.”23 Governor Dewey was to make his first October talk in Charleston, West Virginia, on Saturday October 7, but on October 2 his campaign announced that he would deliver a radio address devoted to taxation the next night. The decision to insert a radio talk in between the Oklahoma City speech of  September 25 and the Charleston address was “to avoid too long a ‘cooling off’ period in the Republican drive for votes.” His October 3 fifteen-minute speech was delivered from Dewey’s study in the Executive Mansion in Albany. He sharply criticized the tax policies of  the Roosevelt administration and proposed instead a six-point program to reduce and simplify postwar taxes, which he said would help with full employment and a rising standard of  living.24 On October 5, Franklin Roosevelt gave the second speech of  h is campaign. This one was not given before a dining room full of  supporters or a hall filled with cheering party members. He delivered his talk from a room in the White House, over a nationwide radio hookup. That afternoon he had called his cousin Daisy Suckley to tell her about the speech; he said that since he hadn’t been feeling too well he “probably would sound queer . . . on the radio.” (She later added that “he sounded a little tired on the radio, & coughed exactly once—otherwise all right.”)

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The major purpose of  t he speech was to fire up Democratic workers throughout the country who attended thousands of  precinct meetings across the land. FDR also wanted to urge all citizens to register and vote, as the strength of  A merican democracy depended on Americans using their right to the ballot box. But he went a little further, in answer to the Republicans’ widespread use of  the Communist label.25 He referred specifically to the recent disclosure that more than three million copies of  a speech by Representative Fred E. Busbey (R-Ill.) had been mailed out free under several Republican congressional franks. Busbey had said that “the red specter of  communism is stalking our country” and that the Roosevelt administration was part of  a gigantic plot to sell out democracy to the Communists. Roosevelt said: Labor-baiters, bigots, and some politicians use the term “Communism” loosely, and apply it to every progressive social measure and to the virtues of  every foreign-born citizen with whom they disagree . . . This form of  fear propaganda is not new among rabble rousers and fomenters of  class hatred—who seek to destroy democracy itself. It was used by Mussolini’s black shirts and by Hitler’s brown shirts. It has been used before in this country by the silver shirts and others on the lunatic fringe. But the sound and democratic instincts of  t he American people rebel against its use, particularly by their own congressmen—and at the taxpayers’ expense. I have never sought, and I do not welcome the support of  a ny person or group committed to Communism, or Fascism, or any other foreign ideology which would undermine the American system of  government, or the American system of  f ree competitive enterprise and private property. 26

The New York Times mentioned that FDR’s repudiation of  the Communists would not discourage them for one moment from supporting him. But it pointed out that their support of  Roosevelt was from one cause only—the aid that Roosevelt and the United States were giving the Soviet Union in the war. In 1940, when Stalin was allied with Hitler, Browder and the Communists were denouncing Roosevelt as a “warmonger,” oppressor of  labor, and a dictator.27 Following Roosevelt’s radio address, Thomas E. Dewey headed off  to West Virginia for his Saturday night talk in Charleston. Although an Associated Press report indicated that the governor “planned to direct a larger share of  his presidential campaign appeals toward the ‘independent’ voters,” that plan seemed to be short-lived. Before leaving Albany,

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Dewey referred to FDR’s speech: “Mr. Roosevelt asked the American people not to look now because somebody’s following him. Since he would like softly to deny the means by which he seeks election to sixteen straight years in the White House, I shall be compelled to discuss it quite openly tomorrow night in Charleston on the radio.”28 At a morning stop in Hinton, West Virginia, Dewey called this “the most important political campaign in our time, if  not in our history . . . [to] decide whether we will slip down the New Deal road to regimentation or whether there is a better and more American way to run our government.” When his train arrived in Charleston at noon, a crowd of  fi fteen thousand broke through police lines at the station to welcome the New York governor.29 Dewey spoke that evening to a throng of  about six thousand in the Municipal Auditorium (and, he hoped, to millions listening to their radios), and his talk was mainly about communism and how the Communists were counting on the re-election of  the President to achieve their aims, confirming what the New York Times said, that “the Republicans are now putting more and more faith in the issue concerning the role the Communists and Sidney Hillman’s PAC are playing in the campaign.” Dewey said FDR’s “soft disclaimer” of  Communist support in his Thursday night talk “comes a little late.” Communists, Dewey said, “love to fish in troubled waters” and “their aims can best be served by unemployment and discontent,” which would be fostered, of  course, by Roosevelt’s reelection. To clinch his point that the New Deal aimed for a governmentowned America, just as the Communists would, the GOP candidate quoted a sentence written by Adolf  A . Berle in a 1939 memorandum to the Temporary National Economic Committee: “Over a period of  years the Government will gradually come to own most of  the productive plants in the United States.” Then Dewey triumphantly identified Berle as “one of  the original brain trusters and today . . . Assistant Secretary of  State.”30 The only problem was that the Berle quote was taken completely out of  context. Berle himself  immediately responded, pointing out that Dewey had completely ignored the intent of  the report, an outline of  “possible steps and dangers” in formulating “a banking system for capital and capital credit,” and that the sentence quoted showed one

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of  the possible unhappy outcomes of  a particular policy. A few days later Berle wrote to the President about Dewey’s “surprisingly dishonest effort to claim that your Administration was secretly trying to set up a communist system.” He said one of  the dangers “of  a closed capital market” set forth in the 1939 report was that if  capital did not flow freely “the government would be compelled to enter direct financing of  activities supposed to be private.” Then came the sentence Dewey quoted, which, Berle said to the President, “was not your program “ and “was not anyone’s program.”31 Another item in the Dewey speech in Charleston that caught some attention was the statement that the handling of  international affairs would remain “a non-partisan effort with the help of  the ablest Americans of  both parties in command.” This sentence was interpreted to mean that Dewey might want to keep Cordell Hull on in his administration, in some capacity and for some unspecified period of  time. Political observers felt that if  Dewey could convince Eastern Republicans and independents that his election would make no great change in the internationalist role being played by the United States, he would have a better chance in states like New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, where this vote seemed slated to be cast for Roosevelt. 32 Hull, from his hotel apartment in Washington where he was confined with a cold, immediately squelched that feeler, if  feeler it was. “I wish to make clear,” he said, “that my support and loyalty belong primarily to the Government and its present official head, President Roosevelt.” He did not know whether the reports of  Dewey’s intentions were “authorized or unauthorized,” but he objected to it whether or not. 33

22

Death in October

There occurred within the space of  five days early in the month of  Oc­ tober the deaths of  t wo American political icons. Whether this brace of  departures, both taking place in New York City, would affect the presi­ dential race quickly became a matter of  speculation. Most likely one death would have no effect but the other probably would. At 6:28 a.m. on October 4, Alfred Emanuel Smith passed away at Rockefeller Institute Hospital. Al Smith, the “Happy Warrior,” four times elected governor of  New York and the 1928 Democratic candi­ date for president, was 70 years old when he died. Smith’s wife had died of  cancer on May 4, 1944, and her widower seemed to be in fail­ ing health thereafter. He entered St. Vincent’s Hospital on August 10, suffering from heat exhaustion. On September 22, his physician had Smith transferred to Rockefeller, but he had continued to fail. On Sep­ tember 30, he had been deemed in critical condition and last rites were given him by a Roman Catholic priest. He rallied slightly but his pulse weakened seriously at about 2 a.m. on the 4th, and he expired later that morning. Al Smith, from the Lower East Side of  Manhattan, a man who ran for president without the benefit of  a high school or college education, a product of  Tammany Hall and a foe of  Prohibition, was one of  t he most singular political leaders the Democratic party ever brought forth. The first Roman Catholic to run for president, Smith had been presented to 255

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the Democratic conventions of  1924 and 1928 by Franklin D. Roosevelt. Running against Herbert Hoover in 1928, Smith was an unapologetic “wet” who made no excuses for his religion, all of  which led to an in­ surrection in the Solid South and a substantial defeat in the electoral college. In 1932, Smith once again sought the nomination of  his party, which went instead to his former protégé Roosevelt. Although a bitter Smith ultimately supported FDR in that year’s campaign, he became estranged from Roosevelt and backed Landon in 1936 and Willkie in 1940. He urged the nation to unite behind President Roosevelt when war came, but he was never again close to the President. Al Smith was no longer a factor in electoral politics at the time he died, but his death turned a lot of  memo­ ries back to his glory days in Albany. With Al Smith’s funeral on October 7, the candidates paid appro­ priate respects and the “Happy Warrior” was sent on his way. The next day they were confronted with the death of  a man who was very much a factor in the politics of  1944. At 2:20 a.m. on October 8, Wendell Willkie died at Lenox Hill Hos­ pital, his death brought about by a coronary thrombosis. Willkie had been suffering from ill health for about a month, but no one really ex­ pected this big, shambling, tousled, vital man of  52 to die. Apparently a picture of  robust health, Willkie was still the star of  Republican interna­ tionalism, and the leaders of  both parties had been nervously awaiting his endorsement of  one or the other of  the two major candidates, with the expected swing of  several million Willkie enthusiasts behind the designated contender.1 After his meeting with Dulles in August, Willkie had journeyed to his old home in Rushville, Indiana, to check on his farms and while there suffered a heart attack. His doctors in Indiana were able to curtail his pain, and Willkie took a train back to New York, possibly suffering another seizure on the way. His wife met him at Penn Station to take a cab to their apartment. As he sat back in the taxi, he said to her wearily, “Billie, I am afraid this is something I can’t lick.”2 On September 6, Willkie entered Lenox Hill Hospital for a rest and for treatment of  colitis, a stomach disorder, but once he was there tests

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not surprisingly revealed his heart condition. He was to have been dis­ charged from the hospital on October 3 but was then stricken with a streptococcic throat infection followed by lung congestion, with high fever. On October 5, when Willkie’s temperature reached 104, his doc­ tors felt that he was gone, but they gave him penicillin and brought his fever down. Then, however, came a series of  three heart attacks, the last of  which did him in on the 8th. Messages signifying shock, grief, and loss poured in from around the nation and around the world, from the many distant parts of  t he globe where Wendell Willkie had made an impact. Roosevelt and Dewey each issued an appropriate statement, and tributes came in from governors, senators, congressmen, mayors, labor leaders, ambassadors, even from the redcaps at Penn Station in New York. It was hard to believe that Willkie was gone. And no one would ever know whom Wendell Willkie might have supported for president had he lived another month. On September 30, Roscoe Drummond, the Washington correspond­ ent of  t he Christian Science Monitor, spent an hour with Willkie in his hospital room. The two men discussed various phases of  t he election, and, later that day, Willkie dictated a letter to Drummond to his sec­ retary. In the letter, which the newspaperman received on October 2, Willkie said in part, “I enjoyed our talk this morning very much. Frankly, I cannot answer your ultimate question yet because I have not finally decided.” This appears to be Willkie’s last judgment on the 1944 election. 3 The pressure on Wendell Willkie to support a candidate for presi­ dent in 1944 is a story in itself. As soon as he pulled out of  the race af­ ter the Wisconsin primary, Willkie received constant questioning as to whether he would support Thomas E. Dewey. He never committed to such a position, not to friends of  Dewey and not even to his own support­ ers like Ralph Cake, Johnnie Hanes, and Sinclair Weeks who eventually came out for the New York governor. He was disappointed in the days before the Republican convention when Dewey broke several appoint­ ments to discuss with him the proposed party platform, and of  course he was most unhappy at the treatment he received regarding the Deweycontrolled convention.

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Though Dewey made noises like an internationalist at times, Willkie mistrusted him until such time as Dewey should denounce the isolation­ ist Old Guard, which Dewey never did. Willkie feared that the platform on which Dewey was running gave sufficient latitude that a Harding-like renunciation of  an international organization was possible—and he did not trust Dewey not to do just that. Willkie was not happy with Dewey’s rapprochement with Bertie McCormick and his man Schroeder, and he did not like the way Dewey tried to trap him into a public scenario at the time of  the Dulles-Hull talks. Roosevelt was another matter. Governor Raymond Baldwin of  Con­ necticut had been with Willkie at the time of  Dewey’s nomination, and at that time Willkie allegedly stated emphatically to him, “Well, you can rely on one thing. I will not support the President in his campaign for a fourth term.” 4 That position should have ended any thought of  a Willkie endorse­ ment for FDR. But Roosevelt had other thoughts, other possibilities, in mind. He had conceived a plan for reshaping the parties into liberal and conservative groupings, and he thought that Willkie might join him in this endeavor, since Gifford Pinchot, the former governor of  Pennsylva­ nia, told FDR at a meeting in June that Willkie had the same idea. This plan was not to come into being for the 1944 election, but it could look toward 1948. Roosevelt had discussed this idea with Sam Rosenman. “I think the time has come,” he said, “for the Democratic Party to get rid of  its reactionary elements in the South and to attract to it the liberals in the Republican Party.” He thought that Willkie agreed with him in creating a coalition among progressives in both parties, and he thought “the time is now—right after the election. We ought to have two real parties—one liberal and the other conservative.” This was a long-range view, of  course, “something that we can’t accomplish this year.” But it could be done by 1948. “From the liberals of  both parties,” Roosevelt said, “Willkie and I together can form a new, really liberal party in America.”5 Rosenman accordingly was designated to hold a secret meeting with Willkie in New York. After the get-together on July 5, Rosenman reported back to FDR that Willkie was ready to work on something like the liberal/conservative realignment after the election.

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On July 13, as he was getting ready to leave Washington, Roosevelt dictated a letter to “Dear Wendell.” I will not be able to sign this because I am dictating it just as I leave on a trip to the westward. What I want to tell you is that I want to see you when I come back, but not on anything in relationship to the present campaign. I want to talk with you about the future, even the somewhat distant future, and in regard to the foreign rela­ tions problems of  t he immediate future. When you see in the papers that I am back, will you get in touch with General Watson? We can arrange a meeting either here in Washington or, if  you prefer, at Hyde Park—wholly off  t he record or otherwise, just as you think best. 6

Just what Roosevelt had in mind with this vague letter is hard to fathom. Party realignment may have been intended; another possibil­ ity may have been his consideration of  W illkie for the job as the top American in charge of  t he postwar reconstruction of  Germany and devastated Europe.7 Over the next several weeks, there were various reports in the news­ papers as well as questions at Roosevelt’s press conferences about pos­ sible meetings between the President and Willkie. FDR danced around the issue, with statements that seemed to skirt the truth, while Willkie tried to avoid it altogether. After the New York Times noted FDR’s July 13 letter on August 11, Willkie wrote on the 15th to his friend Gardner Cowles, “You need have no fears about my accepting any position from either Franklin Roosevelt or Thomas Dewey. I am so fed up on pragmatic politicians that there is no inducement that would prompt me to serve under either of  them in any capacity.”8 Finally, on August 25, Willkie issued a statement: “It is true that Mr. Roosevelt has written me asking that I confer with him. I would much prefer that no such conference occur until after the election, but if  the President of  the United States wishes to see me sooner, I shall of  course comply.”9 Within a couple of  weeks Wendell Willkie was in the hospital, and a month later he was dead, having made no endorsement of  anyone for president. Over the time between his death and the election, various in­ dividuals issued statements claiming that they had been told by Willkie

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that he was really for Dewey or for Roosevelt. The final word should have been that of  M rs. Willkie in late October, when she publicly asked all politicians of  both parties to stop speculating on whom her late husband would have supported. He had endorsed neither candidate and in all likelihood would have continued in that posture.

23

Dewey on the Offensive

Governor Dewey got back from Charleston in time to be an honored guest at New York City’s Pulaski Day Parade, on October 8. The parade had been designated by the committee running it as a protest against unfair treatment of  Poland by her allies in the war against Hitler. And Tom Dewey was happy to accommodate himself  to that protest. He saluted the great Polish pianist and patriot, Jan Ignace Paderew­ ski, for the claims he had made back in 1918 for the Russo-Polish border east of  the Curzon Line, the line that was now being pushed by the Soviet Union as the proper boundary. “Today those claims are stronger than ever,” Dewey said. “Polish valor and tenacity have contributed much toward victory.” Every sensitive person in the United States, he asserted, wants to see “as one of  the results of  v ictory the re-establishment of  Po­ land as an independent and sovereign nation reborn upon a basis which will be permanent. “We would like to know more about the plans for that consumma­ tion,” Dewey went on, voicing suspicion of  summit discussions held to that time. “We would like to know more about the results of  the private deliberations of  those who now discuss Poland’s future in dim secrecy. American citizens of  Polish descent would do well to do everything in their power to bring discussions of  Poland’s fate from the dark to the light.” Senator Robert F. Wagner shared the reviewing stand with Dewey, but he reserved his remarks to the Pulaski Day dinner that evening at the 261

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Waldorf-Astoria. Responding to Dewey’s expressed suspicions of  Roo­ sevelt’s attitude toward the settlement of  Poland’s boundaries, Wagner said reassuringly that it was “the aim and intent of  the Administration of  Franklin Roosevelt” to bring about “the complete restoration and protection of  its boundaries reflecting the history and aspirations of  the Polish people.”1 On October 11, a delegation of  Polish-American leaders met with the President for forty-five minutes at the White House, asking for assurance that he would insist that neither an alien nor a puppet government would be imposed upon Poland nor any part of  its population be transferred against its will. Roosevelt agreed that Poland “must be reconstituted as a great nation” but admitted that no one there had accurate information about everything going on in Poland.2 Several weeks later, Charles Rozmarek, president of  the Polish Na­ tional Alliance, based on affirmations like those of  Senator Wagner and his own conversations with the President at the White House meeting and later in Chicago, pledged his support to FDR’s campaign, saying the President had assured him “that he will see to it that Poland is treated justly at the peace conference.” No doubt Rozmarek was sorely disap­ pointed when the Yalta conference saw the Polish border adjusted in accordance with Soviet demands and the puppet Lublin government installed. Given the reality of  Soviet troops on the ground, there was little that Roosevelt could have done to prevent these results other than public protest, but even that was not done. The Polish settlement was an unhappy legacy from Teheran and Yalta. 3 Dewey left New York after the Pulaski Day doings, to return to Al­ bany, issue a press statement on the work of  Dumbarton Oaks on Mon­ day the 9th (calling it “a fine beginning”), and return to the big city the next day for Willkie’s funeral. On October 12, Dewey met with Dr. Abba Hillel Silver, chairman of  the executive committee of  the National Zion­ ist Emergency Council, and then issued a statement affirming his sup­ port for the re-constitution of  Palestine “as a free and democratic Jewish commonwealth in accordance with the Balfour Declaration of  1917” and favoring “the opening of  Palestine to . . . unlimited immigration and land ownership” by Jews. “As President,” Dewey said, he “would use my best

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offices to have our government working together with Great Britain to achieve this great objective.” 4 Several days later, President Roosevelt sent a message to the conven­ tion of  the Zionist Organization of  A merica in Atlantic City, pledging his aid in finding “appropriate ways and means of  effectuating estab­ lishment of  Palestine as a free and democratic Jewish commonwealth.” Leaders of  the convention, upon receipt of  Roosevelt’s message and a similar one from Dewey, said the issue of  Palestine’s treatment was defi­ nitely removed from the sphere of  partisan politics. 5 Meanwhile, another sensation had burst upon the campaign, this one involving Senator Joseph H. Ball of  M innesota. Joe Ball was a young newspaperman who had become a close friend and associate of  Harold Stassen in Minnesota. When isolationist Senator Ernest Lundeen was killed in an airplane crash in 1940, Stassen appointed the 35-year-old Ball to his seat. Ball, an avowed internationalist, was one of  only two mem­ bers of  M innesota’s congressional delegation to support Lend-Lease. He was elected to a full term as a Republican in 1942 and subsequently served on the Truman Committee. In March 1943, Ball joined with Har­ old Burton of  Ohio, Carl Hatch of  New Mexico, and Alabama’s Lister Hill to sponsor a Senate resolution endorsing the establishment of  a postwar organization of  nations for the preservation of  peace. Allen Drury described Ball as “a huge young man, slow-spoken and slow-moving, with prematurely gray hair and a good-natured scowl oc­ casionally alleviated by a skeptical and fleeting smile.” Ball had charge of  the Stassen interests at the Chicago convention and made no enemies. Now, however, things began to change.6 While recovering from a hernia operation, Ball wrote on July16 to his friend, navy secretary Jim Forrestal, “Finally got time to read the full text of  GOP platform. I think I’ll become a politician and do something about it. I’m mad.” 7 Ball stewed about what he did not like for a while longer. Then, on September 29, he put a statement in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the paper for which he continued to write a column, announcing that he could not support Dewey’s election “at this time.” “It is my deep conviction,” he wrote, “that the foreign policy of  the United States, particularly our

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firm intention to join with our present allies in establishing a strong and effective international organization having real authority and power to maintain peace, is by far the greatest issue . . . in the Nov. 7 election . . . far more important than the political success or failure of  any party or person.” He said he had considered all of  Dewey’s statements so far and “he has not yet convinced me that his own convictions on this issue are so strong that he would fight vigorously for a foreign policy which will offer real hope of  preventing World War III against the inevitable op­ position to such a policy.” The young senator concluded by saying this was “a strictly personal decision” but he felt the people of  M innesota were entitled to “a frank and honest statement of  my position and my reason therefor.”8 On Capitol Hill, Ball’s statement was “something of  a sensation.” Drury wrote that “the Senator’s integrity and honest conviction cannot be minimized; his practical political wisdom is still in serious doubt.” One of  the Senate’s Republican leaders, Kenneth Wherry of  Nebraska, said it was “unfortunate. Ball’s a damned good man. We need him.” Oth­ ers, naturally, were less kind and condemned Ball’s political apostasy.9 On October 12, Joe Ball came forth again, propounding three ques­ tions regarding the Dumbarton Oaks proposal for an international orga­ nization, questions which he felt should be answered by the candidates so the voters could be guided by those answers. The first question concerned support of  the United Nations security organization, and American entry therein, before the end of  the war. The second was on opposing “any reservations to United States entry” into such an organization that “would weaken the power of  the organization to maintain peace and stop aggression.” The third question, which was clearly the most debatable, was whether the U.S. representative on the Security Council of  the United Nations would have the authority to commit U.S. peacekeeping forces “to action ordered by the council to maintain peace” without requiring further approval by Congress. Ball, of  course, wanted affirmative answers to all three questions. Asked whether he thought Dewey could give affirmatives without alien­ ating the “nationalists,” as they were now called, currently supporting him, Ball responded, “I doubt it.”10

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Dewey was scheduled to speak on foreign policy once again at a forum conducted by the New York Herald Tribune on October 18, while Roosevelt was to address the Foreign Policy Association on October 21. Joe Ball would be listening to both these speeches to see if  answers to his three questions were forthcoming. Dewey’s office, in the meantime, said on October 13 that the governor would have no comment on Ball’s three questions. The next day the Dewey campaign announced the addition of  a “ma­ jor address” to be given by the governor in Pittsburgh on October 20. This would be his third appearance in Pennsylvania, which emphasized the importance being given to the Keystone State by the Republican strate­ gists. Veteran political observers noted also that this would be another of  what they called “one shot” campaign trips, there and back, which had made the Dewey campaign unique. Never, in the recollection of  the oldtime correspondents, had there been “such a succession of  trips . . . for the purpose of  a single speech.” The Dewey people preferred the single speech strategy, with frequent rebroadcasts, to a succession of  talks on a single subject or in the same area.11 Dewey’s next campaign speech was in St. Louis, on Monday October 16. His people said it would be an attack speech, like those in Oklahoma City and Charleston, dealing with “the urgent need for honesty and com­ petence in our national government.” Nine days, they said, would have elapsed between the Charleston and St. Louis addresses, and “a fighting speech is needed to keep the attention of  the voters.”12 Dewey and his party got off  their train in East St. Louis, Illinois, at 11 a.m. on the 16th, and the candidate gave the crowd of  about two thousand a pitch for the re-election of  Dwight Green as governor and the election of  isolationist Dick Lyons against Senator Scott Lucas. He said he was going to go to Washington and get rid of  “all the bureaucrats and fellow-travelers.” Then Dewey and his party crossed the Mississippi into St. Louis, where he held a press conference in the Jefferson Hotel and, when asked how he reconciled his pledge to keep the conduct of  the war out of  the campaign with his statements on General MacArthur and about keeping men in the army past the time needed, said that his state­ ments spoke for themselves.

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His nationally broadcast speech, delivered to a packed house of  fi f­ teen thousand in Kiel Auditorium, attacked the New Deal on both the home and foreign fronts for putting the nation “on the brink of  chaos.” He started by saying, “It is clear by now that the New Deal has been taken over by the combination of  corrupt big city bosses, Communists and fel­ low-travelers.” He continued: “The people of  M issouri have shown their independence before by throwing off  the rule of  the corrupt Pendergast machine. In the light of  that record, I am sure they will never permit men who are products of  that machine to succeed in their current attempt to take over our National Government.” Some listeners wondered if  Dewey knew that Tom Pendergast had been sent to jail by FDR’s Justice Depart­ ment, and they were struck by the picture of  a very reluctant vice presi­ dential candidate trying to take over the national government. Dewey then devoted a large part of  his half-hour speech to rehash­ ing the charges that he had made so many times before that the admin­ istration wanted to keep men in the army after the war because it was cheaper than finding them jobs. Dewey had found a report submitted to the White House in June 1943 “by the President’s uncle, Frederic A. Delano,” he announced triumphantly, as head of  t he Conference on Post-War Readjustment of  Civilian and Military Personnel. He offered several quoted sentences and phrases from that report and said, “So this idea of  keeping men in the Army for fear that they won’t get jobs after the war was in a report made public last year by Mr. Roosevelt himself. The New Deal has had it in mind right along.” The New York Times, in a separate article headed “Dewey Quotation Source,” right after the story of  Dewey’s St. Louis speech, printed the report from which Dewey had just quoted, and an examination of  t he report itself  showed that the New York governor had utilized selective quotations and sentences out of  context in a way that would have been shameful in a tenth-grade civics report. The final conclusion of  t hat report read: “A general policy of  speedy, but orderly and controlled, military demobilization should be adopted, coupled with the use of  a ll reasonable plans and measures to increase the employment available to those being demobilized.” Tom Dewey never read that part.13 On October 21, Dr. Charles E. Merriam of  t he University of  Chi­ cago, former vice chairman of  t he National Resources Planning Board,

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to which the report quoted by Dewey was submitted, said the Repub­ lican candidate’s charge that the board had recommended veterans be kept in service after the war was “misleading and untrue,” citing chapter and verse from the report in question and the board’s recommended policy.14 Dewey left St. Louis after his speech, arriving back in Albany the next day. On the train ride home he finished up his foreign policy talk for the Herald Tribune forum, to be headed “This Must Be the Last War.” And he was able, when he got back to New York, to read the very long and thoughtful New York Times editorial of  October 16, in which the paper somewhat reluctantly announced its support of  Franklin Roosevelt. This could not have been a great shock to the Republicans. On Oc­ tober 3, Walter Hoving (president of  Lord & Taylor) submitted a memo to Brownell detailing his lunch with Times publisher Arthur Hays Sul­ zberger. “Arthur feels that it is absolutely necessary for the Governor to come out more definitely against the Chicago Tribune and the isolation­ ist support. Quoted Mrs. Sulzberger as saying: ‘I think the country can stand four more years of  Roosevelt meddling in domestic affairs more than it can stand another war.’ I fail to see how that makes sense . . .” Hoving offered a private meeting between Sulzberger and Dewey, but the publisher said Dewey would have to come out publicly. Sulzberger “stated he disliked Mr. Roosevelt. He agreed with me that Mr. Roosevelt had played politics with the country’s safety in order to get himself  reelected in ’40, but he did feel that Mr. Roosevelt definitely was for inter­ nationalism and so committed himself  by word and deed.” So at least they knew it was coming.15 The editorial spelled out in detail the problems the editors had with Roosevelt’s second term, resulting in the paper’s 1940 endorsement of  Willkie. It then cited the reasons for its current endorsement. First was the Republican position on Cordell Hull’s tariff  policies, which proposed to do away “with one of  the finest achievements of  the Roosevelt admin­ istration in the domestic field—the Hull trade agreements.” It added that Dewey himself  was confused on this, thinking at first that the party had favored the Hull plan. In foreign policy, the Times said “the scales tip heavily in favor of  the Democratic party,” presently and in the past. Finally, the editors said, were “the background of  the two candidates

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themselves” and “the factor of  experience.” On these grounds, the edito­ rial said, “we arrive at the conclusion that the margin of  preference on the international issue runs strongly in favor of  the Democratic party and its candidate.” And, in 1944, the international issue far outweighed the domestic. Not an easy choice, the editors said, but “the product of  hard thinking and good conscience.”16 If  the New York Times was unpleasant reading for Tom Dewey, Herb Brownell, and their people, there were plenty of  other papers they could look at with more enjoyment. Some nominally Democratic journals like the Baltimore Sun, the Dallas Morning News, and the Hartford Times came out for Dewey. The Galveston News, the oldest newspaper in Texas, announced for Dewey, its first support of  a Republican in its 108 years, because “anti–New Deal Democrats” had “no reasonable choice but to vote for Governor Dewey.”17 The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, like the New York Times a Willkie sup­ porter in 1940, endorsed Roosevelt, as did the Nashville Tennessean, the Houston Chronicle, the Madison Capital Times, and the Los Angeles News. Several black publications, including the Pittsburgh Courier, the Baltimore Afro-American, and the New York Amsterdam News, endorsed Dewey, while others, the Chicago Defender, the Michigan Chronicle, the St. Louis Argus, the Norfolk Journal and Guide, and the New York Age (“long a Republican stalwart”) came out for Roosevelt.18 A survey by Editor and Publisher magazine indicated, in an article in late September, that 1,067 papers with a circulation of  21,439,000 had en­ dorsed Governor Dewey, while 220 papers with a circulation of  4,675,000 had declared for the President. At that point, 230 dailies had not yet de­ clared a preference. This imbalance, of  course, was nothing new; news­ paper publishers had historically been more supportive of  Republican candidates.19 On October 17, the famous journalist Dorothy Thompson wrote to Robert Sherwood with a message for the President: As I see it, a large part of  t he Republican tactic is to make such a snide campaign that it will really work on the President’s temper, anger him, bring him down to their level and wear him down. They know he is tired and that he has times of  g reat discouragement, and they want to make him more discouraged. Beg him to ignore them and to put himself  on a level so sovereign, so far above, that

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they seem like ants and bedbugs in comparison. Always remember the good old American adage, “Never have a pissing contest with a skunk.” Now, if  ever, the President must be Olympian. 20

The next major event on the political calendar was the Herald Tribune forum in the grand ballroom of  the Waldorf-Astoria. There was some confusion attending this function. Arrangements had been made, the program announced, and topics for discussion selected, before the participation of  the Democratic National Committee was requested. Hannegan and Helen Reid, vice president of  the Herald Tribune, had several inconclusive conversations regarding the DNC and the forum, and on October 14 Hannegan wrote her to say the DNC would take no part in the affair. In the meantime the paper had announced that Sidney Hillman would “take the Democratic side,” despite the fact that Hillman was a member of  the American Labor Party. Hillman withdrew, and at the last minute Mayor LaGuardia, also not a registered Democrat, was added to the program to speak for Roosevelt.21 In any event, the headliner at the forum was Governor Dewey, who lashed out bitterly at Roosevelt’s handling of  foreign relations. He said the President’s “personal secret diplomacy” threatened the chances for a lasting peace, that Roosevelt had failed to win Soviet recognition of  the Polish government-in-exile, and that the New Deal was somehow re­ sponsible for conditions in defeated Italy. Dewey answered two of  Joe Ball’s three questions, saying he favored the establishment of  the world organization now and without reservations. He avoided, however, tak­ ing any position on the third question, whether Congress would have to approve any peacekeeping move of  A merican forces. Dewey said “we are paying in blood for our failure to have ready an intelligent program for dealing with defeated Germany.” He assailed the President for presuming to act as his own secretary of  state, and he blasted the administration for permitting the armistice of  September 12 with Romania to be signed by a Soviet representative on behalf  of  the United States. (The State Department immediately issued a denial, stat­ ing that the terms of  surrender of  Romania had been drawn up with our participation “at all stages,” and that this was “a military document and not a peace settlement.”)22

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LaGuardia praised both candidates as “fine, splendid, loyal Ameri­ cans,” but he said in his judgment world affairs called for “experience, not experimenting.” When it came to conducting our foreign affairs, he mentioned no names but said he preferred “a Tennessee mountaineer with no axe to grind” to “a New York international lawyer with foreign clients.” He concluded by saying, “I for one will not take a chance on a change at this time.”23 As a sour footnote to the Dewey speech, Colonel McCormick’s Chi­cago Tribune said on October 20,”We can’t agree with a good many of  the things Mr. Dewey said in his talk on foreign affairs in New York on Wednesday evening. . . . We think Governor Dewey made a mistake in statesmanship as well as in politics when he accepted so large a part of  the Roosevelt program as his own. He will regret these commitments if  he is elected and they will not win him any votes.”24 The New York Times commented editorially on Dewey’s talk, calling the passages dealing with Italy and Poland “an appeal for the bloc votes of  racial minorities in this country at the expense of  the over-all picture.” Dewey’s picture of  the sad plight of  Italy, the paper said, “ignores the fact that it was Italy who made war on us, and not we on Italy . . . that Italy has now suffered the inevitable consequences which overtake any nation in defeat.” “Mr. Dewey’s treatment of  Poland,” it said, “similarly over­ simplifies the problem.” He complained of  Roosevelt’s secret negotia­ tions with Stalin, “as if  to imply that the whole problem could be settled satisfactorily if  only Mr. Roosevelt and Marshal Stalin expressed their disagreements publicly.” The editorial applauded the part of  the talk that endorsed the work of  Dumbarton Oaks, but “we still find nothing in the campaign to demonstrate that Mr. Dewey is in command of  his party on this issue.”25 On October 20, 1944, American forces under the command of   Douglas MacArthur landed on the Philippine island of  Leyte, begin­ ning the redemption of  t he general’s 1942 pledge that “I shall return.” Governor Dewey, on his arrival for a speech in Pittsburgh, said of  t he landing, “It is magnificent news.” An impertinent reporter referred back to Dewey’s September charge that MacArthur was being short-changed in supplies because he was a political threat to Roosevelt, saying, “Since the MacArthur thing has come to a head, do you want to amplify what

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you said in Valentine, Nebraska?” Dewey replied, “I think what I said to you will cover it.”26 As Dewey was on his way to Pittsburgh, a reporter covering his cam­ paign wrote that “hopes of  v ictory have sparked up in the Dewey camp. In conservative phraseology and tone, the Dewey backers and intimates believe that they have a better than even chance of  v ictory.” He added that, “while Mr. Dewey himself  has not mentioned the subject once, it is an open secret that many of  his supporters are counting on a ques­ tioning of  the President’s health to affect Mr. Roosevelt’s chances for re-election.”27 The second visit to Pittsburgh was conceived as a further effort by the Republicans to detach a part of  the labor vote from Franklin Roo­ sevelt. There were particular hopes that some of  the A FL unions might defect (in part because of  the concentrated efforts of  the rival CIO) as well as the mine workers of  John L. Lewis, the black-browed union boss who detested the President. In addition, the Dewey people had high hopes of  carrying Pennsylvania, and the second foray to Pittsburgh was a major part of  this process. Governor Dewey, in his Pittsburgh speech, charged the administra­ tion with playing with the rights of  labor for its own political ends and for the benefit of  Roosevelt’s “one-man” rule. “That sort of  business must come to an end in this country,” Dewey proclaimed. “Political bosses and one-man government must not be allowed to keep a stranglehold on the rights of  our working people.”28 Governor Dewey made some strong points in his Pittsburgh speech —one writer called it “one of  the boldest speeches of  the Dewey cam­ paign, and delivered in a supposed New Deal stronghold”—but how much labor support he may have detached from Franklin Roosevelt re­ mained a matter for speculation. The Republican strategists were hope­ ful that things were moving in their direction, but they knew that the President was scheduled for an appearance the next evening, a speech to the Foreign Policy Association in New York City. They hoped that there was something to the report that the President’s decision to go to New York “was inspired by knowledge that his 12-year grip on the Presidency is slipping under the smashing attack by Gov. Thomas E. Dewey” and that for FDR “New York’s 47 electoral votes are now in dire peril.”29

24

FDR Strikes Back

The Democratic strategists had decided that, since Roosevelt was going to New York City, they would schedule a motorcade for him, all through the town, so that the maximum number of  people could get a look at the President in person, watching him wave and smile. It was exactly the opposite of  the way Tom Dewey campaigned; he did not care to be exposed to the public in that way, and he liked to do his communicating over the radio. Republicans in the past had complained about “Roosevelt weather”; it seemed that it was always sunny and balmy when FDR appeared before the public, and this fine weather added to his aura. For October 21 in New York City, however, the weather was bad. It was going to be rainy, cold, windy and dreary all day, the tail end of  a hurricane that had gone up the coast. Such a day, however, turned out to be “Roosevelt weather” after all; it was just what his campaign needed. The plans for the day, set up principally by Mayor LaGuardia, included a tour of  Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Manhattan, fifty-one miles in all. There were three stops in Brooklyn, at the Army base, New York Navy Yard, and a campaign rally for Senator Wagner at Ebbets Field, the home of  t he Dodgers; then followed a visit to a unit of  t he Waves at Hunter College in the Bronx, a tour through Harlem, and then to Times Square and the garment district in Manhattan. LaGuardia estimated ahead of  time that some two million persons would see the President. 272

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Bob Hannegan denied that the tour was set up to prove FDR’s good health but conceded it might serve that purpose. “After the people have seen him they can make up their own minds as to his vigor and health,” the chairman said a couple of  days before.1 The tour began at the Army base in Brooklyn at 9:16 a.m. with the rain pouring down. From there the motorcade went to the Navy Yard, where the President was joined for the rest of  the trip by his wife and Fala. Roosevelt donned his old blue-black navy cape and battered campaign hat and, after twenty minutes at the yard, the twenty-one-car procession made its way through downtown Brooklyn, where thousands lined the sidewalks to see him and shout encouragement. Approximately ten thousand were in Ebbets Field for the Wagner rally and the presidential visit, which a Republican-leaning paper called “a frantic effort to save the New Deal Senator’s seat.” FDR’s car was driven up a ramp onto a raised platform in right field, where Roosevelt doffed his cape and hat and stood for his speech. He told the crowd he had come for two reasons. “I have a confession to make,” he said. “I’ve never been to Ebbets Field before. But I rooted for the Dodgers and I hope to come back here to see them play.” The crowd roared its appreciation. His chief  reason, however, was “to pay a little tribute to my old friend, Bob Wagner,” who “deserves well of  mankind.” He did so in a laudatory five-minute talk, to great cheering, and departed the ballpark at 11:05 a.m.2 From Ebbets Field, FDR went to the nearby Coast Guard garage and changed to a dry suit of  clothes. Then, the tour of  Brooklyn continued, before large and welcoming crowds. As the motorcade crossed into Queens, the Brooklyn officials and politicos were dropped off  and replaced by their Queens counterparts, until the motorcade reached the Triborough Bridge, where Bronx officials came on board. The turnout in Queens, where Dewey was said to be more popular, was thinner than in the other parts of  the city. “In the Bronx,” on the other hand, one reporter wrote, “flag-waving and cheering throngs were the rule on virtually the entire route.” In Harlem the sidewalks were filled to overflowing and the reception for Mr. Roosevelt was warm. At 110th Street and Broadway, a band of  youths played music for the motorcade. The crowds were immense

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down Broadway into a hectic Times Square, and the procession then went at a slower pace down Seventh Avenue, where it was greeted by sound trucks provided by the American Labor and Liberal parties. The acclaim at this point, it was reported, “was of  the ear-splitting variety— cheers, piercing whistles, a shower of  tons of  multicolored confetti.” At Twenty-third Street and Fifth Avenue, the President and his wife were presented with three dozen American Beauty roses by members of  the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. David Dubinsky, president of  the union, in a brief  ceremony gave Roosevelt the original manuscripts of  t wo songs, “The F.D.R. Way” and “Don’t Break Up That Team.” Through it all, the rain kept coming down, the wind blew, and Franklin Roosevelt kept smiling and waving to the thousands watching for him, with Fala by his side. At the end of  the procession, in Washington Square, a throng of  ten thousand that had been waiting more than two hours greeted the presidential automobile, with cheers and signs of  support. It was after 2 p.m. when the tour ended, as the President and his wife entered Eleanor’s apartment at 29 Washington Square West, to change into dry clothes and rest up for the evening speech. After all was over, the police estimated the total crowds at 3,050,000 (2 million in Manhattan, 500,000 each in Brooklyn and the Bronx, and 50,000 in Queens), though it may have been, as Ray Brandt of  the St. Louis Post Dispatch put it, “a mere million or two.” Fiorello LaGuardia, who went along the whole way, said afterward that the President had stood it better than he had. He felt that Roosevelt had been moved and impressed by the outpouring of  support; “you could see it,” the Mayor said; “he was touched by it.”3 Brandt said “the persons most impressed by the automobile trip . . . were the reporters, most of  whom were in limousines.” One press association writer asked afterward, “How can they talk about a tired old man now?” Another, no fan of  Roosevelt or the New Deal, called the trip “one of  the most arduous physical fitness tests any campaigner ever met.” 4 Eleanor Roosevelt wrote: “I was really worried about him that day, but instead of  being completely exhausted he was exhilarated, after he had had a chance to change his clothes and get a little rest. The crowds had been warm and welcoming and the contact with them was good for him.” It was clear that the people waiting for him did not mind the

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weather as long as they could see their President. “There was no question,” she said, “but that the people of  New York City had been telling him that day how much they cared.”5 A reporter for the Chicago Tribune, of  course, said that “the crowds along the lengthy itinerary were disappointing to Democratic leaders” and Roosevelt’s “face appeared pinched and drawn” in an article headlined “r a in da mpens roosevelt bid for n.y. votes.” But that was Bertie McCormick’s paper; the people in New York knew differently. And the whispering campaign about Roosevelt’s health became more hushed after FDR’s day in the New York rain.6 That evening, the President came into the Waldorf-Astoria ballroom at 8:10 p.m. in his wheelchair, and the Foreign Policy Association crowd there (probably about 80 percent Republican, but most likely Willkie Republican) cheered him for five minutes as he waved. “The President,” a reporter noted, “looked none the worse for his trip through the rain.” He was in good voice as he began his address and was frequently applauded as he delivered what was described as “a stinging attack on Republican isolationists and a vigorous defense of  his plans for a postwar international organization.” 7 The President began by contrasting the Republican and Democratic records in the field of  foreign policy since 1920 and noted that if  the Republicans should win control of  Congress “inveterate isolationists” would wind up in positions of  power and influence. Roosevelt never mentioned Governor Dewey by name but referred several times to statements by his opponent that he felt were very wrong. Finally, he answered the question that Dewey had not faced in his speech in the same ballroom three days earlier. The American representative on the Security Council, FDR said, must have the authority to approve the use of  force for the suppression of  aggression without submitting the question to Congress. “A policeman would not be a very efficient policeman if, when he saw a felon break into a house, he had to go to the Town Hall and call a town meeting to issue a warrant before the felon could be arrested.” The President also dealt with Dewey’s charge that the “unconditional surrender” demand made at Casablanca was needlessly prolonging the war and costing American lives. There is no intention of  enslaving the German people, he said, but no deal could be made with the Nazis and

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they could not be left with any “shred of  control, open or secret, of  the instruments of  government.”8 Well satisfied with the day in New York, Franklin Roosevelt headed off  to Hyde Park. As he did so, Democratic politicians looked ahead to the coming election with a rosier view. The Republicans had been talking about carrying New York for Dewey, but that now seemed a little less likely. The first consequence of  Roosevelt’s foreign policy speech, not unexpected, was a statement issued on the following Monday by Senator Ball, declaring that he would support and vote for the President. Roosevelt, he said, met “squarely and unequivocally” the two issues on which the isolationists would fight our entry into the United Nations, the formation of  the organization without delay, before hostilities cease, and the power to use force against aggressors “without requiring individual approval of  each member nation.” Dewey, Ball said, had opposed delay, but on the second point had so worded his position that both isolationists and internationalists “could find comfort and support in what he said.” Asked if  he might reverse his stand if  Dewey clarified his position, the Minnesota senator said, “It’s a little late for that now. After all, he has made two half-hour speeches on foreign policy. I think he missed his opportunity.”9 In Washington, Senator Edwin C. Johnson, an anti–New Deal Dem­ ocrat, said, “Ball is taking himself  too seriously. His statement probably will put Minnesota definitely in Dewey’s bandwagon.” Victor Johnston, who had directed the Minnesota campaign for Stassen delegates, blasted Ball for “his treacherous double-cross of  t he Republican party” and said he was sure that Stassen, off  in the South Pacific, “must be heartily ashamed of  him.” But Senator James Mead (D-N.Y.) said that “thousands upon thousands of  Republicans” would flock to the Roosevelt camp as the result of  Ball’s decision, and Carl Hatch (D-N. Mex.) said Ball had “placed his country above his party.” And a New York Times report indicated that Ball’s stand had put Minnesota’s eleven electoral votes, “which had been thought to be in the Dewey bag . . . very much in the doubtful class.”10 Tom Dewey, meanwhile, was on his way to Minneapolis, of  a ll places, to give a speech on Tuesday night the 24th. The talk was origi-

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nally planned to be on farm issues, but he decided to make it an attack on Roosevelt’s handling of  foreign policy. The Republican candidate held a press conference on his train as it headed west, although he refrained from any comment on Joe Ball’s action. He said, “Mr. Roosevelt, I am afraid, took his history out of  context in that speech last Saturday night. His memory seems to fail him on large areas of  recent history. So I will fill in the gaps in my speech in Minneapolis.” Dewey, one reporter wrote, was emphasizing again “his refusal to stay on the defensive and his determination to give back if  he can, blow for blow or better.”11 The governor and his party arrived in Minneapolis shortly after noon on the 24th, to be greeted by Governor Edward J. Thye and Senator Henrik Shipstead, Minnesota’s other senator and a dyed-in-the-wool isolationist. Joe Ball, of  course, was absent. At a press conference, Dewey said that, “unfortunately I never had the pleasure of  meeting Senator Ball.” When a reporter told him he had met Ball in Minneapolis in 1939, Dewey said he did not remember that.12 An audience of  eighteen thousand turned out to hear Dewey’s speech, in which he scored Franklin Roosevelt for what he said were terrible foreign policy mistakes of  the pre-war years, citing the London Economic Conference of  1933, the Neutrality Act of  1935, and the sale of  scrap iron and steel to Japan until 1940. Governor Dewey said that the American delegate on the Security Council should not be required “to return to Congress for authority every time he had to make a decision,” a position which, had he taken it in his Herald Tribune speech, might have won Joseph Ball to his side. He said he held in his hand telegrams from Republican leaders of  Congress—Senators Vandenberg, Wherry, Taft, White (of  Maine), and Austin, and Congressman Joe Martin—pledging their support in organizing a world peace league. This was to be a contrast with the position of  the President, who “cannot work with a Congress of  his own party.”13 The editors of  the New York Times, taking note with pleasure of  the fact that foreign policy was now being debated full blast, despite early Republican plans to make their campaign on domestic issues, noted Dewey’s citation of  “various derelictions in the record of  M r. Roosevelt in the field of  foreign policy.” They said they were familiar with these derelictions and had opposed Roosevelt on every one of  them. “We agreed

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that before 1940 Mr. Roosevelt’s foreign policy lacked the constancy which it has acquired since.” But Dewey, they said, “ignores his own extremely vulnerable record on this issue” and the record of  his party. “If  the issue is where Mr. Dewey put it at Minneapolis,” they went on, “if  the issue is which candidate and which party, on the whole record since the First World War, has done more to support international action and to defeat isolationism—we are content with our own choice.”14 So, the contest headed into its final days, with each party confident of  v ictory and the experts saying it was very close. And in the White House, Franklin Roosevelt was developing a bitter distaste for his young and aggressive opponent.

25

Down to the Wire

Governor Dewey had a big day in Wisconsin on his way to Chicago. In Milwaukee he spoke from an automobile in front of  the Pfister Hotel to a crowd estimated at eight thousand persons, telling them that he would restore harmony between the Executive and Congress and would get rid of  “the quarrelsome, wasteful, bungling” bureaucrats. Dewey urged the re-election of  Governor Walter S. Goodland and Alexander Wiley, the state’s isolationist senator. A band serenaded the New York governor with “The Washington Post March,” and a clubwoman with a megaphone sang a “Dewey-for-President” song she had written.1 At a press conference a bit later Dewey said he thought his foreign policy position after the Minneapolis speech was “so clear” there was no possible question of  interpretation. After leaving Milwaukee, the candidate’s train stopped for brief  talks in Kenosha and Racine, where Dewey proclaimed, “You people put me into this [referring to the Wisconsin primary in April] and I promise that I won’t let you down.” On then to Chicago, where a big reception was planned for the New York governor. His train arrived at 2:40 p.m., and he proceeded in a parade before an estimated half-million people through the Loop to the Stevens Hotel. The Republican candidate called it “the most tremendous reception I have seen thus far,” and his aides were frankly astonished by the turnout—this in Ed Kelly’s city. The fine weather, the friendly crowds in Wisconsin along the way, and what Dewey called “glowing” political reports brought him to Chi279

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cago “in a fighting mood.” He was angry when he learned that he would be sharing the Stevens with Harry Truman, and he lashed out to the press about the Missouri senator. Governor Green told Dewey that his chances looked very good in Illinois, and the political writers on the scene agreed that he was ahead in the state.2 Prior to Dewey’s speech in Chicago Stadium, there was an entertainment program set up featuring three Hollywood stars, Barbara Stan­ wyck, Adolph Menjou, and Eddie Bracken, as well as a glee club, opera singers, and an Irish tenor. Every person in the Stadium audience received a photo of  Governor Dewey with his autograph printed on. In his speech, before a packed crowd of  t wenty-five thousand, with several thousand more clamoring to get in, Dewey, in what one reporter called “one of  the most vigorously-worded indictments of  the New Deal he has uttered in the campaign,” denounced the Democrats, FDR, and the Roosevelt administration for selling “special privilege” for members of  the “One Thousand Club,” a fund-raising idea to raise $1,000 contributions for the fourth-term campaign. Dewey read from a letter signed by a couple of  Democratic fundraisers in Arkansas, who said the idea of  the club had originated in a recent White House meeting of  the President, Bob Hannegan, and Ed Pauley. In the letter Dewey read, FDR was quoted as saying that “members of  this organization undoubtedly will be granted special privilege by party leaders. These members will be called into conference from time to time to discuss matters of  national importance and to assist in the formulation of  Administration policies.” In outrage Dewey said, “there in crude, unblushing words is the ultimate expression of  New Deal policies. . . . And the sponsor of  this idea is frankly stated in that letter to be the President himself. The man who holds the highest office within the gift of  the American people at a conference in the White House sponsors an idea to sell ‘special privilege’ and a voice ‘in the formulation of  Administration policies’ for one thousand dollars on the barrelhead.” Unbelievable, cried the New York governor, secure in his confidence that all of  the contributions to his campaign were made from disinterested altruism. Dewey went on to say that working together for the fourth term were “the bosses of  the corrupt big city machines, Sidney Hillman’s political action committee and Earl Browder and his Communist party.”3

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One problem that Governor Dewey encountered in Chicago was that, nationwide, the news of  h is reception and his speech was overshadowed by the news of  one of  t he greatest naval victories in history, the Battle of  Leyte Gulf, in which the fleet of  Admiral Thomas Kincaid overwhelmed large components of  t he Japanese Navy. As columnist Marquis Childs noted, such a development illustrated “the difficulty of  holding a national election in the midst of  a major war” and the difficulty particularly for the challenger. The military situation, he said, gives the incumbent “the greatest possible advantage”; parents of  servicemen around the country feared “that a change might delay the war for even a day.” Childs also pointed out another difficulty for Dewey in his campaign. In his zeal to fire up the Republican base, he was responding to the cries of  “pour it on” coming from the New Deal haters in his audiences. But this meant a fall-off  in his appeal to the independent voters he needed in order to win the election. For the past couple of  weeks, Childs said, Dewey had been mainly “pouring it on,” which his Republican listeners loved; he wondered how many votes this had made for Dewey among those independents. “Very few, I should think.” Childs pointed out that most observers agreed Dewey would get the fifty-nine Middle West electoral votes of  Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Ohio, and Wisconsin—which he did. What he needed to win, however, were the additional seventy-three votes of  four wavering states—Minnesota, Missouri, Michigan, and Illinois. And then some of  the big Eastern states. A tough job, without the independent vote.4 Nevertheless, Republican leaders felt that there had been a tremendous upswing in the last month in Dewey’s campaign, manifested by the fact that Franklin Roosevelt had felt compelled to take to the stump as well as by the enthusiasm they saw in the crowds that greeted Dewey in his midwestern swing. Still, most of  the experts believed that Governor Dewey had to win a majority of  the states regarded as toss-ups to win the election. By no means, however, did they think he might not do it. Robert Hannegan was quick to respond to Dewey’s remarks about the ‘One Thousand Club.’ He said that he had never discussed with the President the organization of  any such club and that the quotation read by Dewey in his speech was “wholly without substance and is unau-

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thorized.” Hannegan said he had been advised by Ed Pauley that such a fund-raising organization had in fact been set up. “Those who subscribe $1000 are making an investment in democracy,” Hannegan said, “and the project has my approval.” The DNC, he went on, had no angels of  the type of  Joe Pew, who contributed millions of  dollars to the GOP, nor any “duPonts, Rockefellers, Weirs, John Foster Dulles and other Wall Street millionaires, who are financing Dewey’s campaign.” He denied that any contributor would receive any special favors. 5 On October 28, the Chattanooga News-Free Press said that Representative Estes Kefauver (D-Tenn.) had written to a local businessman that membership in the One Thousand Club was “all the pass they need here in Washington to go anywhere.” Kefauver told the Chattanooga Times that he had certainly not intended to convey the impression that membership carried special privileges. “I have written that we wanted money and needed it,” he said.6 Finally, a Chicago manufacturer named Frank J. Lewis said he was the chairman of  t he One Thousand Club, that the organization had prominent Republican members as well as Democrats, that no member was entitled “to receive patronage from any political party,” and that the main interest of  the club was to help the campaign by putting the war above partisan politics. Lewis, former head of  the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank, said the club was organized in Chicago, not the White House, on September 11, 1944, by midwestern business and professional men not identified with either party. He said the letter quoted by Dewey was apparently written by two Arkansas gentlemen who were neither members nor officials of  the club. In light of  the active fund-raising carried on by both parties, at which Republicans were always more successful than Democrats, the furor over the One Thousand Club seemed to be somewhat of  an exercise in hypocrisy.7 At the beginning of  November, the One Thousand Club reported to Congress receipts of  $94,100 through October 31, with ninety-four members contributing $1,000 and one man sending in $100. Governors Kerr of  Oklahoma and McGrath of  R hode Island were listed as contributors of  $1,000, as were Marshall Field of  Chicago, Congressman Wright Patman, and President Roosevelt. Twenty-eight of  the contributors were from Chicago or its vicinity, twenty were from Oklahoma, and ten from

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South Carolina. At the same reporting date the Republican National Committee acknowledged contributions of  $2,773,506, while the Democratic National Committee received $1,375,539.8 As Governor Dewey was heading back to New York from Chicago, Franklin Roosevelt was ready to hit the road again. Before he left, Roosevelt had a get-together with Alex Rose, David Dubinsky, and other leaders of  New York’s Liberal Party and heard them predict that New York was “in the bag” for him, with Rose predicting a Roosevelt majority of  300,000, compared with 224,000 in 1940. The President was scheduled to give a speech at Shibe Park, the Philadelphia Athletics’ ballpark, on the evening of  Friday, October 27, so he and his handlers decided to make a day of  it. There would be a rear platform speech in Wilmington, Delaware, a brief  stop in Chester, Pennsylvania, and a river crossing into Camden, New Jersey. After the Philadelphia talk, FDR was scheduled for a major appearance the next night in Chicago, with a stopover en route in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Interestingly, of  the five states to be visited, the Gallup poll showed Roosevelt as leading only in tiny Delaware. Gallup had Dewey with 52 percent in New Jersey, 54 percent in Illinois, and 55 percent in Indiana. Pennsylvania was supposedly 50–50.9 When informed of  the plans for a Roosevelt speech in Philadelphia, Herb Brownell said, “It seems the jitters of  the Democratic high command have reached even to the White House.”10 More than a few political experts felt that Pennsylvania might very well be the key to the national election. In 1940, Roosevelt had ridden the vote in Allegheny (Pittsburgh) and Philadelphia counties to a 281,000 statewide lead. In 1944, the GOP expected to win the state for Dewey by 100,000 votes, though Governor Ed Martin predicted a 250,000 Dewey plurality.11 On October 27, the presidential train made its first stop on the way from Washington in Wilmington at 10:58 a.m., where a crowd of  about seven thousand persons cheered FDR’s first train platform appearance of  the campaign. He was “in a jaunty mood” and stood without a hat or topcoat. After some political remarks, Roosevelt paid tribute to all the various types of  landing craft built along the Delaware River and the many brilliant operations carried out by troops using those vessels.12

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After a brief  wave to the crowd of  about four thousand awaiting him in Chester, it was on to Philadelphia, once again for a tour in the rain, with a trace of  snowfall added. Large and enthusiastic crowds greeted the President as he toured South Philadelphia, then over the Delaware River Bridge to Camden, back to Philadelphia, and then on a wide sweep through Germantown and Chestnut Hill before returning to his train. There seemed to be a carnival spirit in the air. The onlookers gave the police some difficulty, in many places pressing within a few feet of  FDR’s open car. Even in heavily Republican Germantown and Chestnut Hill the crowds cheered the President, though there were some cries for Dewey. Overall, it was estimated that between 750,000 and a million persons saw Roosevelt waving and smiling.13 In Camden the President said, “Things are going along pretty well, and I have got accustomed to the rain.” He read a greeting handed him by Mayor George Brunner, “wishing you good luck, good health, and victory upon the battlefronts, and at the ballot boxes.” He turned to his listeners and said, “And that is what I say to you.”14 Late in the tour the sun broke through the clouds, the rain stopped, and the trip ended in sunny but cold weather. Shibe Park officially seated about thirty-two thousand people, but many more than that crowded in before the gates were locked at 8:10 p.m. For his speech before the estimated fifty thousand packed into the ballpark, Roosevelt spoke from his open car on a wooden platform over second base. The President noted that the day was Navy Day and that, in the year since the last Navy Day, our armed forces had participated in twenty-seven different landings in force on enemy-held soil and he was proud of  what our forces had done. He wondered “whatever became of  the suggestion made a few weeks ago, that I had failed for political reasons to send enough forces or supplies to General MacArthur?” He recited with satisfaction the names of  the successful military leaders he had appointed—Stimson, Knox, Forrestal, Leahy, Marshall, King, and Arnold. Roosevelt quoted the Republican claim that the present administration is “the most spectacular collection of  incompetent people who ever held public office.” That was pretty serious, the President said, and must mean that we were losing the war, which “will be news to most of  us— and it will certainly be news to the Nazis and the Japs.” He mentioned

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Halsey’s heroic Third Fleet. “Every battleship in his fleet was authorized between 1933 and 1938. Construction had begun on all of  those battleships by September, 1940—well over a year before Pearl Harbor.” All but two of  Halsey’s cruisers and all of  his aircraft carriers were similarly authorized before the war. “There is the answer,” Roosevelt said, “just a little part of  it—once and for all—to a Republican candidate who said that this Administration had made, ‘absolutely no military preparation for the events that it now claims it foresaw.’” Near the close of  his address, the President paid tribute to the many Republican businessmen who placed patriotism above party by working with his administration. But he decried those Republicans in Congress who said they would cooperate with a Republican president in establishing a world peace organization while clearly intimating that they would not cooperate with a Democrat. After the boos for Dewey and his party subsided, he went on: “I do not think,” he said, “that the American people will take kindly to this policy of  ‘Vote my way or I won’t play.’”15 When his talk was finished, Roosevelt flashed a V-for-Victory sign. As his auto made a slow circuit of  the park, the packed thousands roared and surged back and forth for the opportunity to see their FDR a little bit closer. Then it was off  to the west, the presidential train pulling out of  Philadelphia at 10:15 p.m.16 After the Philadelphia speech, while President Roosevelt was on his way to Chicago, New York Times reporter C. P. Trussell, who had been with the presidential party for the recent tours, wrote, “There is no question that the campaign has really come to life since Mr. Roosevelt got into it with both feet. Its tempo and tone have changed; the spirits of  party leaders have risen; sap runs in political vines that some feared were in danger of  w ilting.” Too, Roosevelt gave every evidence of  enjoying himself. It took a lot of  pressure from Democratic leaders to get FDR out on the political circuit, but they were convinced that he was the only one “who could neutralize the minefield Governor Dewey was planting.” Recent visitors to the President’s office had pictured him as now very confident. Finally, Trussell wrote, one of  the major accomplishments of  the active Roosevelt campaign was to dispel the rumors about his physical condition, this being especially true of  his fifty-one-mile tour of  New York City in the rain.

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The next morning, as President Roosevelt’s train reached Lima, Ohio, it slowed down appreciably and passed through the city so slowly that the throngs that lined the tracks for several blocks could see the President in his car and receive his waves to them. When the train reached Fort Wayne, Roosevelt told a crowd of  about twenty-four thousand persons that the Republicans did not much like his campaigning, that they seemed to believe he had promised not to do so. They “conveniently” overlooked what he had actually said, that he would feel free to “correct any misrepresentations.” When he quoted from his acceptance speech, he said he knew he would be pardoned for quoting correctly, an obvious dig at Dewey. “I expect between now and election day,” he said, “to point out and correct more of  t hem,” as the crowd roared.17 The presidential train slowed down again and crawled through Gary, Indiana, where a big crowd was assembled in the station to see Roosevelt. Then it moved on into Chicago and arrived there late in the afternoon. The President was driven to Soldier Field, where 110,000 packed the yard, while another 150,000 were outside jammed hundreds deep on the parking areas around the stadium. As the President’s car entered the stadium, a roar of  welcome came forth from the crowd. Roosevelt spoke from his automobile, which had been run up on a platform in the center of  the field, over two national radio networks.18 In his talk, FDR pledged a postwar program that would keep the United States a nation with adequate pay for workers and a substantial return for farm and factory products. He quoted the Republicans as saying, “These incompetent blunderers and bunglers in Washington have passed a lot of  excellent laws about social security and labor and farm relief  and soil conservation—and many others—and we promise that if  elected we will not change any of  them.” Then they say, “Those same quarrelsome, tired old men—they have built the greatest military machine the world has ever known” and, they say, “if  you elect us, we promise not to change any of  that, either.” Then, say these Republican orators, “it is time for a change.” With his crowd roaring with him, Roosevelt went on: they also say “‘Those inefficient and worn-out crackpots have really begun to lay the foundations of  a lasting world peace. If  you elect us, we will not change any of  that, either. But,’ they whisper, ‘we’ll do it in such a way that we

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won’t lose the support even of  Gerald Nye or Gerald Smith—and this is very important—we won’t lose the support of  any isolationist campaign contributor. Why, we will be able to satisfy even the Chicago Tribune.’” The audience loved it. Roosevelt then referred to his Economic Bill of  R ights from his State of  the Union message in January and spelled it out once again. “Now, this Economic Bill of  R ights is the recognition of  the simple fact that, in America, the future of  the worker, the future of  the farmer lies in the well-being of  private enterprise; and that the future of  private enterprise lies in the well-being of  the worker and the farmer. It goes both ways.” He then proposed his program to “provide America with close to sixty million productive jobs.” He called for Congress to make the FEPC permanent by law. He saluted the farm program of  the New Deal, which had multiplied agricultural income since 1932. And he reminded his listeners of  the great value provided the nation by the Tennessee Valley Authority and great dams like Bonneville and Grand Coulee, which the Republicans had called “boondoggling.” FDR went on: “If  anyone feels that my faith in our ability to provide sixty million peacetime jobs is fantastic, let him remember that some people said the same thing about my demand in 1940 for fifty thousand airplanes,” another slap at Dewey. He concluded by vowing that “We are not going to turn the clock back! We are going forward, my friends—forward with the fighting millions of  our fellow countrymen. We are going forward together.”19 While at Soldier Field, Roosevelt had an opportunity to ask Mayor Kelly what his margin in Cook County might be. When Kelly predicted a four hundred thousand vote plurality, FDR laughed incredulously. In fact, Roosevelt’s plurality turned out to be even larger than that.20 The press estimated that in two days FDR had been seen by well more than a million voters, by many at close range. He had dealt in his talks with campaign issues ranging from pre-war preparations and combat strategy to foreign and domestic issues of  the postwar period, while responding tellingly to the charges of  Governor Dewey and others. Turner Catledge called the Soldier Field evening “one of  the greatest political rallies in American history.” As he left Chicago to return east, Franklin Roosevelt had to feel great satisfaction at the turn the 1944 campaign had taken.21

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There was one more stop for FDR on the way back to Washington, on Sunday in Clarksburg, West Virginia. West Virginia was considered a questionable state because of  the pro-Dewey influence of  John L. Lewis and the United Mine Workers, though several UM W locals had defied Lewis and endorsed Roosevelt. So West Virginia was a potentially profitable stop for the President. He stood on the rear platform of  his train to address a throng of  about ten thousand people in Clarksburg, telling them that life was more comfortable on a Sunday because he did not have to think about politics on that day.22 A few days after this visit, the New York Times reported: “A Roosevelt victory in West Virginia appears certain.” The state’s 120,000 coal miners and their families were strong for FDR “on the grounds that he gave them the right to organize and improved their pay and working conditions.” Lewis’s union officials working for Dewey were resented; the miners of  West Virginia said they would follow Lewis “in a wage-contract dispute, but not politically against Mr. Roosevelt.”23 Back in Washington, the President received a telegram from Henry Wallace: We heard your magnificent and unusually thoughtful Chicago speech while on the road from Grand Rapids to Muskegon. Your goal of  60 million jobs is perhaps high but I glory in your daring and as you say America can do the seeming impossible. We are predicting you will carry 36 states, have a 3 million popular majority and 100 electoral college majority. 24

Off  t he campaign trail, a longtime festering problem came to a head, with political implications that no one could foresee. On October 28, the War Department announced that General Joseph Stilwell was being recalled from China, where he had been since 1942, and relieved of  h is positions as deputy to Lord Mountbatten in Southeast Asia, military head of  t he China-Burma-India Theatre, and chief  of  staff  to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek. A severe personality clash between “Vinegar Joe” and Chiang added to problems regarding the Chinese army, the Chinese Communists, and Japanese movements in eastern China. On September 6, 1944, Patrick Hurley (a former Republican secretary of  war) arrived in Chungking, dispatched by Roosevelt in a last desperate effort to resolve these problems, but he was unable to do so. When Chiang (whom Stilwell called “the Peanut”) demanded

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that Stilwell be recalled, FDR finally had no alternative. As it turned out, the Stilwell recall had little effect on the political campaign (or on the Chinese army, for that matter), perhaps because it took place when things were so far along. Roosevelt answered a few questions about the situation in his October 31 news conference but concluded, “Honestly, there isn’t any politics that you can make out of  t his.”25 Thomas E. Dewey, of  course, was not silent while Franklin Roose­ velt took his well-publicized tour of  seven states that were almost all considered by the experts “doubtful.” On Saturday, October 28, Governor Dewey spoke on agricultural problems in Syracuse, New York. This was the speech originally intended for October 24 in Minneapolis, but it had been pushed back so that Dewey could give his foreign policy “reply” to FDR’s New York City speech. The agriculture speech was delivered to a crowd of  3,500 in Syracuse Central High School. Governor Dewey told the farmers of  the country that he would give them freedom from government control and dictation, and he labeled the administration’s farm program a failure. Dewey accused the White House of  “spreading confusion from the Cabinet level up,” while the secretary of  agriculture “spreads confusion from the Cabinet level down.” He told of  a farmer who signed up for the soil conservation program and then had fourteen government agents come to his farm to tell him what should be done. Dewey decried the “bureaucratic maze” to which the farmer was so often subjected. “It took a war to get decent farm prices,” he said, “just as it took a war to get jobs.” Pledging himself  to the farm plank in the Republican platform, Dew­ey said, “The farm and food problems of  the United States are inseparable.” He said, “Neither will be wholly solved until all our people are well fed and our agriculture is stabilized on a par with industry and labor.” On the way back to New York, Dewey’s train stopped in Utica, in the Mohawk Valley, and the governor addressed a crowd of  about 2,500 from the rear platform of  his train, accusing Roosevelt, in his speech in Philadelphia the night before, of  taking “personal and political credit for the magnificent achievements of  the American people” and “for the sacrifices of  their sons.”26 After a return to Albany, to be present for a one-day special session of  the legislature, called to sanction a two-hour extension of  the voting

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day, Dewey was off  on another trip within his own state. On October 31, he had a speech scheduled in Buffalo, so he left Albany around 1 p.m. and arrived in Rochester at 5:15. The Republicans had gathered a crowd of  about ten thousand there, and the governor spoke briefly to them, saying that Roosevelt had told them twelve years earlier that his philosophy was “divide what we have left,” which, Dewey said, meant, in other words, “follow the doctrine of  the Communist party.” From Rochester the train moved on to Buffalo, where twenty thousand Republican enthusiasts filled the Memorial Auditorium. Dewey was introduced by Ed Jaeckle and immediately got into a fighting speech, ridiculing Roosevelt’s promise of  sixty million jobs as “worthless.” He put forth an eight-point program, much of  it repetitive from earlier speeches, to furnish full employment, through full production, at high wages. He promised to lower taxes for everyone, make Social Security benefits available to all, set a “floor” under farm prices, restore collective bargaining, and bring amity and cooperation between Congress and the Executive. Dewey also came out in this speech in favor of  a constitutional amendment limiting future presidents to two terms in office, since, as he said, “four terms, or sixteen years, is the most dangerous threat to our freedom ever proposed.”27 With that the Republican campaign for October came to an end. There were six more days before the country voted, and they would be busy days indeed. Franklin Roosevelt was relatively silent as October closed, but Bob Hannegan spoke to the annual dinner of  the One Hundred Dollar Club of  the Philadelphia Democratic organization on the 30th, saying that Dewey himself  had done much to assure the re-election of  the President. Dewey, Hannegan said, “started out, from the first gong, with wild swings. But his aim wasn’t true. He forgot what was in the book. And you can’t fight that way when you’re up against the champ. Not for very long.”28 At his press conference on the 31st, Roosevelt told the reporters that back in August he had indeed suggested the formation of  the notorious One Thousand Club, but he had originally suggested it as a $100,000 club. When those who heard that all laughed and said, “you don’t think you’d ever get anybody to donate that kind of  money,” he scaled it down

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to $10,000 (they still laughed at him) and eventually to the $1,000 level, where it seemed acceptable. He had forgotten about it until he had received his own membership certificate a few days earlier for his personal contribution. A reporter then asked what the certificate entitled him to, and FDR asked what he thought. “It lets you go any place in town, “ the reporter answered. Another said, “It also entitles you to see the President.” Roosevelt then laughed and said he’d have to clear that through “Pa” Watson. The reporters all laughed heartily.29 That night, Halloween, Secretary of  Commerce Jesse Jones spoke for FDR in a radio address. The Texan Jones, whose support of  the President was suspect in some Democratic quarters, asserted that Roosevelt had led the country out of  its worst depression, was leading it to victory in the war, and would be needed to establish a lasting peace. 30 While Jones was doing his bit, there was a huge Liberal Party rally for “Roosevelt—Truman and Wagner” in Madison Square Garden in New York. Among the entertainers on hand were Victor Borge, Ethel Merman, Frank Sinatra, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, and Benay Venuta. Speakers included David Dubinsky, Reinhold Niebuhr, Rabbi Stephen Wise, Russell Davenport, and Senator Wagner, but the headliners were Henry Wallace and Harry Truman, appearing together for the first time. There was some concern among Truman’s people that the ultra-liberal crowd might boo the Missouri senator, but that worry was resolved when George Allen, traveling with the Truman party, had Wallace enter the arena arm in arm with the vice presidential nominee. 31 Senator Truman, in his speech, praised Wallace as “the greatest secretary of  agriculture this country ever had,” but Wallace pointedly avoided any complimentary words about the man who defeated him at Chicago. His press assistants passed out to the newsmen present a slip stating that Wallace would add to his speech the sentence, “The record of  Truman shows that he is a genuine internationalist and a consistent supporter of  l iberal domestic policies,” but Wallace never did say those words. Still, Truman was warmly applauded by the big crowd, estimated at 20,000, although Wallace received a much wilder ovation when he was introduced. The two men both took the usual shots at Tom Dewey, John Bricker, the Republican isolationists, and their pre-war record. 32

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With the lowering of  the lights at Madison Square Garden, as the nation headed into a November that would bring the long election year to a close, the pollsters were handing out definitely mixed messages. Gallup was saying Dewey should probably win, Elmo Roper seemed to be predicting Roosevelt, and most of  the experts were naming key states still up for grabs as being the deciding factors. Richard L. Strout in the Christian Science Monitor noted that most political correspondents felt that Roosevelt would be the winner, “but there are enough imponderables to make the result uncertain eight days before the election.” There were so many “doubtful” states, the geographical distribution of  t he popular vote so uneven, and the question marks so great, he said, “that the apparent Roosevelt advantage may be dissipated.”33 Not always noticed was the fact that gamblers, professional betting brokers, from mid-October on were saying that the Democratic candidate would win re-election. These were the fellows with cash on the line, and their feelings had to mean something. One indicator that the gamblers’ odds had to be taken into account came when the Chicago Tribune, archenemy of  Franklin Roosevelt, devoted a full-column editorial on October 22 to the thesis that sometimes the gamblers were wrong. 34

26

Bricker’s Campaign

While most of  the attention of  the media and the people around the country was fixed upon Franklin D. Roosevelt and Thomas E. Dewey, their travels, what they had to say, and what they said about each other, there was in fact a much broader campaign in process. Along with the wide-scale radio advertising described earlier, both parties sponsored many political meetings and rallies from coast to coast, frequently with imported orators to stir up the locals. Cabinet members like Ickes, Claude Wickard, Francis Biddle, and even Jesse Jones did their part for FDR, and late in the campaign an ailing Cordell Hull issued a statement calling for his chief’s re-election. Jimmy Byrnes was out of  the country and strangely silent through most of  the campaign, but toward the end he made a speech for the RooseveltTruman ticket. Even James M. Cox, the party’s nominee twenty-four years earlier, did his part, calling upon those who heard him to re-elect his old running mate. Former President Herbert Hoover made a couple of  talks for his party, as did Senator Robert Taft. Taft, however, had to confine most of  his effort to his home state of  Ohio, where he faced a tough fight to get himself  re-elected. Republican governors did their best to help the ticket, in their own states and sometimes in others. The major burden of  campaigning, however, fell as expected upon the two men whom their party conventions had chosen as backups, the 293

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vice presidential candidates, John W. Bricker and Harry S. Truman. Bricker in particular made a heroic effort for his ticket, covering more than sixteen thousand miles in nine weeks of  campaigning and speechmaking through September and October and on into November. The Ohio governor frequently gave five or six speeches a day, day after day, trying to get out the Republican message, mainly about the failures of  the New Deal and the Democratic capitulation to Sidney Hillman and Earl Browder. If  Tom Dewey had to be a mite restrained in dwelling on the issue of  Communists and their connection to Roosevelt, John Bricker considered himself  under no such restraints. He pounded away day after day on this theme, as Time magazine said, “preaching the straight Republican gospel morning, noon & night.”1 Bricker hit the road for the Republican ticket not long after the governors’ conference, and he was tireless thereafter. In the Midwest early in September, he began a five-state Eastern tour on September 19, starting with talks in Pennsylvania and moving on to Maryland, Maine, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. In Boston on September 23, Bricker warned that “the New Deal had taken over the Democratic party and destroyed its principles and foundations” and now the “communistic forces have taken over the New Deal” in order to “destroy the very foundations of  f reedom and constitutional government.”2 Back in Columbus after that foray into New England and a September 24 speech in Cleveland, Bricker was happy with a “response and enthusiasm” far better than he had anticipated. Turning seer, he said, “I am confident New England will be in the Republican column. I am sure of  Pennsylvania.”3 Bricker left on October 2 on a four-week Western tour, with more than twenty-eight speeches in the first six days. Some were rear-platform talks, others were “off-train speeches,” and some were more formal evening addresses. He even got to attend the opening game of  the World Series in St. Louis on October 4. He enjoyed the ball game, watching the underdog Browns knock off  their city rivals the Cardinals in Game One, and that night charged that Hillman and Browder were “seeking to tie the noose of  communism . . . around the whole American people.” In Rock Island the next night he asserted that the National Labor Relations Board was “a national

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disgrace.” And in Milwaukee on the 6th, Bricker attacked “government by secrecy” and said no one knew how deeply Roosevelt “has involved us in secret agreements secretly negotiated.” 4 Bricker took Sunday the 8th off, but the next day resumed his tour into Montana, Washington, Oregon, and California. On October 10, incidentally, way back in the East, Senator Albert W. Hawkes of  New Jersey spoke glowingly in a radio talk of  Bricker’s qualifications to succeed to the presidency should something happen to Dewey. There were those, of  course, who thought that it had been safe to put Bricker on the ticket only because Dewey was so young, at 42. Others conjured up a mental picture of  the Ohio governor and thought, “Well, he certainly looks like a president.” In Sacramento Bricker was joined by Governor Earl Warren and his wife (Warren no doubt noting with relief  t hat he had narrowly escaped Bricker’s situation), where he attacked the politics of  rationing, and then he was on to San Francisco for a speech charging that FDR had packed the federal judiciary. On October 17, Governor Bricker spoke in San Diego, and his speech the next night was in the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, after an afternoon talk in Long Beach. The L.A. speech, closing his California campaign, was primarily an attack on his opponent, Harry Truman, and a description of  t he opposition party as “the Roosevelt-Hopkins-Tugwell-Hillman-Browder-Hague-KellyPendergast coalition.”5 Then it was on to Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado, with an evening speech on October 23 in Denver, where he disagreed with the President’s suggestion that the American representative on the Security Council not have to come back to Congress every time he acted. “I am in favor of  living within the Constitution,” Bricker said, “and carrying on negotiations within constitutional power.”6 The Republican candidate spoke at Pueblo, Colorado, on October 24; in Dallas the next day, Bricker told his Texas audience that Franklin Roosevelt was a front for “the Hillman-Browder Communist party.” On the 26th, he covered Oklahoma, with five speeches; the next day, he was in Wichita, Kansas, before going on to Kansas City.7 Saturday, October 28 was a particularly strenuous day for Governor Bricker, as he toured Harry Truman’s home state. In his evening talk in

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Springfield, Bricker warned of  federal control of  education, stating that “the social theories of  a Sidney Hillman, an Earl Browder, a Rex Tugwell should not be foisted upon our public school system.” It is interesting to note the sudden appearance of  Rexford Tugwell’s name in Bricker’s speeches, since Tugwell had left the administration seven years earlier and was then serving as governor of  Puerto Rico; the suspicion is that Bricker or his speechwriters thought Tugwell’s name had a suitably leftwingish sound to it.8 Bricker spent Sunday the 29th resting in his special train in a siding in the Chicago railroad yard, planning the remainder of  his campaign. On the following day, after touring Michigan, he spoke in Detroit. His speech there featured his charge that Communists were taking over the New Deal and his analysis of  what he called “the actual working relationship between PAC and the Communists on one hand and the Federal Government on the other.” As “evidence,” he said Hillman “was born in Lithuania, then a part of  Russia, and had conversed at least three times with Lenin at the Kremlin,” interesting because Hillman had left Lithuania in 1906. Bricker said “the man behind Franklin Roosevelt is Sidney Hillman” and “the man behind Sidney Hillman is Earl Browder.”9 Back in Columbus, Bricker declared expansively that the Farm Belt states would go Republican—“and Missouri is in that belt; there’s no doubt about Missouri”—and he claimed with satisfaction that five hundred thousand persons had attended his talks during his recently completed tour, and he was all set to hit the road again.10 On November 1, the governor spoke six times in his own state, and the next day Bricker was off  again, to New Jersey, New York, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. Bricker’s broadcast speech in Philadelphia on the 3rd was preceded by an old-fashioned torchlight parade, following which the candidate asserted that the country was enjoying only “a foxhole prosperity,” which had to be replaced by “the incentive schedule to produce” that Thomas Dewey would give the country. Dewey, he added, “deplores one-man government,” while Roosevelt “wants to go it alone.”11 Winding up his marathon campaign for the vice presidency, Bricker headed back to Ohio on November 4th, speaking at Youngstown, Niles, and Akron, before concluding with an address over a statewide radio network from Cleveland. His campaign had covered thirty-one states

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with 173 speeches. He followed it up on election eve, November 6, with number 174, a radio address to Ohioans from his office in Columbus, concluding that “not only has the New Deal depleted our resources, recklessly spent our money, but it has undermined the very spiritual foundations of  our government.”12

27

The Man from Missouri

Harry Truman knew from the start that his would be the main job of speaking for the Democratic ticket, and he handled the task with competence. His emphasis was always on the record of Franklin Roosevelt, the successful course of the war, and the necessity of experienced hands to put in place the peace to follow. He taunted Thomas Dewey on the Republican isolationists who were still powerful figures in the challenger’s party, although late in the campaign this message inadvertently involved Truman in intra-party unpleasantness. On the whole, Harry Truman did his job well, considering that Franklin Roosevelt’s involvement in the struggle was relatively minimal until close to the end. Truman, after being formally notified of his nomination at the ceremony in his native town of Lamar on August 31, went to Michigan on Labor Day, September 4, for a union picnic in Pontiac, a parade down Woodward Avenue in Detroit, a CIO rally of fifteen thousand in Cadillac Square, and a banquet given in his honor by the Detroit and Wayne County Federation of Labor. He reminded his listeners about “the greatest friend labor ever had—Franklin D. Roosevelt” and he told them: “Remember that and re-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt President of the United States.”1 It looked to political observers as the campaign got under way that Harry S. Truman of Missouri—who he was, what he could do, how his antecedents affected his performance—might become a major factor in the race. One writer said: 298

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Now comes a campaign where the hind half of a ticket is a storm center, exciting almost as much debate as the standard bearer himself. Not John W. Bricker— there’s no question about him—but Harry S. Truman. Is he fugelman or robot? Paladin or peewee? With these questions on every tongue, the competence of Mr. Roosevelt’s current running mate is the nearest thing the country has to a burning issue. 2

Some Democratic leaders advocated a lie-low strategy for Truman, fearing that an active campaign would make his Pendergast-machine background and his nomination for vice president by the big-city bosses a major issue, to the detriment of President Roosevelt. For a while it looked as if that was the strategy being adopted, until Truman’s October schedule was disclosed. “The consequences” of the decision to put Truman out front full-time, Arthur Krock wrote, “should be interesting, and they may be influential on the November choice of the nation.”3 In the meantime, though, the Democratic National Committee distributed a biographical sketch headed “Man From Missouri” to editors across the country. On pages 9–10 of this tract was a quote from Maurice Milligan, the U.S. Attorney who had prosecuted Tom Pendergast (and whose reappointment Truman had voted against): In the long series of investigations conducted by my office involving vote frauds and other matters of corruption in Kansas City, the finger of suspicion was never at any time pointed in the direction of Senator Harry S. Truman.4

For September, Truman’s schedule was far lighter than John Bricker’s. He did give a couple of speeches in Kansas City the 26th and 27th of September, but on the whole he was pretty much removed from the public eye until early in October. The Chicago Tribune even ran an editorial on September 25 complaining about “The Silent Candidacy of Mr. Truman.” It said that, while “ordinarily, the efforts of a Vice Presidential candidate are part of a campaign to oblivion,” Senator Truman stood a much better chance of becoming President before 1948 than did Bricker, given the state of Franklin Roosevelt’s health. So—Truman “ought to tell the people more about himself, and explain, if he can, how his connections with the crooked Pendergast political machine and corrupt Kansas City municipal gang fit him for the Presidency.” Roosevelt we know, said the Tribune; “Sen. Truman, however, is a newcomer. We ought to know more about him, and the best way to learn is from his own lips.”5

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The senator’s talk in Kansas City on September 26, to an A FL group, drew some attention when he said, “I’m a Jackson County organization Democrat and proud of it. That is the way I got to be a county judge, a senator, and the candidate for Vice President.” He added, “A statesman is only a dead politician. I never want to be a statesman.”6 Truman gave a radio speech from Washington over the Blue Network on October 2, and held a press conference about his plans on October 4. He said, “The trouble with me is that I’m not photogenic and I’m a hell of a public speaker.” Allen Drury wrote that Truman’s “comments on Dewey were colorful and unprintable and amiably good-natured.” The press session, Drury said, produced little news “but sent us away thinking what a nice fellow he is.” 7 Truman left the capital then and started his extensive campaigning in St. Louis on October 5. Truman and his staff—and George Allen for the DNC—traveled in one Pullman car, equipped with a loudspeaker system, some typewriters, and a recording device. The press rode in a second Pullman, both cars attached to regularly scheduled trains. Truman frequently walked back to the press car to play poker with the boys. 8 Senator Truman did Governor Bricker one better by attending two World Series games at Sportsman’s Park while speaking in St. Louis, then leaving for the annual American Legion fair in Caruthersville, Missouri, which he attended every year. Truman next headed to New Orleans, to make a non-political speech on flood control before the Mississippi Valley Association on October 12. He met with the press on the 11th and expressed his confidence that the Solid South would stay with the Democratic Party. “I can’t imagine Southerners supporting a man like Dewey,” he told them.9 Truman’s itinerary took him westward through Texas to Los Angeles, where he held a press conference and pronounced himself encouraged “about Democratic prospects for victory.” He said that the President was physically “able to take care of himself.” When asked about the charge that decisions at the Democratic convention had to be “cleared” with Sidney Hillman, Truman snorted and replied, “Never heard of it, and I was at Chicago. That’s no reflection on Sidney. He’s got religion since Dewey ran for Governor. You know he used to support Dewey.”10

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On October 16, Truman spoke to an overflow crowd at the Shrine Auditorium in LA, calling Dewey “a fence straddler . . . currying the support of the Hearsts and McCormicks.” Dewey, he said, “like Hearst and McCormick . . . lumps all liberals in with the Communists.” “Let’s have an end to shilly-shallying,” Truman cried. “Has the Republican candidate still got one foreign policy for Wisconsin and another one for New York?”11 While in Los Angeles, Truman gave his blessing to congressional candidate Hal Styles, a local radio personality, who, with the support of the CIO-PAC, had knocked off incumbent John M. Costello in the Demo­ cratic primary. Costello was a union-hater and a prominent member of Martin Dies’s House Un-American Activities Committee, so Styles’s victory brought much pleasure to liberals. This pleasure faded rapidly when it developed that Styles had been a Kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan in Queens County, New York, back in the twenties. When Truman “amiably endorsed the entire California Democratic ticket,” as Time put it, the reporters immediately jumped on him about Styles. Truman said simply that he was for anybody who was for Roosevelt, and that was that. The offhand remark was a mistake by the vice presidential candidate, but California Democratic officials were to blame for not alerting Truman to the situation ahead of time. Truman and the Democratic committee soon found out that they would be hearing about Hal Styles right up to the election.12 The next day, Senator Truman addressed the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, repeating what he had said about Dewey taking sentences out of context and garbling other reports to make political points. He said, “Mr. Dewey has called the President a defeatist, which is strange indeed in view of the magnificent record. Only a few of us ever dreamed that it could be possible to accomplish what we have accomplished, and Mr. Dewey was not one of them.” He then recalled FDR’s 1940 program for fifty thousand airplanes in a year, which Dewey “publicly scoffed at and ridiculed the President’s efforts as fantastic.” Now, he said, we are producing a hundred thousand airplanes a year.13 Truman left San Francisco that evening and set out on a tour through Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana, where he pledged that the Democratic administration would extend rural electrification after the war.

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On October 23, Senator Truman was in Minnesota, speaking at noon on foreign policy in Minneapolis and giving a brief dinner speech in St. Paul. He challenged Dewey to back up his “strong foreign policy” claims by demanding the defeat of eight Republican “isolationist” senators running for re-election; otherwise “the people must assume he is another Harding.” The eight senators Truman identified as Taft of Ohio, Wiley of Wisconsin, Gerald Nye of North Dakota, Charles Tobey of New Hampshire, John Danaher of Connecticut, James Davis of Pennsylvania, Clyde Reed of Kansas, and Eugene D. Millikin of Colorado.14 When he read the statement of Senator Ball (a member of the Truman Committee) supporting the President, Truman told the press, “I am very happy over Senator Ball’s conclusion. He’s a good man. I think he always was a Democrat and didn’t know it.” The last sentence was not necessarily something Ball wanted to hear. That same day Herbert Brownell in New York issued a tough statement, denouncing “the New Deal’s dependence on the support of Communists, corrupt bosses, and even elements as un-American as the Ku Klux Klan,” based upon Truman’s offhanded endorsement of Hal Styles. Brownell called it “the revolting spectacle of Mr. Truman—the man who could be President—under New Deal–Communist sponsorship—embracing figuratively a former member of the Ku Klux Klan.”15 October 24 saw Harry Truman going through Wisconsin, with stops and informal talks in Madison, Oconomowoc, and Milwaukee. He arrived late that night in Chicago and spent the next twenty-four hours resting in his room at the Stevens Hotel and working on his farm speech, scheduled for the next night in Peoria. While in Chicago, he issued a statement that Dewey was “hiding under the bed” having “neither the courage nor the honesty” to reply to his [Truman’s] suggestion that he repudiate the eight GOP senators. In Milwaukee that day Dewey declined to comment on Truman’s challenge but said, “I’m in favor of Senator Wiley’s election, of course,” and added that he favored the election “of all candidates on the Republican ticket who are men of good will and believe in the principles of the party and its platform.”16 At a press conference while Truman was in Peoria, Illinois, a reporter for the Chicago Herald-American (the Hearst paper in the Windy

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City) said to him, “There is a story going the rounds that you were a member of the Ku Klux Klan.” “Of course I’m not a member of the Klan,” Truman replied. “I never was. That lie was nailed back in 1922 when I was elected judge of the county court. . . . What’s the use of denying lies cooked up by Hearst and McCormick. It’s just another red herring.” He added that in September 1921, at a meeting of the Grand Lodge of Masons in St. Louis, he had worked for passage of a resolution to expel any lodge member who joined the Klan.17 It turned out that when Truman first entered politics he had given ten dollars to a Klan organizer, but the organizer gave him his ten dollars back when Truman refused to promise that he would, if elected to the Jackson County court, never hire a Catholic. It was obviously a mistake but quickly rectified. That was all there was to the story, but Hearst’s people had apparently been able to obtain affidavits from a few Truman enemies back in Jackson County.18 The Klan allegations hung around, although few took them very seriously, to the end of the campaign. Movie actress Gloria Swanson, in an October 30 radio broadcast to women, sponsored by the R NC, spoke about “Mr. Truman’s membership in the Ku Klux Klan.” Black leaders, however, had no doubts about Truman, who sent a wire to Walter White of the NA ACP: “I supported FEPC, I voted for cloture on the antilynching bill. I voted for cloture on the anti-poll tax bill.” And in Harlem, Adam Clayton Powell’s newspaper editorialized, “Senator Truman is a friend of the Negro people . . . he has been right on every major issue of especial concern to Negro citizens . . . a true progressive.”19 Truman, noting all of this, the stories about the Pendergast corruption, the Ku Klux Klan, and the rest of it, wrote to a friend, saying, “I have long since become immune to mudslinging and find the best tactics are to ignore it.”20 Senator Truman arrived in Massachusetts on October 28 and spoke in Fall River and Worcester, again attacking Governor Dewey for his support of Republican isolationists, “fence straddling” and being “all things to all men.” On the 29th, Truman was greeted in Lawrence by his colleague, Senator David I. Walsh, a crusty old Democratic solon, who ended his long silence on the election by stating that he supported the national and state tickets. Walsh, a firm isolationist, was very popular in

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the Bay State, having run 110,000 votes ahead of FDR in 1940. The next day, in Rhode Island, Truman put his foot in his mouth by agreeing with a questioner that there was no difference on foreign policy issues between the eight Republican senators he had been assailing and Senator Walsh, “except that Senator Walsh has two more years to serve and we have a chance to reform him.” He added, “From the cordiality of Walsh’s reception yesterday, I think we’ve got a good chance.” Harry Truman would find that cordiality disappearing in an instant, the instant Walsh read his statement.21 Walsh was incensed, saying, “I have no apologies to make to Senator Truman or to anyone else for my action in seeking, pleading, and urging that Americans be kept out of the war—up to the day of Pearl Harbor—and that America be kept free from sacrifices and the loss of life that came eventually.” Truman’s position, he said, was an invitation for anyone who worked to keep the country out of the war “to walk out of the Democratic party.” Truman, asked for comment on Walsh’s diatribe, said he would wait for Walsh’s scheduled speech on Thursday the 26th; “that should clear up everything.” What Truman did not know was that Walsh had cancelled his speech and declined to do any campaigning for the Democratic ticket. “Senator Walsh’s umbrage,” one observer wrote, “may have an important bearing on the outcome in the state.” This mess would greet the President when he arrived in Massachusetts on November 4.22 Truman, however, had moved on, leaving the Walsh imbroglio behind for others to clean up. After his big night with Wallace in Madison Square Garden on Halloween, the Missouri senator appeared the next day in Parkersburg, West Virginia, defending the work of his committee from what he said was misuse by that “political faker,” Thomas E. Dewey. “Mr. Dewey,” Truman said, “has tried to blacken and misrepresent the President by citing the Truman Committee’s reports. He has quoted only such phrases or sentences which suited his purpose.” He went on: I had hoped that the record would speak for itself and would not be drawn into politics. Consequently, I was amazed when the Republican candidate and the corps of so-called experts with which he surrounds himself delved into the thousands of pages of testimony before the Truman Committee and the thousands

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of pages of its reports and picked out here and there the words of criticism and flung them at the President as proof of his failure as our war leader. We did make a number of criticisms. But those criticisms were constructive. They got results, and the President of the United States at all times supported our recommendations.

He said, “We on the Truman Committee . . . are proud of the corrections that we forced. The savings in lives, and in the cost of the war, were very great and constitute a memorial of which all of us on that committee, Democrats and Republicans alike, are proud.”23 On Thursday, November 2, Truman toured western Pennsylvania, and on Saturday the 4th, he met a welcoming home crowd in Independence, appealing to his townsmen to make sure that Franklin Roosevelt was at the peace table for the United States. As his campaigning ended, the Democratic vice presidential candidate could look back and count up fifty-four speeches, with about twelve major addresses, not as many as Bricker had delivered, obviously, but still evidence of a more than respectable campaign. When George Allen, who had toured with Truman, left the senator in Pittsburgh to return to Washington, he was summoned by Harry Hopkins to meet with him and the President—“just the three of us . . . to hash over Truman’s trip.” They quizzed Allen closely on Truman’s performance, audience reaction, and the general political outlook in the states he had covered. “Finally,” Allen said, “I told them Truman was the kind of man who appealed to me, who would appeal to them, and who would appeal to the American people.” He wore well, Allen said. “The better one knew him, the better one liked him.”24 A survey of Missouri by the New York Times, however, published the Sunday before the election, put that assessment in dispute. “The presence of Senator Harry Truman on the Democratic ticket as vice presidential candidate,” wrote the paper, “has worked to the detriment rather than the help of the party in Missouri, particularly in Kansas City. It is only five years since that city was removed from the hold of Tom Pendergast.” Of course, it was only four years since Harry Truman, with Pendergast in jail, was re-elected to the United States Senate. Political sages across the country watched with great interest what the Show-Me state would do, particularly with its junior senator on the Democratic ticket.25

28

The Last Days

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s plans for the last few days of  the 1944 election campaign were fairly clear. He was to make a radio broadcast from the White House on Thursday, November 2, and he had a trip to New England lined up, with a speech in Boston on Saturday night the 4th. Party leaders hoped for a quick trip to Cleveland, to help bring in Ohio’s twenty-five electoral votes, but Steve Early told the press that there were no plans for such a journey. Just before the election FDR would, as usual, drive around his own neighborhood, with talks in Kingston, Beacon, Wappingers Falls, Poughkeepsie, and Newburgh. Thomas E. Dewey was scheduled to be in Boston on November 1 and in Madison Square Garden, New York, on Saturday night, November 4. He had a radio speech on tap for Election Eve, November 6. Then he added a trip into Maryland and Pennsylvania, with talks at Baltimore, Wilkes-Barre, and Scranton. Massachusetts looked hopeful, so Governor Dewey was off  on November 1, for his junket to the Bay State, hoping to take advantage of  the Truman-Walsh fiasco, with the very popular Governor Leverett Saltonstall (candidate for the U.S. Senate) traveling with him. Dewey addressed a crowd of  about twenty-five hundred people in the morning at Pittsfield, and ten thousand more greeted the Republican candidate in Springfield. In Worcester Dewey was joined by House Republican leader Joe Martin as well as a crowd of  seven thousand that filled the square in front of  the train station. Dewey spoke for twenty minutes, telling his listeners that 306

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a Republican victory the next Tuesday would “forever remove the threat of  monarchy in the United States.” Crowds estimated between 250,000 and 400,000 lined the streets of  Boston when Dewey arrived there. He made his way to the Boston Garden where an enthusiastic audience of  24,000 awaited him. In the warm-ups, Horace T. Cahill, the Republican candidate for governor, got a big cheer when he referred to the Truman-Walsh problem: “If  they can’t work together for twenty-four hours of  the campaign, how can they work together for four years?” Dewey devoted most of  h is speech to the menace of  communism, with its increase if  Roosevelt were to be re-elected and its disappearance under a Republican administration. He had been told that the Communist issue was a big vote-getter in Massachusetts, so he went after it with gusto. Dewey said that Roosevelt had placed control of  t he Democratic Party on the auction block in order “to perpetuate himself  i n office for sixteen years” and that Browder and Hillman were the “highest bidders.” “Sidney Hillman has become the biggest political boss in the United States,” Dewey intoned, and “Sidney Hillman is a front for the Communists.” With Hillman’s help, Dewey said, “the Communists are seizing control of  t he New Deal, through which they aim to control the government of  t he United States.” Each mention of  H illman, Browder, or communism produced vociferous boos from the audience.1 That same night, Harold Ickes spoke to several hundred listeners at the Golden Gate Ballroom in Harlem, reminding them of  “the progress America has made during the past twelve years, in terms of  our progressive recognition of  the dignity and rights of  A merican Negroes.” The next evening, the Interior Secretary was at an “Everybody for Roosevelt” rally at Madison Square Garden, saying Dewey was finishing his campaign “with the only kind of  weapons that he possesses—hate, vilification, prejudice, misrepresentation, distortions, and lies.”2 The novelist Sinclair Lewis gave a five-minute radio address on the evening of  November 1, over the CBS network, saying this: Do you know what would be the most fantastic and shocking news that could come to the United States right now? It would be that Winston Churchill had been replaced as Prime Minister of  Great Britain, and replaced by a bright

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F DR , De w e y, a n d t h e E l ect ion of 194 4 young politician with no great experience in high office, but with lots of  d riving personal ambition and lots of  f riends who were hungry for jobs. If, before world peace negotiations, this improbable thing could happen, then we would say, and Russia and China and France would say, that Great Britain had let us down as our ally. And we would be right. And that is what our allies would say if  Franklin D. Roosevelt were to be replaced now by that very eloquent young gentleman, Mr. Tommy Dewey. . . . We want to be represented in the Peace Conference by a man who looks like a President and talks like a President and thinks like a President, and not by a bright young junior partner. 3

Franklin Roosevelt, meanwhile, was not idle. Doing what he could to mend the rift in Massachusetts, he had phoned Senator Walsh at his home and invited him to board the presidential train on Saturday the 4th and ride into Boston with him. Walsh had accepted the train ride, at least, so, as FDR’s secretary Bill Hassett put it, “the mischief  is mended to that extent.” What more Walsh might do was still not known.4 That night, November 2, the President spoke from the White House as the featured part of  a half-hour radio program sponsored by the Democratic National Committee. He said he was sorry he had not been able to visit in person Cleveland, Detroit, and upstate New York, but “first things first; and this war comes first.” He assailed the Republican threat “to build a party spite-fence between us and the peace” by withholding congressional support from a Democratic administration. This election, he said, will be settled on the basis of  the record, and “the record that we have established in this war is one of  which every American has a right to be proud of, today and for all time.”5 Tom Dewey was busy on November 2, giving five talks in twelve hours in Pennsylvania after starting with a mid-day speech in Baltimore. He had left Boston by train at 2:30 a.m. and arrived in the Maryland metropolis just before noon. Republicans had high hopes for Maryland, particularly since Baltimore, a year earlier, had elected a Republican mayor, Theodore R. McKeldin. Dewey toured the business district and was seen by a crowd that may have reached two hundred thousand. He wound up at the Lyric Theatre before a crowd of  about thirty-five hundred, where he renewed his attacks upon the One Thousand Club and appealed to disgruntled Democrats “to recapture their party” from the political action committee and the Communists.

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Going north into Pennsylvania, Dewey made rear-platform addresses at York, Harrisburg, and Sunbury. In Wilkes-Barre, Dewey pledged again to cut income taxes. He reiterated that the Communists were “guiding the whole course of  the fourth term campaign.” The Republicans in Pennsylvania were counting heavily upon the efforts of  John L. Lewis to produce a heavy Dewey vote among his miners and their families. Lewis in 1944 had eschewed the flamboyant radio speeches and inflammatory statements of  past campaigns and concentrated on hard sells in the union halls, at the pits, and in the miners’ homes, as well as consistent editorial attacks upon Roosevelt and the New Deal in the union newspapers. Dewey’s tour through the state’s hard-coal region, it was hoped, would bolster the UM W efforts and bring in the vote of  Pennsylvania (and West Virginia, the other big coal-mining state). Pennsylvania was still regarded as a toss-up state, with a strong possibility that the results on Election Day would be so close that the nation would have to wait until about 225,000 service ballots were counted on November 22 to know whether Dewey or Roosevelt had won—an excruciating delay if  t he thirty-five electoral votes of  t he Keystone State were to decide the election. The Republicans hoped to pile up a large enough margin outside of  Philadelphia and Pittsburgh to offset the two big cities, which helped to account for one more Dewey tour through the state. Immediately after the Wilkes-Barre talk, Dewey and his party moved on to Scranton by automobile. Directly from his speech there, Dewey and his party took the train back to Albany, for a 9:30 a.m. arrival, having been assured by Governor Martin that there was no doubt Pennsylvania was in the Republican column. It was the end of  a twenty-thousand-mile campaign, mostly run according to plan, with few deviations, and with some twenty-three major speeches.6 The New York governor brushed aside suggestions for more lastminute appearances (in Connecticut or North Jersey) and spent November 3 preparing for his big windup, the major closing effort of  the campaign, his speech to a huge rally in Madison Square Garden on Saturday night, November 4. New York, of  course, was crucial, and Dewey and Herb Brownell were heartened by the final New York Daily News poll,

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which showed Dewey with 50.8 percent in the state, to Roosevelt’s 49.2. While the paper acknowledged that this was a “virtual tie, from a statistical standpoint,” the Republican leaders knew that they didn’t need a huge majority, just one more vote than the Democrats got.7 President Roosevelt held a news conference on November 3 and also issued a statement urging employers to be sure to give their workers sufficient time off  to vote on Tuesday. At his press conference, he described how his day in New England would go on Saturday (with Senator Walsh joining him on his train at Worcester for the ride into Boston), declined to give his personal views on how the campaign was going, and passed over as “last-minute sensations” theories about the recall of  General Stilwell from China and a rumor that Henry Wallace would succeed Cordell Hull as secretary of  state. Some time after the President’s press conference, Steve Early called reporters into his office to clarify the position of  Senator Carter Glass, the 86-year-old Virginia senator who had opposed Roosevelt and nominated Jim Farley in the 1940 convention. Jimmy Byrnes had mentioned that, after his pro-FDR speech on October 30, Glass had phoned him to say that he agreed with what Byrnes had said and was supporting Roosevelt. A couple of  days later, the senator’s son said he doubted that his father had endorsed the fourth term. Now Early told the newsmen that he had just had a phone call from Senator Glass, who told him that Byrnes’s account was accurate, that he was voting for the President, “and to give the President his love.”8 An Associated Press report out of  St. Louis on November 4 said that national odds announced by Betting Commissioner James J. Carroll showed Dewey gaining in five key states—New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Missouri and Michigan—while Illinois slipped in the odds from a Dewey state to even money. What it all meant, apparently, was that the money boys were hedging their bets, liter­a lly.9 The next morning the Roosevelt train rolled into Bridgeport, Connecticut, in a pea-soup fog, with several thousand persons waiting to hear from the Chief  E xecutive. FDR, pointing out that from his place on the Hudson he could look east into Connecticut, said his was “just a visit from one neighbor to a lot of  other neighbors.” He praised Bridgeport for its history of  manufacturing munitions for war and said he hoped never

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again would the city be called upon for that purpose. In this campaign, he said, “I can’t talk about my opponent the way I would like to sometimes, because I try to think that I am a Christian.” But he said, “after next Tuesday there are going to be a lot of  sorry people in the United States.” One of  them, he hoped, though he did not speak her name, was the local congresswoman, Clare Boothe Luce; he turned to Mrs. Luce’s opponent, Margaret Connors, and hoped that she would be in Washington in January, to call at the White House. The President was resoundingly cheered as his train pulled out of  Bridgeport and headed toward Hartford, with crowds standing and waving at every town, hamlet, and crossroads along the way. In Hartford, the insurance capital of  the nation, he noted the great and prospering insurance companies there, and recalled that the Republicans in 1932, 1936, and 1940 had claimed that his triumph would cause the ruin of  the insurance industry—and those insured. He noted, with jocularity and satisfaction, that Hartford had not yet become a city of  empty office buildings and houses. In Springfield, in Massachusetts for the first time in the campaign, Roosevelt spoke to an enthusiastic crowd of  a lmost 50,000. He answered those who had accused him of  v iolating his pledge of  1940—given “again and again and again”—not to send American troops to fight in foreign wars. He said that the United States had built up its defenses and set up a system of  Selective Service. “We had the strong resolve—which I expressed many times four years ago,” he reiterated, “that we meant this for defense and not offense—and that we would not send our boys to fight abroad unless we were attacked.” When we suffered a “treacherous, deadly attack . . . we fought when we were attacked—obviously, rightly.” And this time, he said, “we are going to remain prepared” and “we are not going to scuttle our strength.” In Worcester, Senator Walsh joined the President’s train and rode with him into Boston. He left the train in Boston, however, telling reporters that he “had a very cordial and very pleasant” talk with Roosevelt but would not be at the rally that evening. He said he was having dinner with an old friend in Boston. Walsh returned after dinner to his home in Clinton, leaving Democratic leaders in Boston worried over the effect of  the senator’s coolness upon the party’s ticket.

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Even without Senator Walsh, however, the forty-five thousand who jammed the home of  the Red Sox, Fenway Park, roared and shouted “We want Roosevelt!” as the President’s car was driven up onto its platform and he moved into his talk. “Never before in my lifetime,” FDR said, “has a campaign been filled with such misrepresentation, distortion, and falsehood. Never since 1928 have there been so many attempts to stimulate in America racial or religious intolerance.” “Speaking here in Boston,” Roosevelt said, “a Republican candidate [who did not need to be named] said—and pardon me if  I quote him correctly—that happens to be an old habit of  m ine—he said that, quote, ‘the Communists are seizing control of  t he New Deal, through which they aim to control the government of  t he United States.’ Un-­ quote. “However, on that very same day, that very same candidate had spoken in Worcester, and he said that with Republican victory in November, quote, ‘we can end one-man government, and we can forever remove the threat of  monarchy in the United States.’ “Now, really,” Roosevelt said, as his audience began to roar with laughter, “which is it—communism or monarchy? I do not think that we could have both in this country, even if  we wanted either, which we do not.” He said, “The American people are quite competent to judge a political party that works both sides of  the street—a party that has one candidate making campaign promises of  a ll kinds of  added government expenditures in the West, while a running mate of  his demands less government expenditures in the East.” The President’s audience loved it, as he called on fifty million American voters to go to the polls. “We could not find a better way to tell our boys overseas that the country they are fighting for is still going strong.”10 All that provoked a sour editorial in the Chicago Tribune, noting that in his 1940 Boston speech Mr. Roosevelt did not add “except in case of  attack,” leaving the reader to wonder if  Colonel McCormick was unhappy that we went to war after Pearl Harbor. The editorial concluded, “President Roosevelt deceived the American people in his third term campaign just as he is doing in the present campaign. His utterances in

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Boston Saturday night were a confession that he finds it hard to live with his lie.” The Democrats, it hardly needs to be said, were very happy with his Boston speech.11 Later that evening, Tom Dewey had his big rally in Madison Square Garden. He arrived in the city at around 6 p.m. and prepared for his speech. At the Garden, the doors were opened at 4:25 p.m. and closed at 6:30, with the seats all filled. For those left outside, amplifiers were erected to hear the proceedings from inside, and traffic was shut off  on Forty-ninth Street, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues. Inside, with Brownell presiding, there were talks by film stars Eddie Bracken, Gloria Swanson, and Adolph Menjou, as well as by the great Yankee slugger Babe Ruth and local GOP notables. Dewey’s appearance provoked “a volcanic outburst in the flag-waving thousands,” according to one colorful report. The governor waited several minutes for the crowd to quiet before starting his speech. The major thrust of  the Dewey speech was an indictment of  Roosevelt’s errors and “his own confused incompetence” which had needlessly prolonged the war in Europe. He singled out the Morgenthau Plan, “so clumsy that Mr. Roosevelt finally dropped it,” as the major cause for that prolongation. Dewey sounded the usual themes about Hillman and Browder capturing the Democratic Party, the “quarreling and vacillation” which had marked the New Deal for twelve years, the President’s incessant quarreling with Congress, and the One Thousand Club. “Never in our history has corruption been so brazen,” he lamented. “Never before has a President admitted sponsorship of  such a scheme.” It was “time for a change.” The Republican crowd loved it.12 Governor Dewey was cheered again when he left the Garden and walked to his car. He spent the night at the Hotel Roosevelt before entraining for Albany the next morning. And so the 1944 campaign ground to a stop. There were still a few more things to take place—Roosevelt’s Monday tour of  t he towns along the Hudson north of  New York City and both candidates’ election eve radio broadcasts—summations of  t heir campaigns and urging of  t he voters to come out the next day to cast their ballots. But the major work of  t he candidates was done. Now it would be up to the

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party workers, the poll watchers, the committeepersons, to get out the vote. As Election Day came, the party chairmen had their say. Bob Han­ negan confidently predicted the re-election of  Franklin Roosevelt, while Herb Brownell said his sources told him that Dewey would win. “I have never seen a more careful canvass than we have had, with reports from county as well as state chairmen, “ Brownell told a press conference. “We have made rechecks in crucial areas, everything confirms my . . . statement that we cannot concede a single state outside the Solid South.”13 George Gallup published his final poll results, saying the last 48-state survey indicated that Roosevelt would capture 51.5 percent of  the vote, with Dewey at 48.5. What potentially skewed these numbers was the Solid South, states in which Roosevelt had anywhere from 64 to 89 percent of  those polled. This could mean that in the North and West Dewey might have a substantial favor. Gallup showed eighteen states as “definitely for Roosevelt”—the eleven states of  the old Confederacy, plus Arizona, Rhode Island, Utah, Kentucky, Washington, Montana, and Nevada. These states combined 165 electoral votes (with 266 needed to win). He showed ten states as “definitely for Dewey”—Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado, Indiana, Vermont, and Michigan, with 85 electoral votes. And the Gallup poll showed twenty states as “pivotal,” where neither candidate held a lead sufficient to call the state in his favor. These states carried 281 electoral votes. In his commentary, Dr, Gallup wrote, “If  the upward trend of  Republican party strength, revealed in state and congressional elections of  t he last year, continues, all the close states will likely fall into the Dewey column.” In addition, his pollsters found that Dewey voters showed “a much greater intensity of  feeling about this election” than Roosevelt voters and were much more certain to turn out to vote.14 The New York Times collected the opinions of  fi fty-six political reporters across the country and reported a consensus that FDR would probably win 332 electoral votes, with Dewey gaining 199. They predicted a Republican gain of  six to eight Senate seats, not enough for a majority, and a net Republican gain of  eleven in the House, giving the GOP a majority of  five in the lower chamber. These reporters considered twenty

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states as certain for Roosevelt, seventeen of  the eighteen Gallup gave him (not Montana) plus Delaware, Maryland, and New Mexico. Listed as probable for FDR were California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Wyoming. For Dewey the reporters named as certain nine of  the ten Gallup gave him (not Michigan) plus Montana, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, and Missouri. Probable for Dewey were Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Oregon.15 Elmo Roper, who did the polling for Fortune magazine, came up with a final figure of  53.6 percent for Roosevelt. He did, however, hedge on his prediction, saying just about anything could happen, from a narrow Dewey win to a landslide for Roosevelt. Newsweek predicted that FDR would win with a 294-237 edge in electoral votes. And Emil Hurja, political analyst for Pathfinder magazine, sifted through his tea leaves, analyzed his “key” counties across the land, and came up with 364 electoral votes and a two million vote plurality for Tom Dewey. Finally, political columnist John O’Donnell of  the Los Angeles Times predicted a Dewey victory, with well over 300 electoral votes in the New York governor’s column. “In the past week,” O’Donnell wrote, “Dewey has slashed deeply into the Roosevelt strength in the East—the payoff  states in this presidential battle.” O’Donnell thought that poll taking in 1944 had been handicapped by respondents deliberately lying, because of  the fears of  those respondents, fears that, he felt, prevented some from stating honestly that they were for Dewey.16 Columnist Frank Kent boiled it all down to one issue: a division “between those who want Mr. Roosevelt for four more years . . . and those who do not.” He added that 90 percent of  the people had been divided that way since FDR was nominated—and it hardly mattered whom the Republicans had run. Did that make the whole campaign unnecessary? Hardly; 10 percent of  the electorate can swing a lot of  results.17 Marquis Childs commented on the unusual bitterness and venom of  this campaign, writing that “sometimes it’s seemed that our political quarrel went deeper than the differences that we’ve aired quadrennially in the course of  these presidential contests.”18 So, as Americans prepared to go to the polls, they considered the plea not to change horses in the middle of  the stream and the cry that it

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was time for a change. They had heard all about the isolationists behind Dewey and the Communists behind Roosevelt. They had been polled and serenaded and orated at, counted and discounted. On Tuesday, November 7, they would tell the politicians what was what. And then the politicians could sit down and try to figure out why.

29

Election Day

The polls were open for seventeen hours on November 7, starting at 6 a.m. Eastern War Time and closing long afterward on the West Coast, with cloudy weather in the Eastern part of  the country and clearing skies by midmorning. Thirty-one states were selecting governors, with nineteen of  them presently Republican. Thirty-five Senate seats, twenty-two held by Democrats, were up before the electorate. And 432 House seats would be filled, the voters in Maine having already elected three Republican congressmen in September. There was a lot going on. Elsewhere, the German forces in Greece had surrendered a couple of  days earlier, Soviet troops were in East Prussia, the USS Lexington had been heavily crippled the day before by kamikaze attacks, and B29s taking off  f rom the island of  Tinian in the Marianas were inflicting substantial damage upon the Japanese home islands. Erwin Rommel had taken his own life a couple of  weeks earlier, at Hitler’s command, and the Nazis had gassed their last victims at Auschwitz before fleeing from the advancing Red Army. The war could be seen to be coming to an end, but no one could tell how long that end would take. Coach Earl Blaik’s West Point football team, cruising along to an unbeaten season behind its great backfield stars, “Mr. Inside” Felix “Doc” Blanchard and “Mr. Outside” Glenn Davis, was pointing toward its big battle with Navy (Army would win that one, 23–7, after pasting Notre Dame, 59–0). Ohio State, with Heisman Trophy winner Les Horvath, 317

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was undefeated, as were Southern California and Tennessee, who would later meet in the Rose Bowl. Governor and Mrs. Dewey went to vote after midday at a polling place on East Forty-eighth Street just off  Park Avenue in New York, and those waiting to vote, mostly well-dressed women, insisted that they be ushered to the head of  the line. A Times photographer caught Dewey coming out of  the election booth looking a bit grim-faced. The Brickers voted at a schoolhouse near the Executive Mansion in Columbus. Shortly before noon the President and his wife drove into town to vote, stopping first at the Hyde Park Elementary School, where the principal presented Roosevelt with a scroll made by the children for a war bond drive, and the boys and girls sang him a victory song. FDR stayed at the school for about ten minutes and then drove on to the white-frame town hall where several hundred folks had assembled to watch their famous neighbors vote. The President identified himself  as a “tree grower” to Mildred Todd, the registration clerk, and was given ballot #251. Franklin and Eleanor duly performed their rite of  citizenship and then returned home.1 In Independence, east of  K ansas City, Bess and Harry Truman voted in their home precinct before the senator went into town for the open house for friends that he was hosting in the Hotel Muehlback penthouse. For all of  these men and their wives, there was nothing left to do but wait—wait until evening and the telegraph wires and telephones and the news services would tell them what kind of  a verdict the voters of  the country had rendered. Across the country, word was coming in that voting was much heavier than expected. That evening a crowd of  about half  a million people—mostly very young or middle-aged, with quite a few soldiers and sailors on leave— jammed into Times Square in New York to shout and cheer and watch for election returns on the electric signboards. The crowd seemed to be predominantly pro-Roosevelt, and it cheered any signs of  FDR vic­tories. In the Loop in Chicago, more thousands gathered to listen to the public address system set up by station WGN, which gave out results as they came in. When a light rain began falling at around 9 p.m., many of  those on the sidewalks and street corners found taverns and res­taurants in which the proprietors had set up radios to broadcast re­turns.

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When results started trickling in during the evening, members of  Governor Dewey’s staff  in the Hotel Roosevelt found them “very encouraging,” particularly those from the crucial states of  Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. Dewey, after dining with friends, went to national committee headquarters there to look at what was coming in. In Illinois, Werner Schroeder, the Republican national committeeman, looked at what had come in early in Chicago, where it was from (Ed Kelly’s river wards), and proclaimed, “Dewey has carried Illinois. Indications are his majority in this state will exceed 200,000.” He was a little premature. Roosevelt eventually carried Illinois by 140,000 votes.2 As more and more returns came in, their early indecisiveness swayed over after 11 o’clock into an edge, not yet conclusive, for the President. It seemed clear that his numbers were dropping from what they had been four years earlier, but he still seemed to be putting a majority of  states into his column. In many states, of  course, the “country” vote was late coming in, and that vote was usually solidly Republican; in some of  the states where Roosevelt was ahead it was too early to claim them as being “won.” Still, the trend seemed to be going his way. At 11:25 p.m., several hundred Hyde Park villagers, augmented by three busloads of  young ladies from nearby Vassar College, showed up with their traditional torchlight parade to the President’s home, with a drum and bugle corps playing, “Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here.” The music apparently disturbed Fala to the extent that he ran around barking. FDR wheeled out to the front porch, with Eleanor and Anna by his side, and told the crowd, “We have partial returns, and they seem to be partial to Hyde Park.” He said, “The reports coming in are not so bad,” and added “New York seems to be all right.” Though he would not claim anything just yet, the President, with a twinkle in his eye, said, “It looks like I’ll be coming up here from Washington again for another four years,” as the crowd cheered him. When his neighbors and villagers left, FDR returned to his dining room where the returns were being brought in to him. 3 At 11:49 p.m., Bob Hannegan claimed victory for Franklin Roose­ velt. “The overwhelming victory of  President Roosevelt,” the chairman proclaimed, “means national unity on a program of  international collaboration for permanent peace.” This was a particularly gratifying vic-

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tory for FDR, who had developed a strong personal disliking for his opponent, something he had not had for Hoover, Landon, or Willkie.4 Down in the big city, where Dewey, Brownell, and Dewey’s righthand man Elliott Bell were watching those same returns, it soon became clear that a victory was not in the works for them. They had long conceded the South to the Democrats, and now the big Eastern states were slipping away. New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts were gone. New Jersey was seesawing back and forth, as were New Hampshire, Ohio, and Michigan. They had Maine and Vermont, but even Alf  Landon had carried them. Connecticut and Delaware went to Roosevelt, and soon Maryland did, too, carried by a big Baltimore plurality. Before too much longer, Dewey could see how wrong Werner Schroeder had been: Bertie McCormick’s Illinois had slipped into the Democratic column. The Farm Belt states had remained Republican, but Tom Dewey knew he needed much more than that, particularly when Joe Ball’s Minnesota went for Roosevelt. When the returns from the West came in, showing that California and Washington were Democratic, with Oregon very much up for grabs, Dewey and his people knew what had to be done. At 3:12 a.m., the Republican candidate made a statement to the press and radio, although he did not send any sort of  personal message to the victor, as was customary: It is clear that Mr. Roosevelt has been re-elected for a fourth term, and every good American will whole-heartedly accept the will of  t he people. I extend to President Roosevelt my hearty congratulations and my earnest hope that his next term will see speedy victory in the war, the establishment of  lasting peace and the restoration of  t ranquility among our people. I am deeply grateful for the confidence expressed by so many million Americans for their labors in the campaign. The Republican party emerges from the election revitalized and a great force for the good of  t he country and for the preservation of  f ree government in America. 5

Franklin Roosevelt, “always, “ as his secretary Bill Hassett later wrote, “meticulous about the amenities,” sent Dewey a telegram reading, “I thank you for your statement, which I have heard over the air a few minutes ago.” At 4 a.m., Hassett caught the President in the corridor going to bed and said good night to him. Roosevelt’s reply was, “I still think he is a son of  a bitch.”6

30

Summing Up

So what happened when the American citizens went to the polls on November 7, 1944? The totals are easy to summarize. There were 47,977,063 votes cast for presidential candidates; Franklin Roosevelt received 25,612,916 of  t hem, and Thomas E. Dewey got 22,017,929. Norman Thomas, the perennial Socialist candidate, received 79,017 votes, while Prohibitionist Claude Watson picked up 74,758. Finally, the slate of  Texas Regulars, pledged to “anybody but Roosevelt” and led by Senator W. Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel, rang up 135,439 votes, not enough to keep the state’s electoral votes from going to FDR. There were 57,004 votes for other minor party candidates. The margin for Roosevelt—3,594,987 votes—was the smallest of  his four presidential elections, as compared with a plurality of  4,938,711 over Wendell Willkie in 1940, 10,797,090 over Alf  Landon in 1936, and 7,060,023 over Herbert Hoover in 1932. The electoral vote total for Roosevelt was 435, with Dewey getting 99. The Dewey-Bricker ticket carried Maine, Vermont, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, the Dakotas, Wyoming, and Colorado. Roosevelt and Truman won all the rest, including such states as Michigan, New Jersey, Missouri, and Oregon, which most prognosticators had going for Dewey. The experts had predicted that the Middle West would return to its historic Republican ways, and much of  it did so, but a number of  big midwestern states voted Democratic—Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, and Missouri. 321

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1944 was to be the last time a Democratic presidential candidate carried every state in the South; it was also the last presidential election in which a candidate received more than 90 percent of  the vote in a state (Mississippi, which went for FDR by 93.6 percent). In the eight Southern states that retained the poll tax, voter turnout was only 18.31 percent of  the citizenry, as against 68.74 percent in the rest of  the country. The ’44 election saw two streams of  protest that had been building up in the South against the New Deal—hostility toward the New Deal’s economic policies and racist opposition to the opening of  opportunities for black people—come to the fore, but not to the point of  costing Franklin Roo­ sevelt any electoral votes; in 1948 the Dixiecrats carried their revolt to the extent of  taking states away from the Democratic candidate, and by 1952 even the ancient aversion to voting for a Republican was gone. While all of  the Southern states voted for Roosevelt in 1944, some of  them perhaps reluctantly, the level of  black support for FDR remained virtually level with that of  1940; in the race against Willkie, Roosevelt had received 67 percent of  the black vote, and in 1944 he received 68 percent. Even more important, of  course, was the geographical distribution that made the black voters the crucial edge in many of  the big Northern states, particularly Maryland, New Jersey, and Michigan.1 The closest state by percentage was Ohio, which Dewey won by 0.4 percent of  the vote, translating to 11,530 votes. This was the first election since 1892 in which Ohio was not on the winning side. The closest state in pure votes was Wyoming, which went for Dewey by 2,502 votes, or 2.4 percent. Michigan, New Jersey, and Wisconsin were all carried by less than two percentage points, the first two for Roosevelt and Wisconsin for Dewey. It was a mixed outcome, to say the least, for the experts and the public opinion surveyors, “April Fools Day for most of  the nation’s pollsters,” as one reporter summed it up. “None of  the men who felt the public pulse so meticulously during recent weeks thought President Roosevelt would get as many electoral votes as he did.” Elmo Roper apparently came out the best among the polling gurus, giving FDR 53.6 percent of  the vote, which was about right. But even Roper had hedged greatly on what might happen, and he made no prediction of  the electoral vote. The booby prize went to Emil Hurja, whose expertise gave Dewey 364 electoral votes. At

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the other end, the Philadelphia Record guessed that Roosevelt would win 435 electoral votes—right on the money.2 The Republicans knew going in that Roosevelt would be hard to beat, although they came to feel as the campaign went on that their man had a good chance. What they were confident of, however, was that they would take control of  Congress, at least the House of  Representatives. (The Senate was more of  a long shot but not impossible.) As it turned out, the GOP was to be stymied here, as the Democrats increased their margin in the House and lost only one net seat in the Senate. The Republicans picked up four Senate seats but lost three others to Democrats. In Indiana, Homer Capehart defeated Governor Henry F. Schricker for the seat that was held by Senator Samuel Jackson, who gave it up to run unsuccessfully for governor. In Iowa, Governor Bourke Hickenlooper knocked out Democratic incumbent Guy Gillette, while in New Jersey, H. Alexander Smith won a seat for the Republicans that had been held by a Democratic appointee who did not run. The other Republican pickup was in Missouri, where Governor Forrest Donnell narrowly defeated Roy McKittrick, who had earlier beaten Bennett Champ Clark in the Democratic primary. Democratic gains were led by Brien McMahon in Connecticut, where he defeated conservative Republican John F. Danaher by more than forty thousand votes. In North Dakota, longtime isolationist Republican Gerald P. Nye was soundly defeated by Governor John Moses, the Democrat, ending a Senate career that had begun in 1925. Moses was hindered to some extent by the presence in the race of  independent Lynn Stambaugh, who had lost narrowly to Nye in the primary and who claimed some of  the anti-Nye vote. The third and most surprising of  the Democratic gains was in Pennsylvania, where Representative Francis J. Myers won a close race against longtime GOP Senator James J. “Puddler Jim” Davis. Davis, a Welsh immigrant who had served as secretary of  labor under Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover, was expected to hold his seat without much difficulty, but the Roosevelt tide combined with servicemen’s ballots swept him out of  the Senate. There were some other notable newcomers elected to the Senate. In Arkansas, Representative J. William Fulbright defeated incumbent Hattie Caraway in the Democratic primary and won an easy victory

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in November to start a distinguished Senate career. Law school dean Wayne Morse was elected as a Republican in Oregon, with the support of  labor, both A FL and the CIO-PAC, although he campaigned hard against Roosevelt. In Idaho, country and western singer Glen H. Taylor defeated isolationist Senator D. Worth Clark in the Democratic primary and went on to win in the fall. Four years later Taylor would wind up as Henry Wallace’s vice presidential candidate on the Progressive ticket. Leverett Saltonstall, the popular Republican governor of  Massachusetts, easily won the Senate seat resigned by Henry Cabot Lodge when he went into the service. South Carolina’s governor, Olin D. Johnston, was elected in 1944 to begin a long and active Senate career, knocking off  “Cotton Ed” Smith in the primary and running unopposed in November. And in the state of  Washington, Representative Warren G. Magnuson, a Democrat, was elected to the Senate seat previously held by Mon Wallgren, who gave it up to run successfully for governor. The Republicans had high hopes of  defeating some of  the Senate’s top Democrats—Wagner of  New York, Lucas of  I llinois, Millard Tydings of  Maryland, Sheridan Downey of  California, and Barkley of  Kentucky—but were unable to eliminate even one. Wagner, his campaign buoyed by Roosevelt’s October 21 appearance, won a big victory over Thomas J. Curran, the Republican secretary of  state, by about 360,000 votes. In Illinois, Lucas defeated his Republican opponent, isolationist Richard Lyons, by more than 200,000 votes, while Downey in California had an edge of  about 135,000 over Lieutenant Governor Frederick F. Houser, the GOP hopeful. Tydings kept his Maryland seat with ease, running ahead of  Roosevelt at the top of  the ticket. And in the Bluegrass State, which Roosevelt carried easily, Barkley was able to overcome a popular opponent and, with campaign help from his colleague in the Senate, A. B. “Happy” Chandler, win re-election by more than 60,000 votes. 3 In the state of  Ohio, which Dewey carried by a very narrow margin, Senator Robert A. Taft squeaked through to re-election by a similarly low number, 17,740 votes, against a virtually unknown opponent. Taft got 50.3 percent to the Democratic candidate’s 49.7. The Democrats would

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look back on this one with great regret for Roosevelt’s non-appearance in the Buckeye State, especially since the Democratic candidate for governor, Cleveland mayor Frank J. Lausche, won a big victory over Mayor Stewart of  Cincinnati. Just a little more of  a nudge, the Democrats felt, would have taken out Bob Taft.4 Over the course of  the existence of  the 78th Congress, the Democrats by deaths and resignations had seen their majority whittled down to almost nothing, and the Republicans gleefully anticipated seizing control in 1944. Instead, they were shocked to find the Democrats increasing their hold on the lower house, coming out of  the voting with a 242-191 margin, with one Progressive and one from the American Labor Party. Roosevelt’s coattails were strong enough to pull through a number of  marginal Democrats. The GOP was able to hold on to Clare Boothe Luce’s seat in Connecticut, but FDR’s favorite bugbear, Hamilton Fish, went down to defeat in New York. A longtime Republican congressman from Minnesota, Melvin J. Maas, also lost his seat; Maas, a colonel in the Marine Corps, was serving on active duty in the South Pacific when he was defeated. The widely publicized Helen Gahagan Douglas won her congressional race in California, taking away a Republican seat. Democrats picked up multiple Republican House seats in Maryland, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New York, California, and Ohio. Going into the election, the Republicans held the governorships of  t wenty-six states, and they hoped to build on that. It was not to be; Democrats picked up a net of  t hree gubernatorial positions, including Wallgren over incumbent Arthur B. Langlie in Washington, Maurice Tobin in Massachusetts, Lausche in Ohio, Charles C. Gossett in Idaho, and Phil M. Donnelly in Missouri. Two Democratic seats were lost to the Republicans, both in states where the incumbent Democratic governor ran for a Senate post; Ralph Gates took over as governor in Indiana, while Fred G. Aandahl did the same in North Dakota. Otherwise, eleven GOP incumbents were re-elected, and four Democrats held on to their seats. In Hyde Park on the day after, Steve Early distributed to the press FDR’s statement summarizing the election:

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F DR , De w e y, a n d t h e E l ect ion of 194 4 For the first time in 80 years we have held a national election in the midst of  war. What is really important is that after all of  t he changes and vicissitudes of  four score years, we have again demonstrated to the world that democracy is a living, vital force, that our faith in American institutions is unshaken, that conscience and not force is the source of  power in the government of  man. To that faith let us unite to win the war and to achieve a lasting peace.

Early said that the President had received “bundles of  telegrams and messages” at Hyde Park that day. Reporters asked if  he had any word from Dewey. “Not up to 5 p.m.,” Early answered. 5 Tom Dewey held a press conference in his suite at the Hotel Roo­ sevelt, declined “even to speculate” on the 1948 campaign, said he hoped to take a vacation with his family in the next few days, and said the campaign had united his party more closely than it had been for sixteen years. His aides told reporters Dewey felt that he had “got rid of  the worst elements in the Republican party,” alluding to the defeat of  some GOP members of  Congress, and that the reason for his defeat could be set forth in two words—“the war.”6 Newspapers around the country looked at the results and had their say. In St. Louis, the Post-Dispatch concluded, “Well, we didn’t swap horses in midstream.” The Republicans, the paper opined, “had little to offer except an acceptance of  the New Deal philosophy and the promise ‘we can do it better.’” The Denver Post commented, a bit sourly, “Many factors entered into President Roosevelt’s re-election for a fourth term. Public reluctance to make a change of  administration in wartime, the CIO Political Action Organization and the mammoth Federal payroll.” The Dispatch in St. Paul said, “The people were not disposed to change a winning combination.” 7 The Washington Post looked back editorially on Governor Dewey’s campaign and concluded, “He lost this election because in the minds of  the electorate he did not come to grips with the great issues of  war and peace.” The President, the editorial said, with his Teamsters speech “stole the ball on the issue of  foreign policy, and never lost it. The feeling appeared to develop among the voters that in this field Mr. Dewey had neither expertness nor conviction.”8 Life magazine called Dewey’s defeat in part “a personal failure; he did not show up on the political screen as warmly and sizably as FDR.

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In part it was his overemphasis of  t he Communist issue and of  h is prosecutor’s role. In part it was the fault of  t he Republican Party and of  Dewey’s relationship to it.”9 The editors of  the New York Times concluded that Roosevelt had won “a national victory,” winning in New England, the entire mid-Atlantic seaboard, the South, most of  the West, and even several states “in the traditionally Republican Middle West between the Rockies and the Appalachians.” While his popular vote plurality was down from that over Wendell Willkie four years earlier, part of  that could be ascribed to the decline of  FDR’s strength in the Deep South. “What we have,” the editorial said, “. . . is an election in which the voters of  nearly threequarters of  the forty-eight states have chosen to give a clear majority to the Democratic candidate primarily, we believe, on the basis of  faith in his war leadership and his ability to win a lasting peace.” The election had to “strengthen the country for the completion of  the tasks that lie ahead” and to impress upon Franklin Roosevelt “a deep sense of  duty to dedicate his last term to the supreme interests of  the whole nation.”10 It became clear in retrospect that the work of  Sidney Hillman and his CIO-PAC was crucial to the success of  the Roosevelt-Truman ticket. The turnout at the polls was far heavier than had been expected, and in so many areas it was the work of  H illman’s people in registering voters and then getting them to the polls that made a difference. On the other hand, a larger Republican vote than might have been expected was possibly generated by the constant harping on the evils of  H illman, his organization, and his supposed (but fictional) tie-up with Earl Browder and his Communists. It was also clear that Sidney Hillman had little to do with the strategy and tactics of  t he Democratic campaign, and that Earl Browder and his Communists had none at all, despite all the charges of  Dewey, Bricker, and their cohorts. Once the candidates had been selected, Hillman and his followers went to work at the grass roots level, very effectively, without being very much involved in setting up speaking engagements or deciding where FDR or Truman or anyone else should make appearances. One area in which the CIO-PAC made its presence felt was in fundraising. As was usual in most elections, the Republicans had a big edge in

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the finances of  the campaign. In overall expenditures, combining those of  the national committees, state committees, and independent groups, Republicans were able to put out $13,195,377, compared to $7,441,800 by organizations supporting the Roosevelt-Truman ticket. But the $949,351 spent on behalf  of  the Democrats by the CIO-PAC easily dwarfed any similar outlay on the other side.11 Individually, of  course, the big givers were on the side of  the GOP. The DuPont family, Joseph Pew and his family, and the Mellons of  Pittsburgh contributed substantially. For the Democrats, the biggest donors were Jack Warner of  Hollywood, Marshall Field of  Chicago, and Andrew Higgins, the New Orleans boatbuilder.12 But these things, of  course, had to do with the mechanics of  the election. Few elections are won by parties and candidates who do not take care of  the nitty-gritty of  politics: get your voters registered, get the campaign material out to them, make sure where they stand if  you can, and get them to the polling places on Election Day. The mechanics are important. But so, finally, is the message. Millions of  voters, of  course, mark the same party block or pull the same party lever every election, often without giving much thought to what they are doing. Even for these voters, the message is important, so that they never consider the possibility of  straying. But there are always other millions who can be drawn from one party or candidate to another, sometimes for one election only, sometimes converted for the long term. For these millions, the message is crucial. What they hear, what registers in their brains—or their hearts, or sometimes their stomachs—is what swings elections from one party or one candidate or set of  candidates to another. The messages in 1944 were relatively straightforward. Dewey was probably right when he said “the war” was the reason for his defeat. But it need not have been. The Democrats set out at the beginning of  the campaign to impress upon the voters that the war was the most important issue before them, and they stressed this issue from July to November. “Don’t Change Horses in the Middle of  the Stream!” The war was being won, under the leadership of  Franklin Roosevelt. By Marshall, King, Leahy, and Arnold, who were put into their crucial positions by Franklin Roosevelt. By the great industrial power of  the United

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States, pulled together by Franklin Roosevelt. The war. The war. Don’t change horses . . . The corollary to this, of  course, was the peace to come. And here the Democratic orators could point back to Wilson, who had a plan after the last war, and to Harding, Lodge, and the Republicans, who scuttled Wilson’s plan. Just look at those Republican senators—Nye, Hiram Johnson, Wiley, Taft, Danaher, and the others—just lying in wait to do it again. Don’t change horses . . . The Republicans wanted to shout and scream about the New Deal and all the evils connected with it, but Dewey, in his September speaking tour of  the West, had pretty much cut the ground out from under the anti–New Deal argument. “We’ll keep it, maybe add to it some, just do it a little better. We’ll get rid of  Harold Ickes and Ma Perkins.” That sort of  thing did not stir up the troops this time. So the GOP found itself  pretty much reduced to a campaign of  r unning against the Communists and Sidney Hillman and trying to tie Roosevelt to them. It was a preview of  what would become a standard of  Republican campaigns in the years ahead, but in 1944 it did not play all that well. In 1944, of  course, Soviet Russia was our ally against Hitler and, we hoped, against Japan later on. Dewey also received criticism for his quoting of  statements totally out of  context, and his much-heralded “prosecutorial” tone did not always sound good. Another big reason for the Democratic victory was what one writer called “the great faith of  the masses” in the leadership of  Franklin Roosevelt, who “had brought the country through a domestic crisis and a foreign crisis, each unprecedented, and probably could have had the votes of  millions for a fifth or even a sixth term.” The fifth or sixth term was not an issue in 1944, but the fourth term certainly was, with a world war in full swing, and the voters were glad to have FDR on their ballots.13 There was talk of  apathy early in the campaign, of  an electorate that was much more interested in the war than in a political campaign. That apathy disappeared once things began heating up, probably beginning with FDR’s speech to the Teamsters and his little Scottie, Fala. It all came together for the President because the country decided it would be unwise to change horses in midstream.

EPILOGUE

The Fourth Term

The “horses in midstream” campaign, of  course, became suddenly meaningless when Franklin Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, on the eightythird day of  his fourth term as president. His new vice president, Harry Truman, whom Roosevelt had not bothered to bring into the mainstream of  information or policy making, was thrust into the top job. It was not until after Truman was sworn in as president that Henry Stimson took him aside and told him about the atom bomb. In the ’44 election campaign, Truman was frequently dismissed as a small cog in the Pendergast machine, while receiving little enough recognition as the creator and chairman of  a Senate committee that saved the country billions and saw to the furnishing of  top-grade war materiel to the fighting men. Those who were familiar with the achievements of  the Truman Committee were much less surprised at Harry Truman’s successes as president than were those who saw fit to denigrate him for his political background in Kansas City. However, most Americans were pleased that Truman and not Henry Wallace succeeded Roosevelt in the presidency, a view that became ever more pronounced as Wallace’s positions on accommodating the Soviet Union came to the fore. As Truman took hold of  the presidency, there seemed in the country little regret that Governor Dewey was not the man in the White House. The November election had determined that the Democrats would continue to hold the presidency and that Roosevelt or his successor would steer the nation along its postwar path. Looking back, a historian can 330

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see how Truman, Byrnes, Marshall, Acheson, Harriman, Kennan, and the rest of  those who made up the Truman administration handled the problems following World War II: establishing the United Nations, dealing with the Soviet Union, the Cold War, the recovery of  Europe, and on into Korea. What he or she cannot see is how these issues would have been dealt with by Tom Dewey and those who would have formed his administration. The election of  1944 can be thanked, or blamed, for that distinction. A final footnote to the ’44 election came four years later, when the electorate decided for a second time that it did not want Dewey as president. The country looked back, in November and December 1944 and the following January, on a particularly nasty election campaign, caused, it appeared, by a combination of  the Republicans’ lack of  real issues (hence the Hillman and Communists emphasis), Thomas E. Dewey’s crossexamining lawyer’s style, and the acerbic tongues of  some Democratic campaigners like Harold Ickes. When it was over, the people were happy to put it behind them and move on. The war seemed to be progressing well, if  more slowly than hoped, until the mid-December onslaught of  the Wehrmacht through the Ardennes, which brought on the “Battle of  the Bulge,” a bloody confrontation that took almost a month for the Allies to bring under control. On a cold, gray January 20, 1945, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was sworn in as President of  the United States for the fourth time, with Truman taking the oath as vice president. The understated ceremony was conducted on the south portico of  t he White House rather than the Capitol and was followed with a brief  address by the President. Later that day, Roosevelt advised Jesse Jones that Henry Wallace was to replace him at Commerce as well as with the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, with its lending capacity of  billions of  dollars. Jones was furious and immediately sent to the President an angry message of  resignation, after pointing out that he considered Wallace unfit for the positions offered him. The furor over the Wallace nomination was in essence the only domestic activity of  the Fourth Term. Allen Drury, on the sidelines, wrote, “The President has found something for Henry and all hell has broken loose.” Wallace’s many opponents and detractors, led by Jones, rose up

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to fight the nomination, either to defeat Wallace outright or, at the very least, to remove from Wallace’s control all the wartime (and pre-war) lending agencies that Jesse Jones had headed. While this controversy boiled to the surface, Roosevelt departed secretly from Washington for his meeting in Yalta, on the Crimean Peninsula, with Churchill and Stalin.1 Senator Walter George of  Georgia introduced and Congress passed a bill, which Roosevelt signed when he returned, taking all of  the lending agencies that Jones had controlled away from the Commerce Department. It was understood by all that this removal was the price that Wallace’s opponents required before he would be confirmed. (Indeed, even before the George bill was passed, Wallace’s foes came within a whisker of  voting down his nomination in the Senate, frustrated only by a quick parliamentary maneuver by Barkley on the floor and Truman in the chair.) Only after the George bill was passed and signed into law, on March 1, 1945, did the Senate confirm Wallace, 56 to 32. There he would be, in the cabinet, a legacy to the new president, a future embarrassment with his outspoken foreign policy views, and an opponent in the 1948 election. The meeting at Yalta has of  course been reported, analyzed, pushed, pulled, and dissected at great historical length, and it is not the place of  this work to get into that discussion. Franklin Roosevelt was tired and ailing, Josef  Stalin was adamant and unyielding, and the groundwork for the Cold War was laid there. Had a failing FDR continued in the White House as postwar developments took place, the consequences for the country could have been substantial; it is one of  those questions whose answers will always be highly speculative. There can be no doubt, however, of  the disservice to the nation performed by Admiral McIntire, with his constant repetition of  what he knew to be false reports on the President’s health. And of  course it is inconceivable that the media in this day and age would be as complicit as was that of  1944 in concealing the obvious deterioration of  a president’s physical condition. Those who saw Roosevelt at Yalta were deeply concerned about his health, for he was in fact dying. On the way back from the Crimea, his longtime appointments secretary “Pa” Watson passed away, furthering the sense of  gloom surrounding the party. The President returned to

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Washington at the end of  February, gave his report to a joint session of  Congress, and shortly thereafter went south to Warm Springs. He would return to the capital in a coffin, after his death from a massive cerebral hemorrhage on April 12. While the war was going well, with the defeat of  Germany now apparent in the next month or so—Adolf  H itler would himself  be dead in a couple of  weeks—and with Manila and Iwo Jima taken from the Japanese, at immense cost, it would be Harry Truman, not Franklin Roosevelt, who would preside over victory.2 The Fourth Term had come to an end.

NOTES

Pr eface & Ack now ledgm ents 1.  Walter Trohan, Political Animals: Memoirs of  a Sentimental Cynic (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1975), 186. Prologu e 1.  Washington Post, Sept. 23, 1944. 2.  Samuel I. Rosenman, ed., The Public Papers and Addresses of  Franklin D. Roosevelt (New York: Harper & Bros., 1950), vol. 13, 201; Aug. 29, 1944, Complete Presidential Press Conferences of  Franklin D. Roosevelt (New York: DaCapo Press, 1972), vol. 24, 82. 3.  Washington Post, Sept. 23, 1944. 4.  Memo, R. R. (Ruthjean Rumelt, Early’s secretary) to Secret Service and Dave Beck, Sept. 22, 1944, Stephen T. Early Papers (hereafter “Early Papers”), Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, N.Y. 5.  New York Times, Sept. 24, 1944. 6.  Entry from Daisy Suckley’s diary, Sept. 11, 1944, Geoffrey C. Ward, ed., Closest Companion: The Unknown Story of  the Intimate Friendship between Franklin Roosevelt and Margaret Suckley (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1995), 327. 7.  Rosenman, ed., Public Papers, vol. 13, 284.

8.  Ibid., 285. 9.  Ibid., 286. 10.  Ibid., 287. 11.  Ibid., 289. 1.  A Nation at Wa r 1.  Ickes Diary, Jan. 1, 1944, Harold L. Ickes Papers (hereafter “Ickes Papers”), Library of  Congress. 2.  Washington Post, Dec. 30, 1940. 3.  Richard Lingeman, Don’t You Know There’s a War On? (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1970), 235. 4.  It was estimated that Victory gardens produced more than a million tons of  vegetables valued at $85,000,000. 5.  Roland Young, Congressional Politics in the Second World War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1956), 100–101. 6.  Kai Bird, The Chairman: John J. McCloy, The Making of  the American Establishment (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 149–150. Warren, in his memoirs, wrote, “I have since deeply regretted the removal order and my own testimony advocating it”; Earl Warren, The Memoirs of  Earl Warren (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1977), 149.

335

336

Not e s to page s 1 1–25

7.  Roosevelt to Landis, Jan. 15, 1942, J. G. Taylor Spink, Judge Landis and 25 Years of  Baseball (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1947), 278–279. 8.  John Morton Blum, V Was for Victory: Politics and American Culture during World War II (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), 24–25. 9.  For the 1943 movie-star rankings, which placed Bob Hope second and the team of  A bbott and Costello third, see New York Times, Dec. 25, 1943.

8.  Robert Sherwood to S. Rosenman, Mar. 5, 1944, Samuel I. Rosenman Papers (hereafter “Rosenman Papers”), Franklin D. Roosevelt Library. 9.  John W. Bricker to Merryle S. Rukeyser, Nov. 15, 1943, John W. Bricker Papers, Ohio Historical Society (hereafter “Bricker Papers”). 10.  Life, Nov. 15, 1943. 11.  Betty Houchin Winfield, FDR and the News Media (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990), 217–218.

2.  Politics in Midwa r 1.  Alfred Steinberg, Sam Rayburn: A Biography (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1975), 213; Brian Waddell, The War against the New Deal: World War II and American Democracy (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2001), 132. 2.  Jonathan Daniels, White House Witness 1942–1945 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1975), 74, 78. 3.  New York Times, Nov. 4, 1942; Chicago Tribune, Nov. 5, 1942. 4.  Sidney Hillman, “Is the PAC Beneficial to Labor and to the Country?” Readers Digest, November 1944, 77; Joseph Gaer, The First Round: The Story of  the CIO Political Action Committee (New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1944), 60; Life, Sept. 11, 1944. 5. Gaer, The First Round, 64–65. 6.  George Sirgiovanni, An Undercurrent of  Suspicion: Anti-Communism in America during World War II (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1990), 6. 7.  Browder, a Kansas native, had served half  of  h is four-year term when Roosevelt set him free, principally because of  t he wartime alliance with the USSR. Browder, who had run for president in 1936, was expelled from the Communist party in 1946 for contending that capitalism and communism could coexist and died in 1973 in Princeton, New Jersey.

3.  Th e R epu blica ns 1.  New York Times, Jan. 5, Feb. 27, Mar. 19, 1944. 2.  Ibid., Sept. 6, 1943. 3.  Chicago Tribune, Sept. 7, 1943. In September 1943, GOP chairman Harrison Spangler called the “Postwar Advisory Council,” to convene on Mackinac Island, Michigan, with forty-eight Republican governors, senators, and congressmen (but not Willkie) meeting to work out a postwar foreign policy for the party. 4.  New York Times, Jan. 30, 1944. 5.  Ibid., Mar. 7, 1944. 6.  Richard Norton Smith, Thomas E. Dewey and His Times (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982), 86. 7.  Barry K. Beyer, Thomas E. Dewey 1937–1947: A Study in Political Leadership (New York: Garland, 1979), 12–13; R. N. Smith, Dewey, 101. 8.  Herbert Brownell, with John P. Burke, Advising Ike: The Memoirs of  Attorney General Herbert Brownell (Lawrence: University Press of  K ansas, 1993), 39. 9. Beyer, Dewey, 20. Beyer goes so far as to say that Dewey’s “reputation, in fact, seems to have been based to a large extent upon his handling of  a single case,—the spectacular Gordon prosecution, which was given wide national newspaper, magazine and radio coverage”; ibid., 19–20.

Not e s to page s 25–37 10.  Ibid., 20. For a narrative of  t he shuffling and maneuvers of  t he “runaway” grand jury, the obstruction by District Attorney William C. Dodge, and the eventual appointment of  Dewey by Lehman, see R. N. Smith, Dewey, 147–150. 11.  R. N. Smith, Dewey, 231. 12.  On Lend-Lease, New York Sun, Jan. 10, 1941; on the 50,000 planes, Dewey in his speech in Dallas on May 27, 1940, went on to say, “But publicity will not produce planes. We cannot produce airplanes the way the New Deal produces a billion dollars—by printing government bonds. You can’t print airplanes”; John Foster Dulles Papers (hereafter “Dulles Papers”), Seeley G. Mudd Manuscripts Library, Princeton University. 13.  David Brinkley, Washington Goes to War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988), 259; Beverly Smith, “Favorites in the G.O.P. Sweepstakes,” American Magazine, June 1944, 97; Richard H. Rovere, “Dewey: The Man in the Blue Serge Suit,” Harper’s Magazine, May 1944, 484, 485; George H. Mayer, The Republican Party 1854–1966, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), 454. The little-man-on-the-weddingcake line was attributed to the acerbic Alice Roosevelt Longworth, who said the line was not hers but she wished that it was. 14.  Roger Butterfield, “Thomas E. Dewey,” Life, Oct. 9, 1944, 97. 15.  Arnold Beichman, “Thomas E. Dewey: The Artless Dodger,” Common Sense, May 1944, 168. 16.  Raymond Moley, 27 Masters of  Politics: In a Personal Perspective (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1949), 56. 17. Brownell, Advising Ike, 41, 40. 18. Beyer, Dewey, 56. 19.  Kenneth G. Reynolds to James V. Forrestal, July 24, 1944, James V. Forrestal Papers (hereafter “Forrestal Papers”), Mudd Library, Princeton; Forrest Davis, “The Great Albany Enigma,” Saturday Evening Post, Jan. 22, 1944, 11.

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20.  Karl B. Pauly, Bricker of  Ohio: The Man and His Record (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1944), 59. 21.  For Bricker’s early childhood, see ibid., 14–21. 22.  Richard O. Davies, Defender of  the Old Guard: John Bricker and American Politics (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1993), 31. 23.  Cleveland Plain Dealer, Nov. 18, 1937. 24. Davies, Defender, 41, 46. Davies points out that Bricker’s heavy-handed anti-labor orations of  t he 1938 campaign made organized labor an unrelenting opponent for the rest of  Bricker’s career; ibid., 42–44. 25.  Ibid., 48; Pauly, Bricker, 140. Davies calls Bricker’s “essentially a caretaker governorship”; Davies, Defender, 48. 26. Davies, Defender, 57–58; Pauly, Bricker, 155. 27. Davies, Defender, 70. Burton was elected to the U.S. Senate in the same election. 28. Pauly, Bricker, 183. 29.  Emporia (Kans.) Gazette, Mar. 17, 1943. 30.  The MacArthurs’ tour of  A sia is covered in Geoffrey Perret, Old Soldiers Never Die: The Life of  Douglas MacArthur (New York: Random House, 1996) pp. 52–53; and in William Manchester, American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880–1964 (New York: Dell, 1979), 78–79. The quote on the importance of  t he trip is from Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), 35. 31. MacArthur, Reminiscences, 110. 32.  New York Times, Apr. 21, 1929 33.  Walter Millis, ed., The Forrestal Diaries (New York: Viking Press, 1951), 18. 34.  Robert E. Herzstein, Henry R. Luce: A Political Portrait of  the Man Who Created the American Century (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1994), 322–323; Perret, MacArthur, 384–385.

338

Not e s to page s 38–53

35. Manchester, American Caesar, 411; American Mercury, January 1944. 36.  New York Times, Jan. 19, 1944. 37.  Barbara Stuhler, Ten Men of  Minnesota and American Foreign Policy 1898–1968 (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1973), 150. 38.  Ibid., 149 39.  Ibid., 150. 40. Mayer, Republican Party, 463. Stassen ran nine times for the presidency, once for governor of  Pennsylvania, once more for governor of  M innesota, once for mayor of  Philadelphia, as well as for the U.S. Senate and House of  R epresentatives. He served for several years as president of  t he University of  Pennsylvania, as well as in Eisenhower’s cabinet, and he maintained a law practice in Philadelphia. 41.  George T. Blakey, “Willkie as a Hoosier,” in James H. Madison, ed., Wendell Willkie: Hoosier Internationalist (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), 10. 4.  Th e Democr ats 1.  Godfrey Hodgson, The Colonel: The Life and Wars of  Henry Stimson 1867–1950 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990), 271. The other American war presidents were Madison, Polk, Lincoln, McKinley, and Wilson. 2.  Southern Weekly, Nov. 13, 1943. 3.  Grace Tully, F.D.R.: My Boss (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1949), 272. 4.  New York Times, Feb. 21, 1944. 5.  Robert Sherwood writes that this alleged remark of  Hopkins was “published first by Frank R. Kent and then by Joseph Alsop and Robert Kintner in their syndicated columns and by Arthur Krock in the New York Times.” Alsop and Kintner said the quote was “probably apochryphal”and Hopkins denied categorically ever saying any such thing, but the Republicans (and Krock) never let it go, although no one ever produced

any evidence that Hopkins had made the statement; Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins (New York: Bantam Books, 1950), vol. 1, 124–126. 6.  Hull, who died in 1955, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945 for his work in creating the United Nations Organization. 7. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, vol. 1, 116. 8.  Matthew B. Wills, A Diminished President: FDR in 1944 (Raleigh, N.C.: Ivy House Publishing Group, 2003), 3. 9. Tully, F.D.R.: My Boss, 273–274. 10.  For a lengthy description of  t he doings of  Nicholas Roerich and his connections with Wallace, see John C. Culver and John Hyde, American Dreamer: The Life and Times of  Henry A. Wallace (New York: W. W. Norton, 2000), 130–146 and 233–234, 240–242, for the “guru letters” in the 1940 campaign. Regarding the Willkie–Van Doren relationship, Edith Willkie, dutifully joining her husband on the campaign trail in 1940, is said to have noted, “Politics makes strange bedfellows”; Mark H. Leff, “Strange Bedfellows: The Utility Magnate as Politician,” in Madison, ed., Willkie, 22. 11.  Turner Catledge, My Life and the Times (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), 70. 12. Daniels, Witness, 232. Spellman later denied having given any such advice. 13. Steinberg, Rayburn. 79–81. 14.  Hannegan switched his support in 1940 from Governor Lloyd Stark a few days before the primary; as a result Truman carried St. Louis by 8,411 votes, which just about accounted for his statewide margin of  less than 8,000 votes. 15.  George Creel, “Truman of  M issouri,” Collier’s, Sept. 9, 1944, 24. 16.  Merle Miller, Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of  Harry S. Truman (New York: Berkley Medallion Books, 1973), 320.

Not e s to page s 53– 65 17.  Wesley McCune and John R. Beal, “The Job That Made Truman President,” Harper’s, June 1945, 617. 18.  Jonathan Daniels, The Man of  Independence (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1950), 217–219; Harry S. Truman, Memoirs: Year of  Decisions (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1955), vol. 1, 165–166. 19.  McCune and Beal, “The Job,” 621. 20.  Ralph J. Bunche, The Political Status of  the Negro in the Age of  F DR (Chicago: University of  Chicago Press, 1973), 30. The case upholding the white primary was Grovey v. Townsend, 295 U.S. 45 (1935). 21.  Smith v. Allwright, 321 U.S. 649 (1944); the majority opinion was written by Stanley Reed, a Kentuckian. Joining his opinion were Chief  Justice Stone, Black, Douglas, Murphy, Jackson, and Rutledge; Frankfurter concurred in the result, and Owen Roberts dissented. 22.  Frank Freidel, FDR and the South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1965), 19. 23.  Time, July 12, 1943; Robert A. Garson, The Democratic Party and the Politics of  Sectionalism, 1941–1948 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1974), 104–105. 24.  The requirement of  a two-thirds vote for a nomination, long a source of  strength to the South, had been abolished by the Democratic convention in 1936. 25.  George E. Allen, Presidents Who Have Known Me (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1950), 120. 5.  W illk i e Push es H a r d 1.  Leonard Lyons column, Washington Post, Dec. 31, 1943. 2.  New York Times, Jan. 9, 1944. The “locusts” Wills named were Alf  L andon, John Hamilton, Joseph Pew, Senator Gerald Nye, Rev. Gerald L. K. Smith, and the McCormick-Patterson newspaper axis. 3.  New York Times, Jan. 16, 1944.

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4.  Mary Earhart Dillon, Wendell Willkie 1892–1944 (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1952), 313. 5.  Dwight Lowell Dumond, America in Our Time 1896–1946 (n.p.: Henry J. Holt, 1947), 654; New York Times, Feb. 12, 1943. 6.  New York Times, Feb. 12, 1943. 7.  Ibid., May 31, 1943. 8.  Look, Oct. 5, 1943. 9.  New York Times, Sept. 12, 1943. 10.  Ibid., Oct. 17, 1943; Ellsworth Barnard, Wendell Willkie: Fighter for Freedom (Marquette: Northern Michigan University Press, 1966), 433; Des Moines Register, Oct. 17, 1943. 11.  New York Times, Oct. 17, 1943. 12.  New York Herald-Tribune, Oct. 21, 1943; St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Oct. 20, 1943. 13.  New York Times, Oct. 22, 1943. 14.  Southern Weekly, Nov. 27, 1943. 15.  New York Times, Nov. 14, Oct. 24, 1943. 16.  Ibid., Nov. 5, 1943. 17.  Ibid., Nov. 12, 13, 1943. Landon concluded by saying recent elections showed “the American people are changing political horses as fast as they can.” 18.  Ibid., Jan. 5, 1944. 19.  T. H. Watkins, Righteous Pilgrim: The Life and Times of  Harold L. Ickes 1874– 1952 (New York: Henry Holt, 1990), 808. In the same letter, to Stacey Mosser, Ickes said if  R oosevelt did not run “the result is likely to be a shambles.” 6.  Pr esident a nd Congr ess 1.  Washington Post, Jan. 10, 11, 1944. O’Daniel, a native Ohioan, was one of  t he real originals of  Texas politics. As general manager of  a flour mill, he hired a fiddle band to advertise the flour mill’s products on the radio. Seeing how much flour the show was selling, O’Daniel became the show’s announcer and the band’s manager. O’Daniel composed songs that the band, now called W. Lee

340

Not e s to page s 66 – 74

O’Daniel and His Hillbilly Boys, played on the air and recorded, and he started his own flour company. His most famous number, called “Pass the Biscuits, Pappy,” he parlayed into a 1938 campaign for and election to the governorship of  Texas, for which he was totally unqualified, as well as a nickname, “Pappy,” which he utilized for the balance of  h is political career. In 1941, O’Daniel defeated Congressman Lyndon Johnson for a seat in the U.S. Senate. See Charles R. Town­send, “W. Lee O’Daniel and His Hillbilly Boys,” Handbook of  Texas Online, http://www .tshaonline.org/handbook/online/ articles/xgw01 (accessed Feb. 6, 2011); Robert A. Caro, The Years of  Lyndon Johnson: Means of  A scent (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990), 3–4. 2.  Washington Post, Jan. 10, 11, 1944. 3.  F. D. Roosevelt to H. A. Wallace, Jan. 10, 1944, Elliott Roosevelt, ed., assisted by Joseph P. Lash, F.D.R.: His Personal Letters 1928–1945 ( New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1950), vol. 2, 1482; Rosenman, ed., Public Papers, xiii, 33. 4.  Rosenman, ed., Public Papers, 37. Byrnes was upset that he was not involved in drafting the State of  t he Union address, particularly the national-service proposal; Walter J. Brown, James F. Byrnes of  South Carolina: A Remembrance (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1990), 174. 5.  Rosenman, ed., Public Papers, xiii, 41; Frank Freidel, Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Rendezvous with Destiny (Boston: Little, Brown,1990), 500. 6.  Washington Post and New York Times, both Jan. 12, 1944. 7.  Peter Molyneaux, “That Second Bill of  R ights,” Southern Weekly, Jan. 15, 1944. 8.  Chicago Daily Tribune, Dec. 4, 1943; PM, Dec. 6, 1943. 9.  Rosenman, ed., Public Papers, xiii, 27–28. 10.  New York Times, Feb. 3, 1944. 11. Ibid.

12.  Ibid., Feb. 4, 1944. 13.  Press Conferences of  F DR, vol. 23, 22. 14.  New York Times, Feb. 8, 1944. 15.  Washington Post, Jan. 27, 1944. 16.  Allen Drury, A Senate Journal 1943– 1945 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963), 77. 17.  New York Times, Mar. 16, Feb. 6, 12, 16, 22, 26, 27, 1944. 18.  Ibid., Feb. 2, 1944. 19.  Ibid., Feb. 20, 1944. 20.  “Memorandum for the President,” Feb. 14, 1944, Rosenman Papers. Rosenman noted in his memo that he had not prepared anything on the tax bill because he understood FDR wanted to do it himself. Rosenman was later blamed for writing the veto message, but Steve Early, at a February 28 press conference, said of  R osenman, “The judge had nothing to do with the writing and did not write any portion of  t he tax veto message”; New York Times, Feb. 29, 1944. 21.  Rosenman, ed., Public Papers, xiii, 80–82; New York Times, Feb. 23, 1944. 22.  Ickes Diary, Feb. 26, 1944, Ickes Papers; Washington Post, Feb. 23, 1944; Drury, Senate Journal, 85. 23.  Alben W. Barkley, That Reminds Me (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1954) 172–173; Drury, Senate Journal, 86; Washington Post, Feb. 23, 1944. 24.  Washington Post, Feb. 24, 1944. 25.  Newsweek, Mar. 6, 1944. 26.  Ibid. Harold Ickes felt the President’s “conciliatory telegram . . . a mistake, or at least he went too far.” He said that despite the President’s “devastating . . . language . . . I cannot excuse Barkley’s impetuous action”; Ickes Diary, Feb. 26, 1944, Ickes Papers. 27.  New York Times, Feb. 25, 26, 1944. The Democratic senators who stayed with the President were Homer Bone and Mon Wallgren (Washington), Green (Rhode Island), Joe Guffey (Pennsylvania), Lister Hill (Alabama), Harley Kilgore (West

Not e s to page s 75–84 Virginia), James Mead and Robert Wagner (New York), Abe Murdock and Elbert Thomas (Utah), James Murray (Montana), and Claude Pepper (Florida). One Republican, William Langer of  North Dakota, voted to sustain the veto, stating, “I applaud the President for his courage in censuring this body for passing legislation which favors the rich over the poor”; New York Times, Feb. 26, 1944. 28. Drury, Senate Journal, 97 (in which he noted a number of  senators blaming Byrnes for the message); Barkley, That Reminds Me, 180. There is a curious memo in the Byrnes Papers, written by Byrnes’s right-hand man Walter Brown, setting forth an apparent time frame for the preparation of  t he veto message that attempts to leave Byrnes out of  t he loop because the former justice was in the process of  submitting one of  h is periodic resignations, which FDR never accepted, and stating, “It is apparent to me that had you been paying your usual close attention to the domestic front this controversy between Barkley and the President would not have developed to such an extent as it did.” It concludes, “JFB says he just passed on Fred Vinson’s memo [urging veto]. Had he not been preparing to resign himself, he would have probably been more particular and prevented outburst. ‘When you lose interest in your work, you just don’t care,’ the Justice said.” The whole memo is clearly aimed at giving Byrnes the wherewithal, most likely at Byrnes’s request, to distance himself  f rom what had become a nasty situation; James F. Byrnes Papers (hereafter “Byrnes Papers”), Strom Thurmond Institute, Clemson University Library. 29.  Ward, ed., Closest Companion, 280; Rosenman to Sherwood, Mar. 3, 1944, Rosenman Papers. 30. Drury, Senate Journal, 111. Governor Earl Warren of  California was not one of  t hose put on the spot, since his legisla-

341

ture had already provided for use of  t he federal ballot. 31.  Ibid., 112. 32.  Bricker wired the President on March 18, 1944, advising that Ohio’s laws did not authorize use of  t he proposed federal ballot but that he was calling a special session in order that Ohio law could “be further liberalized so that ballots will be available for distribution” in accordance with the congressional bill; Bricker Papers. 33.  New York Times, Apr. 1, 1944. 7.  W endell in Wonder l a nd 1.  Chicago Tribune, Jan. 10, 1944. 2. Ibid. 3.  Washington Post, Jan. 11, 1944. 4.  New York Times, Jan. 12, 1944. General William T. Sherman had, in 1884, said he would not run if  nominated and would not serve if  elected. 5.  Washington Post, Jan. 12, 1944. 6.  New York Times, Feb. 5, 1944. Earlier, McCormick had downplayed a contest with Willkie: “Anybody can beat Willkie in Illinois, so I won’t have to take the trouble”; Ibid., July 17, 1943. 7.  Ibid., Feb. 6, 1944. 8.  Ibid., Feb. 7, 1944. 9.  Ibid., Feb. 8, 1944. 10.  Ibid., Feb. 10, 1944. 11.  Ibid., Feb. 13, 1944. 12.  Ibid., Feb. 14, 1944. 13.  Ibid., Feb. 15, 1944. 14.  Life, Feb. 28, 1944. 15.  New York Times, Mar. 3, 1944. 16.  Ibid., Mar. 28, 1944. 17.  Ibid., Mar. 30, 1944. 18.  Ibid., Feb. 24, 1944; telegram, T. E. Dewey to A. W. Prehn, Feb. 23, 1944, Thomas E. Dewey Papers (hereafter “Dewey Papers”), Rush Rhees Library, University of  R ochester. Prehn had written Dewey on Feb. 21, urging him to run for president in 1944 if  he had any thought of  t he office, because in 1948 a national

342

Not e s to page s 84–102

war hero would most likely be elected. Dewey Papers. 19.  Richard E. Darilek, A Loyal Opposition in Time of  War: The Republican Party and the Politics of  Foreign Policy from Pearl Harbor to Yalta (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1976), 218. 20.  Washington Post, Jan. 26, 1944. 21.  New York Times, Mar. 22, 1944. 22. Ibid. 23.  Ibid., Mar. 23, 1944. 24.  Capital Times, Mar. 23, 1944. 25.  New York Times, Mar. 26, 1944. 26.  Ibid., Mar. 28, 1944. 27.  Ibid., Mar. 29, 1944; Milwaukee Sentinel, Mar. 28, 1944. 28.  New York Times, Mar. 31, 1944. 29.  Ibid., Apr. 1, 1944. 30.  T. E. Dewey to Alf  L andon, Apr. 1, 1944, Dewey Papers. 31. Drury, Senate Journal, 127–128. 32.  Willard R. Smith to W. L. Willkie, May 7, 1944, quoted in Ronald H. Snyder, “Wisconsin Ends the Political Career of  Wendell Willkie,” Wisconsin Magazine of  History, Autumn 2004, 40. 33.  Washington Post, Apr. 6, 1944. 8.  Th e Ba ndwagon Rolling 1.  New York Times, Apr. 6, 1944; Drury, Senate Journal, 132. 2.  New York Times, Apr. 7, 1944; Presidential Press Conferences, vol. 23, 133–134. Earl Warren, too, had no comment to make on this latest development. 3.  Arthur L. Miller (1892–1967) had made an unsuccessful run for governor of  Nebraska in 1940, then held the 4th District seat in Congress from 1943 to 1959. 4.  The Miller-MacArthur correspondence was set forth in the New York Times, Apr. 14, 1944. 5.  Ibid., Apr. 14, 16, 1944. 6.  Ibid., Apr. 17, 1944. 7.  Ibid., Apr. 17, 18, 1944. 8.  Ibid., Apr. 23, May 1, 1944; Manchester, American Caesar, 419.

9.  New York Times, Apr. 30, 1944. 10.  William D. Leahy, I Was There: The Personal Story of  the Chief  of  Staff  to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman Based on His Notes and Diaries Made at the Time (New York: Whittlesey House, 1950), 237. 11.  New York Times, Apr. 28, 1944. 12.  Walter Lippmann to J. F. Dulles, Apr. 29, 1944, Dulles Papers; Samuel Rosenman to Robert Sherwood, May 4, 1944, Rosenman Papers. One writer said Dewey’s speech to the publishers, while not assuring his nomination, “gave him a leg up, a running start on the postconvention contest” and “assured many a Republican doubter of  h is qualifications in foreign affairs”; Forrest Davis, “Dewey’s April Choice,” Saturday Evening Post, Aug. 12, 1944, 43, 46. 13.  New York Times, May 15, 1944. Times reporter Hagerty’s son, James C. Hagerty (a former Times reporter himself), was Dewey’s press secretary and later press secretary to President Dwight Eisenhower. 14.  Ibid., May 28, 1944. 15.  Ickes Diary, June 11, 1944, Ickes Papers; New York Times, May 27, 1944. 16.  Davenport (Iowa) Democrat, Apr. 3, 1944. 17.  New York Times, May 29, 1944; Washington Post, May 30, 1944. 18.  New York Times, May 30, 1944; Washington Post, May 30, 31, 1944. 19.  Ibid., May 31, June 1, 1944. 20.  New York Times, June 9, 10, 1944. 21.  A. Landon to T. E. Dewey, June 5, 1944, Dewey Papers. 22.  Ft. Wayne News-Sentinel, June 9, 1944. 9.  It Looks Lik e Dew ey 1.  Articles naming temporary chairman possibilities are in the New York Times for Mar. 25, Apr. 16, and Apr. 18, 1944. 2.  Ibid., Apr. 19, 20, 1944.

Not e s to page s 102–1 16 3.  Ibid., June 11, 1944. 4.  New York Times and Chicago Tribune, both June 22, 1944. 5.  New York Times, June 19, 1944. 6.  Los Angeles Daily News, June 29, 1944. 7.  New York Times, June 20, 1944. 8.  Wilmington (Del.) Star, June 11, 1944. 9.  New York Times, June 18, 1944. 10.  Ibid., June 19, 20, 1944. 11.  Los Angeles Daily News, June 29, 1944; Chicago Tribune and New York Times, both June 23, 1944. 12.  Chicago Tribune, June 22, 1944. 13.  New York Times, June 25, 1944. 14.  Chicago Tribune, June 22, 1944. 15.  The latter went like this: Vote for John, he’s got the ammunition Just the man to block New Deal ambition He’ll fill the chair and also the position In a land that’s free. And the Reds and Parlor Pinkies Crack-pot Hinkie Dinkies, He will quickly send them on their way. Call the roll, we’re gonna vote for Bricker Call the roll, we’re gonna vote for Bricker He’s the man to save the Constitution So we’ll all stay free.

John D. Zook Collection, Ohio Historical Society. Zook was a speechwriter and campaign advisor for Bricker, and he saved great amounts of  press clippings, ephemera, speeches, and campaign paraphernalia from 1944. 16.  Chicago Tribune, June 25, 1944. 17.  Ibid., June 26, 1944. 18. Barnard, Willkie, 475–476; New York Times, June 16, 17, 1944. 19. Barnard, Willkie, 472–475. 20.  New York Times, June 25, 1944. 21. Ibid.; Atlanta Journal, June 25, 1944; Washington Post, June 28, 1944. 10.  Th e R epu blica n Con v ention 1.  Chicago Tribune, June 26, 1944. 2.  Ibid., June 27, 1944.

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3.  Moley letter to Warren, Apr. 24, 1944, quoted in Jim Newton, Justice for All: Earl Warren and the Nation He Made (New York: Riverhead Books, 2006), 182; Chicago Tribune, June 27, 1944. 4.  New York Times, Kansas City Star, Chicago Tribune, all June 27, 1944; New Yorker, July 8, 1944. 5.  Chicago Tribune, June 28, 1944. 6.  New York Times, June 27, 1944; Atlanta Journal, June 25, 1944; Washington Post, June 28, 1944; Hartford (Conn.) Times, June 29, 1944. 7.  Chicago Tribune, June 27, 1944. 8.  New York Times, June 27, 1944. Willkie had obtained a copy of  t he foreign policy plank from Arthur Krock of  t he Times, who relayed Willkie’s request for it to Warren Austin, who was in charge of  w riting that part of  t he platform. Austin supplied it, on the condition that both Krock and Willkie hold it in confidence until it was publicly released. “I was surprised,” Krock later wrote, “and Austin was indignant” when Willkie made his statement prior to the release of  t he plank by the Resolutions Committee. Arthur Krock, Memoirs: Sixty Years on the Firing Line (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1986), 196–197. 9.  New York Times, June 27, 1944. The Dulles Papers include numerous letters of  Vandenberg, Austin, and Dulles in late May and early June on the proposed plank. 10.  Chicago Tribune, June 27, 28, 1944. 11.  Washington Post, June 28, 1944. 12.  Washington Post, June 30, 1944; Wilmington (Del.) Journal Every Evening, July 1, 1944. 13.  Los Angeles Times, June 28, 1944. 14. Ibid. 15. Newton, Warren, 182; Chicago Tribune, June 28, 1944. 16.  According to Drew Pearson, the brief  “Byrd for VP” boomlet had originated with John J. O’Connor, a former New York

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Democratic congressman now bitterly opposed to FDR. Chairman Spangler, Knutson, and Joe Martin all picked up on the Byrd idea, but the Dewey leaders turned it down. Jaeckle said, “If  the Republican Party . . . has to go into the opposition camp for its Vice Presidential candidate, then we’d better throw in the sponge right now”; Washington Post, June 29, 1944. 17.  Los Angeles Times, June 28, 1944. 18. Herzstein, Luce, 338; Ralph G. Martin, Henry and Clare: An Intimate Portrait of  the Luces (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1991), 239; New Yorker, July 8, 1944. 19.  Concord (Mass.) Journal, July 6, 1944; Chicago Tribune, June 29, 1944. 20.  Bridgeport (Conn.) Herald, July 9, 1944; Chicago Sun (Milburn P. Akers), June 29, 1944. 21.  Joe Martin, as told to Robert J. Donovan, My First Fifty Years in Politics (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1960), 162. 22.  Ritter was called by one paper “either an eccentric or a MacArthur idolator”; Washington Post, June 29, 1944. 23.  Chicago Tribune, June 29, 1944. 24.  Washington Post, June 29, 1944. The cat had been inadvertently let out of  t he bag several days earlier when a caller at Dewey HQ , asking for Paul Lockwood, was told by the young lady in charge, “Mr. Lockwood is not in the city, but expects to accompany the Governor from Albany”; Ralph Smith in the Atlanta Journal, June 25, 1944. 25.  Los Angeles Times, June 28, 1944. 26.  Chicago Tribune, June 29, 1944; Beyer, Dewey, 190. 27.  Los Angeles Times, June 29, 1944. 28.  Washington Post, June 30, 1944. 29.  Concord (Mass.) Journal, July 6, 1944; New York Times, June 29, 1944. Tom Dewey’s voice was always clear, firm, and resonant. 30.  Los Angeles Times, June 29, 1944. 31.  Ibid., June 28, 1944.

11.  M e a n w hile, th e Democr ats 1. Daniels, Witness, 98. 2.  Dec. 12, 1943, entry, Frank C. Walker Diary, Frank Comerford Walker Papers, University of  Notre Dame Library (hereafter “Walker Papers”). 3.  Harold Ickes to Stacey Mosser, Jan. 6, 1944, in Ickes Papers. In his diary for January 1, 1944, Ickes wrote that “I had not been talking politics with the President for a long time”; Diary, Ickes Papers. 4.  New York Times, Jan. 25, 1944. 5. Freidel, Rendezvous, 495. 6. Drury, Senate Journal, 128 7.  Washington Post, Mar. 5, 1944. 8.  Edwin W. Pauley, as told to Richard English, “Why Truman Is President,” 10, a typescript in the Harry S. Truman Library, apparently written in 1950. See also “Memorandum For: The President” from M. J. C. (Matthew Connolly) dated January 24, 1950, Harry S. Truman Papers (hereafter “Truman Papers”), Harry S. Truman Library, in which Connolly recalled “that you mentioned that you had at some time previous, made a speech in San Francisco in which you endorsed the nomination for Vice President of  Speaker Sam Rayburn.” 9.  Jack B. McGuire, “Andrew Higgins Plays Presidential Politics,” Louisiana History, Summer 1974, 277. After the convention, Higgins organized and led a group called Businessmen for Roosevelt; he was given the honor of  i ntroducing the President for his speech at Shibe Park, Philadelphia, on October 27. 10.  Ed Harris to Richard H. Rovere, May 30, 1958, Richard H. Rovere Papers, State Historical Society of  W isconsin. Hannegan bet Harris “a new hat that he could get Truman nominated.” Harris paid the bet with a new Stetson that Hannegan never wore; Thomas F. Eagleton and Diane L. Duffin, “Bob Hannegan and Harry Truman’s Vice Presidential

Not e s to page s 1 2 6 –131 Nomination,” Missouri Historical Review, April 1996, 269. 11.  George E. Allen Oral History interview, May 15, 1969, Harry S. Truman Library. 12. Catledge, My Life, 146–147. 13.  New York Times, Mar. 19, 26, 1944. 14.  Harold F. Gosnell, Truman’s Crises: A Political Biography of  Harry S. Truman (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980), 194. 12.  Th e A iling Pr esident 1.  Charles Bohlen, Witness to History (New York: W. W. Norton, 1973), 143–144. 2.  Ibid., 137; Lord Hastings Ismay, The Memoirs of  General Lord Ismay (New York: Viking, 1960), 338. 3.  Samuel I. Rosenman, Working with Roosevelt (New York: Harper & Bros., 1950), 411–412; Eleanor Roosevelt, This I Remember (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1949), 327. 4.  James A. Farley, Jim Farley’s Story: The Roosevelt Years (New York: Whittlesey House, McGraw-Hill, 1948), 363. 5.  Vice-Admiral Ross T. McIntire, White House Physician (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1946), 57. One observer wrote that McIntire “after twelve years as physician to the president was now more courtier than doctor”; Brinkley, Washington Goes to War, 261. As one example of  McIntire’s casual approach to the President’s health, the last time he had checked FDR’s blood pressure before the March 27 visit to Bethesda was three years earlier, on February 27, 1941, when it was a high 188/105. Nothing was done then. 6.  Marguerite “Missy” LeHand was Roosevelt’s secretary for twenty years, during which time she fell in love with him and often, because of  Eleanor’s frequent absences for one reason or another as well as the peculiar relationship between her and FDR, acted as his second wife, helping with his stamp collection,

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mixing martinis for his evening cocktail hours, and “protecting him from bores, special pleaders, and visitors of  no use”; Joseph E. Persico, Franklin & Lucy: President Roosevelt, Mrs. Rutherfurd, and the Other Remarkable Women in His Life (New York: Random House, 2008), 225. 7. McIntire, White House Physician, 21. 8.  Ward, ed., Closest Companion, 275–276; FDR to Flynn, Feb. 8, 1944, Roosevelt and Lash, eds., F.D.R.: His Personal Letters, vol. 2, 1491. 9.  New York Times, Mar. 22, 26, 1944; Atlanta Journal, Mar. 25, 1944; William D. Hassett, Off  the Record with F.D.R. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1958), 239; Neal Gabler, Winchell: Gossip, Power and the Culture of  Celebrity (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), 341. 10.  Lucy Mercer was the social secretary to Eleanor Roosevelt until the latter discovered in 1918 that Lucy and Franklin were carrying on an affair. When FDR considered a divorce in order to marry Lucy, his mother threatened to cut off  h is funds and his political advisor Louis Howe said a divorce would destroy his political career. Roosevelt then agreed to Eleanor’s terms for the continuation of  t heir marriage; first, that he would immediately break off  a ll contact with Lucy Mercer and, second, that he and Eleanor would discontinue sexual relations (which apparently had been stopped anyway after the birth of  t heir fifth child). While the second condition was met, Roosevelt continued (at least by correspondence) to stay in touch with Lucy during the 1920s; Persico, Franklin & Lucy, 171. By the 1940s, by which time Lucy had been married (to Winthrop Rutherfurd) and widowed (on March 19, 1944), she and the President were seeing each other frequently, although always without Eleanor’s knowledge, their meetings arranged or connived in by the White House staff  a nd Secret Service and, at the end, by Anna Boettiger.

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11.  A recent work by Steven Lomazow, M.D., and Eric Fettmann, FDR’s Deadly Secret (New York: Public Affairs, 2009), claims that Roosevelt had a melanoma resulting from a lesion over his left eye and that this spread cancer throughout his body, resulting in the various traumas and episodes from which the President suffered through 1943, 1944, and up to his death. Curiously, the authors posit that “the five criteria for diagnosing a slightly raised lesion like Roosevelt’s as melanoma” can also result in a diagnosis of  “an exceedingly common, noncancerous growth called a solar lentigo or seborrheic keratosis.” They state that the only way to be certain of  its nature would be a biopsy; they know of  no biopsy being taken, although in a footnote, they refer to a pathologist who claimed to see a tissue slide of  F DR’s lesion that was benign and then dismiss his report; ibid., 66. Without anything further, they then make the assumption that Roosevelt’s lesion was cancerous and proceed with the rest of  t heir book on that basis. Roosevelt may or may not have suffered from cancer; this book does not seem dispositive of  t he issue. 12.  Howard G. Bruenn, M.D., “Clinical Notes on the Illness and Death of  P resident Franklin D. Roosevelt,” Annals of  Internal Medicine, April 1970, 579–581. 13.  Presidential Press Conferences, vol. 23, 119–120. 14. Winfield, FDR and News Media, 204–205; A. Merriman Smith, Merriman Smith’s Book of  Presidents: A White House Memoir (New York: W. W. Norton, 1972), 216. Walter Trohan, White House correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, who disliked Roosevelt, later wrote that “Steve [Early], like me, disagreed with McIntire’s rosy medical reports, but said there was nothing he could do about it”; Trohan, Political Animals, 201.

15.  Bruenn, “Clinical Notes,” 581–582. Roosevelt was also directed to cut back substantially on his cigarette smoking. 16.  Ibid., 583. 17.  Ward, ed., Closest Companion, 288–289; Freidel, Rendezvous, 513. 18.  New York Times, Apr. 5, 1944. 19.  Ibid., Apr. 8, 1944. 20.  Bernard M. Baruch, Baruch: The Public Years (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960), 335; New York Times, Apr. 11, 1944. A Times editorial the same day said, “The public servant now has a chance to do a little swimming and maybe lie in the sun. Good weather and good rest to him!” 21.  E. Roosevelt, This I Remember, 327–328. Of  course, Eleanor was not aware that Lucy Rutherfurd visited Franklin at Hobcaw while his wife was otherwise occupied. 22.  Bruenn, “Clinical Notes,” 583. 23.  Presidential Press Conferences, vol. 23, 141. 24.  Ibid., vol. 23, 142, 147. 25. Catledge, My Life, 144–146. 26. Hassett, Off  the Record, 241. 13.  W ill Roosev elt Ru n? 1.  Other names being tossed about included Cordell Hull, Senator Joseph O’Mahoney of  Wyoming, Under Secretary of  State Edward Stettinius, Ambassador John G. Winant, Senator Millard Tydings of  Maryland, Senator Guy Gillette of  Iowa, Governor Robert Kerr of  Oklahoma, Governor Prentice Cooper of  Tennessee, Governor Ellis Arnall of  Georgia, Governor Chauncey Sparks of  A labama, Senator Samuel Jackson of  I ndiana, Governor Henry Schricker, also of  I ndiana, industrialists Henry J. Kaiser and Charles E. Wilson, and even Wendell Willkie. Senator Tom Connally of  Texas was mentioned as well, though he publicly denied any interest in the spot. Tommy Corcoran allegedly told his friend

Not e s to page s 137–1 4 4 Justice Hugo Black that he could get labor, liberals, and money lined up for the justice’s nomination, but Black turned him down; Roger K. Newman, Hugo Black: A Biography (New York: Pantheon Books, 1994), 308–309. 2. Freidel, Rendezvous, 531. 3.  Edward J. Flynn, You’re the Boss (New York: Viking Press, 1947), 196–197. 4.  New York Daily News, June 29, 1944. 5.  Roosevelt and Lash, eds., F.D.R.: His Personal Letters, vol. 2, 1451–1452. 6.  E. Roosevelt, This I Remember, 328; Leahy, I Was There, 239. 7.  Ward, ed., Closest Companion, 280, 301, 317. It was in the May 22 note that Daisy mentioned FDR’s statement “I have a candidate”—the industrialist Henry J. Kaiser—“but don’t breathe it to a soul.” His enthusiasm for Kaiser ebbed when he learned that Kaiser had once advocated a national sales tax. Ibid., 302. 8. Flynn, You’re the Boss, 194. 9. Daniels, Witness, 234. 10.  Rosenman, ed., Public Papers, vol. 13, 197–198. 11.  Life, July 24, 1944; Washington Times-Herald, July 12, 1944; Drury, Senate Journal, 216. 12.  New York Times, July 13, 1944. 14.  W ho Ru ns w ith Roosev elt? 1.  Robert L. Baker, “Henry Wallace Would Never Have Dropped the Bomb on Japan,” Executive Intelligence Review, Nov. 7, 2003. 2.  Crowley to Byrnes, Mar. 20, 1956, in Crowley’s Personal Papers, cited in Stuart L. Weiss, The President’s Man: Leo Crowley and Franklin Roosevelt in Peace and War (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996), 193. It is quite possible that Crowley, twelve years later, confused this visit to the White House with one of  t he following day. 3.  Rosenman, ed., Public Papers, xiii, 132; New York Times, May 21, 1944. Wal-

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lace was accompanied on his journey by John Hazard, liaison officer on Soviet supply problems, and State Department China hands Owen Lattimore and John Carter Vincent. Ickes took strong exception to FDR’s statement, noting that “there is only a heart-beat between him and the President and for the latter to refer to him as a ‘messenger’ to me is distinctly infra dig”; Ickes Diary, May 27, 1944, Ickes Papers. 4.  Ellis Arnall to Richard H. Rovere, June 3, 1958, Robert E. Hannegan Papers (hereafter “Hannegan Papers”), Harry S. Truman Library. 5.  Wallace to Rosenman, July 9, 1944, Rosenman Papers. A note attached to the telegram reads, “S.I.R. delegated by Pres. Roosevelt to tell Wallace that he could not go ‘down the line’ for him in 1944. Wallace was ducking Rosenman”; ibid. 6.  Ickes Diary, June 18, 1944, Ickes Papers. Curiously, Ickes wound up supporting Wallace at the ’4 4 convention. 7.  Edward L. and Frederick H. Schapsmeier, Prophet in Politics: Henry A. Wallace and the War Years, 1940–1965 (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1970), 98. 8.  New York Times, July 11, 1944. 9.  Blum, ed., The Price of  Vision, 362. 10.  David Robertson, Sly and Able: A Political Biography of  James F. Byrnes (New York: W. W. Norton, 1994), 348–349; Moley, 27 Masters, 129. The guest list for “Dinner at the White House, Tuesday evening, July 11, 1944,” interestingly enough, had the name of  “Hon. James F. Byrnes” crossed out, presumably because he was one of  t hose to be discussed; John Boettiger Papers, Roosevelt Library. 11.  Cabell Phillips, The Truman Presidency: The History of  a Triumphant Succession (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1969), 43. Phillips was given this information directly by Porter.

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Not e s to page s 1 45–15 2

12.  In spring 1942, Flynn had been involved in a minor scandal involving moving paving blocks from New York City to his country home. Shortly thereafter, Byrnes had reacted coolly when FDR suggested naming Flynn ambassador to China, which was not done. When Flynn was named ambassador to Australia in January 1943, the paving-block incident was stirred up amid a storm of  objections, and Byrnes was in the midst of  t he discussions that resulted in Flynn asking that his name be withdrawn. Flynn held Byrnes partly responsible for his difficulties; James F. Byrnes, All in One Lifetime (New York: Harper & Bros., 1958), 218–219. 13.  On Bonham, Moley, 27 Masters, 247–248; Rayburn’s biographer called the Texas split a “phony issue” but agreed that it cost the Speaker any further consideration on July 11; Steinberg, Rayburn, 219. 14.  Barkley said he “felt that Mr. Roosevelt . . . did not favor me as his running mate”; Barkley, That Reminds Me, 170, 190. 15.  Biddle on Winant: Ickes Diary, May 20, 1944, Ickes Papers. Winant, a graduate of  Princeton and three-term Republican governor of  New Hampshire, had been FDR’s first chairman of  t he Social Security Board, 1935–1937, helping to get that program off  to a successful start, and ambassador to Britain since 1941. 16.  Eagleton and Duffin, “Hannegan and Truman,” 272. 17.  Frank Walker, “My Version of  t he Note,” 1, Walker Papers. 18.  Ibid., 2–3. See also, Walker, “Grace Tully’s Story,” dated 6/15/51, Walker Papers. In Grace Tully’s book, she places the letter-retyping occurrence at the railroad-yard meeting in Chicago during the convention, but this would seem to be erroneous since the agreement to run Byrnes came out of  t hat meeting and the Truman-Douglas letter would

have been inappropriate at that moment; Tully, F.D.R.: My Boss, 276–277. In addition, Hannegan spoke to Sam Rosenman when the latter was writing his book in 1952 (though the former DNC chairman died before reviewing Rosenman’s draft), and after talking with Hannegan Rosenman wrote that the chairman returned to the White House on July 12 to get the handwritten note typed, ruling out the railroad-yard-typing story. For Truman’s recollection, Robert H. Ferrell, ed., The Autobiography of  Harry S. Truman (Boulder: Colorado Associated University Press, 1980), 89. 19.  John Morton Blum, ed., The Price of  Vision: The Diary of  Henry A. Wallace 1942–1946 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973), 364, 366–367; “‘FDR Wanted Me on Ticket,’ Says Wallace,” Chicago HeraldAmerican, May 14, 1947; Culver and Hyde, American Dreamer, 351. 20.  Ibid., 371. 21. Drury, Senate Journal, 217. 22.  Ward, ed., Closest Companion, 318–319. 23.  New York Times, July 13, 1944. 24. Byrnes, One Lifetime, 219–221. There is little doubt that Jimmy Byrnes became an eager vice presidential candidate. 25. Freidel, Rendezvous, 532; Byrnes, One Lifetime, 221; memo dated July 12, 1944, Walker Papers. 26. Byrnes, One Lifetime, 221–223. 27. Truman, Memoirs: Year of  Decisions, vol. 1, 190. 28. Barkley, That Reminds Me, 189. 29. Byrnes, One Lifetime, 223–225. It should be kept in mind that the “transcript” was made by Jimmy Byrnes alone. 30.  Ibid., 225. 31. Drury, Senate Journal, 216; Fred L. Israel, ed., The War Diary of  Breckinridge Long: Selections from the Years 1939–1944 (Lincoln: University of  Nebraska Press, 1966), 364; New York Times, July 13, 1944. 32.  Time, July 24, 1944.

Not e s to page s 153–158 15.  Th e Democr ats A r r i v e in Chicago 1.  Philadelphia Record, June 18, 1944. 2.  Washington Times-Herald, July 3, 1944, for Chavez. 3.  Chicago Sun, June 4, 1944; New York Times, July 18, 1944. 4.  Ibid., July 16, 1944; Chicago Tribune, July 19, 20, 1944. 5.  New York Times, July 16, 1944. 6.  Ibid., July 14, 1944. 7.  Life, June 5, 1944; Jouett Todd to Russell Sprague, May 24, 1944, Dewey Papers. It was at a press conference in Chicago on May 23 that Hannegan said he was for Roosevelt in 1948 “in the event there is a comparable emergency and the Republicans have a candidate of  comparably little experience”; New York Times, May 24, 1944. 8.  Typed memo from D. E. Krauss, secretary to Harry Hopkins, July 20, 1944, Harry L. Hopkins Papers (hereafter “Hopkins Papers”), Roosevelt Library. 9.  New York Times, July 16, 1944. 10.  Robert H. Ferrell, Choosing Truman: The Democratic Convention of  1944 (Columbia: University of  M issouri Press, 1994), 37–38. The source for the quote about Byrnes is the Byrnes autobiography, All in One Lifetime, 226, presumably quoting what Kelly related to him. Pauley, in his manuscript, “Why Truman Is President,” 18, claimed that just he and Hannegan met with Roosevelt on his train, although the official log for the trip specifically mentioned Kelly (and not Pauley); Truman Papers. The “Clear it with Sidney” quote, at first coming out as “Clear everything with Sidney,” which became a staple of  t he Republican campaign, has never been categorically established as true; the man who allegedly made the statement, Roosevelt, never acknowledged it, and the man to whom it was supposedly made, Hannegan, denied that it was. “That story is absolutely

349

untrue. I don’t know who invented it,” Hannegan said, but of  course this was in the midst of  t he campaign and it was now to the Democrats’ advantage to cast doubt on the quote; New York Times, Sept. 12, 1944. In addition, of  course, there are descriptions of  t he railroad-yard meeting that have Roosevelt agreeing to Truman, not Byrnes, which would make the “Clear it with Sidney” quote meaningless. Sam Rosenman, for example, said that the railyard meeting was designed to get Byrnes out of  t he race and Truman in; Rosenman, Working with Roosevelt, 449–450. There are a couple of  t hings wrong with Rosenman’s story, which he wrote well after the fact: (1) he says Hannegan alone met with FDR, when clearly Kelly was involved as well; (2) Rosenman was not present at the meeting. While Roosevelt was devious and/or confused about his vice presidential selection, it seems incredible that he would bring Byrnes, whom he liked, from Washington to Chicago just to be humiliated. 11.  Time, July 24, 1944. 12.  Again, the source for this is Byrnes, One Lifetime, 226. 13.  Ibid., 227. 14.  Washington Post, July 22, 1944; Frank Walker, “How Harry S. Truman Was Nominated for Vice-President in 1944,” 14, Walker Papers. 15.  Walter Brown Diary, July 17, 1944, Byrnes Papers. 16.  “Telephone Conversation with F.D.R. on Tuesday, July 18, 1944,” Byrnes Papers. 17.  Ibid.; “Conversation with A. F. Whitney, the afternoon of  Tuesday, July 18, 1944,” Byrnes Papers. Whitney had earlier written to a fellow union official that “our friend, Jimmy Byrnes . . . will not only strengthen the ticket if  nominated . . . but a man who will fill this high office with dignity”; A. F. Whitney to Martin H. Miller, July 12, 1944, Byrnes Papers.

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Not e s to page s 158–170

18.  Byrnes to Burnet R. Maybank, July 19, 1944, Byrnes Papers. 19. Barkley, That Reminds Me, 190. 20.  Chicago Times, July 18, 1944. A first draft of  R oosevelt’s letter to Senator Jackson in the FDR Library included “two most important political tests” a candidate should meet: “Will the nominee draw affirmative support to the ticket? Will the nominee meet opposition in socalled doubtful states to the extent that he will diminish the strength of  t he ticket?” These sentences were eliminated in the final draft; Brenda L. Heaster, “Who’s on Second: The 1944 Democratic Vice Presidential Nomination,” Missouri Historical Review, January 1986, 162. 21.  Washington Post, July 21, 1944. 22.  Chicago Tribune, July 20, 1944. 23.  New York Times, July 14, 1944. 24.  Truman interview with Daniels. Aug. 30, Nov. 12, 1949, Jonathan Daniels Papers (hereafter “Daniels Papers”), Truman Library. 25. Truman, Memoirs: Year of  Decisions, vol. 1, 191. In October 1941, Truman and his committee had been instrumental in the dismissal of  H illman from the Office of  Production Management for his interference with a war construction contract; ibid., vol. 1, 180. 26.  Truman interview with Daniels, Daniels Papers. Some who were there reported that Truman said, “Oh shit.” 27.  Chicago Tribune, July 19, 1944. 28. Ibid. 29.  Washington Post, July 21, 1944. 30.  New York World-Telegram, July 18, 1944. 16.  Democr ats in Con v ention 1.  Thirty-two witnesses showed up to present their views to the subcommittee on foreign relations. For the advance preparation, see, for example, memo of  Samuel Rosenman to the President, June 27, 1944, with “my proposed draft of  a platform”

that had been cleared with Byrnes but no one else; Rosenman Papers. 2.  Chicago Tribune, July 20, 1944. 3.  When Barkley attacked Roosevelt’s veto of  t he tax bill in February he proudly asserted that he did so “without regard for the political consequences”; Drury, Senate Journal, 86. Now that he was encountering those political consequences he was not so happy about it. 4.  Wilson W. Wyatt, Whistle Stops: Adventures in Public Life (Lexington: University Press of  Kentucky, 1985), 40. Wyatt, 39 years old in 1944, served as mayor of  L ouisville and later as lieutenant governor of  Kentucky. He was one of  t he founders of  A mericans for Democratic Action in 1946 and was campaign manager for Adlai Stevenson’s 1952 presidential run. 5.  Chicago Tribune, July 20, 1944. 6.  Los Angeles Times, July 21, 1944; Chicago Tribune, July 21, 1944. 7.  Washington Post, July 21, 1944. 8.  Chicago Tribune, July 22, 1944. 9. Wyatt, Whistle Stops, 41. 10.  Washington Post, July 21, 1944. 11. Schapsmeier, Prophet in Politics, 105, based on a letter from Pauley to the authors of  Sept. 3, 1963. 12.  Life, July 31, 1944. 13.  Los Angeles Times, July 21, 1944; Chicago Tribune, July 21, 1944. 14.  Time, July 31, 1944; Schapsmeier, Prophet in Politics, 109. 15.  Rosenman, ed., Public Papers, vol. 13, 200; Hannegan Papers. 16.  W. O. Douglas to FDR, July 27, 1944, Hannegan Papers; James L. Moses, “William O. Douglas’s ‘Political Ambitions’ and the 1944 Vice-Presidential Nomination: A Reinterpretation,” Historian, Winter 2000, 326. 17.  Chicago Tribune, July 21, 1944. When she said the Democrats had turned “a once-devastated, flood-ravished, poverty-stricken” Tennessee River valley into “a productive, happy place to live,” Mrs.

Not e s to page s 172–2 09 Douglas provoked an angry editorial in the Knoxville Journal, decrying the necessity to “grovel before you and those others of  t he master race who hold membership in the New Deal”; Knoxville Journal, July 22, 1944. Mrs. Douglas was elected to Congress in the fall, became involved in a lengthy relationship with Texas Congressman Lyndon Johnson, and was famously defeated in a race for the Senate in 1950 by Richard Nixon, who cited her left-wing political views to call her “the Pink Lady.” 18.  New York Times, July 21, 1944. 19.  Washington Post, July 22, 1944. 20.  Telegram, George Skadding to Steve Early, Aug. 2, 1944, Early Papers. 21.  Culver and Hyde, American Dreamer, 363. 22.  Joel Bennett Clark (1890–1954) was the senator’s real name, but he went by Bennett Champ Clark to capitalize on the fame within the Democratic Party of  h is father Champ Clark, who had just missed the party’s presidential nomination in 1912. Bennett Clark was elected to the Senate in 1932 and served until 1945, after losing his party’s primary in August 1944. He was an anti–New Deal Democrat and careless about tending to constituents’ interests. 23.  Washington Post, July 22, 1944. 24.  Baltimore Sun, July 22, 1944. 17.  Ca mpa ign on th e High Se as 1.  New Yorker, July 29, 1944. 2.  Life, July 31, 1944. 3. Daniels, Witness, 238. 4.  Washington Post, July 22, 1944. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid., Aug. 16, 1944. Tom Dewey would find reasons in the future to regret the selection of  Harry Truman. 7.  New York Herald Tribune, July 22, 1944. 8.  Chicago Tribune, July 20, 1944. 9.  Ibid., July 22, 1944. 10.  Washington Star, July 23, 1944.

351

11.  Chicago Tribune, July 22, 1944. Roosevelt sent Wallace a wire from San Diego, congratulating him for his “magnificent fight” and continuing, “Please tell Ilo [Henry’s wife] not to make any plans for leaving Washington in January”; Russell Lord, The Wallaces of  Iowa (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1947), 537. 12.  Letter, Ickes to Wallace, July 24, 1944, in Culver and Hyde, American Dreamer, 369–370. 13. Flynn, You’re the Boss, 183. 14.  For Byrnes’s non-reaction to FDR’s speech, see Jonathan Daniels Oral History, Truman Papers; for Byrnes and Cat­ledge, Robertson, Sly and Able, 361; for Krock’s column, New York Times, July 25, 1944. 15. Leahy, I Was There, 230. 16.  New York Times, Aug. 11, 1944 (dis­patch dated July 29 but delayed for security). 17. Perret, MacArthur, 401. 18. Manchester, American Caesar, 420. 19. Perret, MacArthur, 403. 20.  Ibid., 403–404. 21. Leahy, I Was There, 250. 22.  Ibid., 251. 23.  Presidential Press Conferences, vol. 24, 28. 24.  Rosenman, ed., Public Papers, vol. 13, 210. 25. Leahy, I Was There, 254; Rosenman, Working with Roosevelt, 461. 26.  Barbara Stuhler, “A Minnesota Footnote to the 1944 Presidential Election,” Minnesota History, Spring 1990, 29; Michael F. Reilly, as told to William J. Slocum, Reilly of  the White House (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1947), 194; Rosenman, Working with Roosevelt, 461. 27. Freidel, Rendezvous, 544–545. 18.  Th e R epu blica ns Go to Wor k 1.  New York Times, June 30, 1944. The Times pointed out in an editorial the next day that Dewey’s endorsement of  Hull’s

352

Not e s to page s 210 –221

trade policies was contrary to what the GOP platform and recent Republican congressional votes said about Hull’s policies; ibid., July 1, 1944. 2.  Washington Post, June 30, 1944. 3. Beyer, Dewey, 108–109. Jaeckle’s announcement in November was “as curt as it was unexpected,” and it “completely amazed and surprised” Tom Dewey; ibid. 4.  New York Times, July 1, 1944. 5.  “With hundreds of  decently named hotels to pick from,” commented the New Yorker, July 22, 1944, “they managed to get themselves ensconced in a place called the Roosevelt.” 6.  Chicago Tribune, July 22, 1944. 7.  A. Vandenberg to J. F. Dulles, July 2, 1944, Dulles Papers. The platform stressed that a “post-war co-operative organization” should be formed “among sovereign nations,” as well as requiring the advice and consent of  t wo-thirds of  t he Senate. 8.  New York Times, July 9, 1944. 9.  H. H. Burton to T. E. Dewey, June 30, 1944, and Wm. Cox to Dewey, July 5, 1944, both in Dewey Papers; Barnard, Willkie, 478. Ironically, Burton would be appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court on September 30, 1945, by one of  the Demo­­cratic victors in the election, Harry Truman. 10.  Ibid., 478. Crum, who later became famous for defending the “Hollywood Ten” before the House Un-American Activities Committee, ultimately himself  endorsed FDR. 11.  New York Times, July 11, 1944. 12.  Ibid., July 13, 15, 1944. 13.  Ibid., July 12, 1944. 14.  Ibid., July 31, 1944. Dewey’s personal party was accompanied by nearly fifty reporters and photographers. 15.  Ibid., Aug. 1, 1944. 16.  Ibid., July 30, Aug. 3, 1944. 17.  Ibid., Aug. 6, 1944. 18. Beyer, Dewey, 201. 19.  New York Times, Aug. 4, 1944.

20.  “On the Home Front,” Republican National Committee statement, Aug. 14, 1944. 21.  New York Times, Aug. 6, 1944. The Times headline for this article was “dew ey decl a r es roosev elt u nfit for post-wa r job.” 22.  Ibid., July 29, 1944; New Yorker, Aug. 19, 1944. Fish, who was FDR’s congressman, was a two-time All-American tackle at Harvard, was elected to the College Football Hall of  Fame, and lived on to 1991; when he died at the age of  102 he had lived longer than any person who had ever served in Congress. His grandfather was Grant’s secretary of  state. 23.  New York Times, Aug. 17, 1944. 24.  Ibid., Aug. 18, 1944; John Robinson Beal, John Foster Dulles (New York: Harper & Bros., 1957), 97. 25.  New York Times, Aug. 20, 1944. 26. Ibid. 27.  J. F. Dulles to C. Hull, Nov. 17, 1943, Dulles Papers. 28.  I. F. Stone, “Dewey’s Monkey Wrench,” Nation, Aug. 26, 1944, 232. 29.  New Yorker, Sept. 2, 1944; Dewey Papers. 30.  Bill Severn, Toward One World: The Life of  Wendell Willkie (New York: Ives Washburn, 1967), 214; New Yorker, Sept. 2, 1944; W. L. Willkie/J. F. Dulles statement, Aug. 21, 1944, Dulles Papers. 31.  Washington Post, Aug. 24, 1944. 32.  New York Times, Aug. 1, 1944; Chicago Tribune, Aug. 25, 1944; W. W. Bacon to T. E. Dewey, Aug. 22, 1944, Dewey Papers. The twenty-five states claimed by Brownell were Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Colorado, Delaware, Connecticut, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, Nebraska, New Jersey, both Dakotas, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. 33.  Chicago Tribune, Aug. 30, 1944; Los Angeles Times, Aug. 31, 1944.

Not e s to page s 221–239 34.  New York Times, Aug. 30, Sept. 6, 1944. 35.  “What to Talk About,” Dewey Papers. 36. Herzstein, Luce, 342–343. 19.  Dew ey H e a ds W est 1.  Life, Sept. 18, 1944; New York Times, Sept. 8, 1944. 2.  L. B. Hershey to F. D. Roosevelt, Oct. 13, 1944, Early Papers; New York Times, Sept. 8, 1944. 3. Watkins, Righteous Pilgrim, 813–814. 4.  New York Times, Sept. 12, 1944. 5.  Ibid., Sept. 7, 1944. 6.  Ibid., Sept. 9, 1944; W. L. Willkie to Leverett Saltonstall, Sept. 27, 1944, in Barnard, Willkie, 495. Willkie advised Saltonstall not to get too tied up “with the recent nonsense Dewey has been talking” and recommended “a certain aloofness which may force the candidate to take the right course, if  a nything can do so.” 7. Gaer, The First Round, 282. 8.  New York Times, Sept. 13,1944. 9.  Ibid., Sept. 14, 1944. 10.  Ibid., Sept. 15, 1944. 11.  U.S. News & World Report, Sept. 22, 1944. 12.  New York Times, Sept. 15, 1944. 13.  Ibid., Sept. 17, 1944. 14.  Ibid., Sept. 19, 1944. 15. Ibid. 16.  Ibid., Sept. 20, 1944. 17.  Ibid., Sept. 21, 1944. 18.  Los Angeles Times, Sept. 24, 1944. 19.  New York Times, Sept. 22, 1944. 20.  Telegram, Sept. 20, 1944, Truman Papers. Also on the list for FDR were Luther Adler, Robert Benchley, Joan Bennett, Charles Boyer, Lloyd Bridges, Richard Conte, Eddie Cantor, Harry Carey, Lou Costello, Laraine Day, Linda Darnell, Nina Foch, Nanette Fabray, Ed Gardiner, Jack Guilford, John Garfield, Hugh Herbert, Oscar Homolka, Walter Huston, Rex Ingram, Danny Kaye, Evelyn Keyes, Gene

353

Kelly, Elia Kazin, Paul Lucas, Henry Morgan, Agnes Moorhead, Virginia Mayo, Chester Morris, Nazimova, Dick Powell, Vincent Price, Gregory Peck, Ann Revere, Sylvia Sidney, Gayle Sundergaard, Phil Silvers, Art Tatum, Akim Tamiroff, Jane Wyman, Dooley Wilson (“Play It Again, Sam”), Shelley Winters, Teresa Wright, and Robert Walker. 21.  New York Times, Sept. 23, 1944; Life, Oct. 9, 1944. 22.  Los Angeles Times, Sept. 24, 1944. 23.  New York Daily News, Aug. 27, 1944, Sept. 7, 10, 1944. 20.  Th e Battle Is On 1.  Chicago Tribune and Washington Post, both Sept. 25, 1944. 2.  Life, Oct. 2, 1944. 3.  Washington Post, Sept. 25, 1944. 4.  James A. Wechsler, “Bricker’s Running Mate,” Nation, Oct. 7, 1944. 5.  New York Times, Sept. 26, 1944. 6. Ibid. 7.  Ibid., Sept. 27, 1944; A. Capper to T. E. Dewey, Sept. 27, 1944, and telegram, McCormick to Dewey, Sept. 26, 1944, both in Dewey Papers. Dewey wrote back to McCormick, thanking him for the wire and adding, “It had seemed to me that I should maintain a constructive note until Roosevelt gave me my opening. When he did, I was glad to walk in”; Dewey to McCormick, Sept. 29, 1944, Dewey Papers. 8.  Chicago Tribune, Sept. 29, 1944. Interestingly, Dewey subsequently told Brownell the Oklahoma City talk was “the worst damned speech I ever made”; R. N. Smith, Dewey, 425, quoting from an interview the author had with Brownell in 1974. 9.  New York Times, Sept. 27, 1944. 10.  Max Lerner, Public Journal: Marginal Notes on Wartime America (New York: Viking Press, 1945), 201–202. 11.  New York Herald Tribune, Sept. 27, 1944.

354

Not e s to page s 239 –253

12.  Joseph E. Persico, Roosevelt’s Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage (New York: Random House, 2001), 345–346. 13.  Ibid., 346–347; Forrest C. Pogue, George C. Marshall: Organizer of  Victory 1943–1945 (New York: Viking Press, 1973), 471. 14.  R. N. Smith, Dewey, 426–430. 15.  Washington Post and New York Times, both Sept. 28, 1944. 16.  New York Times, Oct. 1, 1944. 17.  Wechsler, “Bricker’s Running Mate.” 18.  New York Sun, Nov. 1, 1944. 19.  Ford Bond, “1944 Republican Radio,” Dewey Papers. 20.  Ford Bond to state chairmen and state radio directors, Oct. 2, 1944, Dewey Papers. 21.  Th e October Ca mpa ign K icks In 1. Editorial, Life, Oct. 2, 1944. 2.  New York Times, Oct. 1, 1944. 3.  Ibid., Sept. 20, 1944. 4.  U.S. News & World Report, Sept. 29, 1944. 5.  Robert H. Ferrell, ed., Dear Bess: The Letters from Harry to Bess Truman, 1910–1959 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1983), 509; Truman, Memoirs: Year of  Decisions, vol. 1, 193. 6.  New York Times, Aug. 19, 1944; Gosnell, Truman’s Crises, 200; Truman, Memoirs: Year of  Decisions, vol. 1, 193. 7.  Paul A. Porter to Stephen Early, June 2, 1944, in Democratic National Committee File, Roosevelt Papers. 8.  Letter, Paul A. Porter to Stephen Early, Sept. 4, 1944, Early Papers; letter from J. Leonard Reinsch, Oct. 3, 1944, Democratic National Committee File, Roosevelt Papers. 9.  Telegram, J. Leonard Reinsch to Frank Walker, Oct. 14, 1944, Walker Papers.

10.  Letter from J. Leonard Reinsch, Oct. 16, 1944, Democratic National Committee File, Roosevelt Papers. 11.  Senator Norris died on September 2, 1944. 12.  New York Times, Aug. 24, 1944. 13.  Washington Post, Oct. 16, 1944. 14. Truman, Memoirs: Year of  Decisions, vol. 1, 194; Life, Sept. 18, 1944. 15.  New York Times, Sept. 29, 1944; Watkins, Righteous Pilgrim, 813. 16.  Ibid., 815. 17.  Wallace diary entry, Aug. 29, 1944, in Culver and Hyde, American Dreamer, 372–373. 18. Drury, Senate Journal, 285; Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 21, 1944; Schapsmeier, Prophet in Politics, 115–116. 19.  Arthur Krock in the New York Times, Sept. 8, 1944; Leahy, I Was There, 259. 20.  On August 26, 1944, Roosevelt wrote to Queen Wilhelmina of  t he Netherlands, “though I am not blood-thirsty, I want the Germans to know that this time at least they have definitely lost the war”; Roosevelt and Lash, eds., F.D.R.: His Personal Letters, vol. 2, 1535. 21. Freidel, Rendezvous, 552–553; E. Roosevelt, This I Remember, 333. 22.  Washington Post, Sept. 24, 1944; New York Times, Sept. 28, 30, 1944; Weiss, The President’s Man, 197; Persico, Roosevelt’s Secret War, 351. 23.  Charles V. Hamilton, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.: The Political Biography of  an American Dilemma (New York: Atheneum, 1991), 160–161. 24.  New York Times, Oct. 3, 4, 1944. 25.  Ward, ed., Closest Companion, 329. 26.  New York Times, Oct. 6, 1944; Rosenman, Working with Roosevelt, 479. 27. Editorial, New York Times, Oct. 7, 1944. 28.  Ibid., Oct. 5, 7, 1944. 29.  Washington Times-Herald, Oct. 7, 1944.

Not e s to page s 253–277 30.  New York Times, Oct. 7, 8, 1944. 31.  Ibid., Oct. 8, 15, 1944. 32.  Ibid., Oct. 9, 1944. 33.  Ibid., Oct. 10, 1944.

355

22.  De ath in October 1.  New York Times, Oct. 8, 1944. 2. Dillon, Willkie, 353. 3.  New York Times, Oct. 13, 1944. 4.  Ibid., Oct. 22, 1944. 5.  Elliott Roosevelt and James Brough, A Rendezvous with Destiny: The Roosevelts of  the White House (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1975), 381. 6.  Roosevelt and Lash, eds., F.D.R.: His Personal Letters, vol. 2, 1520. 7. Barnard, Willkie, 485. 8.  New York Times, Aug. 11, 1944; Barnard, Willkie, 482–483. 9.  New York Times, Aug. 26, 1944.

20.  Letter, D. Thompson to R. Sherwood, Oct. 17, 1944, Robert Sherwood Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University, quoted in Peter Kurth, American Cassandra: The Life of  Dorothy Thompson (Boston: Little, Brown, 1990), 525. 21.  R. Hannegan to H. Reid, Oct. 14, 1944, Early Papers. 22.  Washington Evening Star, Oct. 19, 1944; “For the Press,” Department of  State, Oct. 19, 1944, Early Papers. 23.  New York Times, Oct. 19, 1944. 24.  Chicago Tribune, Oct. 20, 1944. 25.  New York Times, Oct. 20, 1944. 26.  Ibid., Oct. 21, 1944. 27.  Warren Moscow, ibid., Oct. 22, 1944. 28.  Ibid., Oct. 21, 1944. 29.  Baltimore Sun, Oct. 21, 1944; New York Journal-American, Oct. 18, 1944.

23.  Dew ey on th e Offensi v e 1.  New York Times, Oct. 9, 1944. 2.  Ibid., Oct. 12, 1944. 3.  Ibid., Oct. 29, 1944. 4.  Ibid., Oct. 13, 1944. 5.  Ibid., Oct. 16, 1944. 6.  Entry of  Dec. 14, 1943, Drury, Senate Journal, 26. 7.  J. H. Ball to J. V. Forrestal, July 16, 1944, Forrestal Papers. 8.  New York Times, Sept. 30, 1944. 9.  Entry of  Sept. 30, 1944, Drury, Senate Journal, 281. 10.  New York Times, Oct. 13, 1944. 11.  Ibid., Oct. 15, 1944. 12.  Ibid., Oct. 14, 1944. 13.  Ibid., Oct. 17, 1944. 14.  Ibid., Oct. 22, 1944. 15.  Memo, W. Hoving to H. Brownell, Oct. 3, 1944, Dewey Papers. 16.  New York Times, Oct. 16, 1944. 17.  Ibid., Sept. 27, 1944. 18.  Henry Lee Moon, Balance of  Power: The Negro Vote (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1949), 34. 19.  New York Times, Sept. 23, 1944.

24.  FDR Str ik es Back 1.  New York Times, Oct. 20, 1944. 2.  New York Journal-American, Oct. 18, 1944; Rosenman, ed., Public Papers, vol. 13, 341–342. 3.  St. Louis Post Dispatch, Oct. 23, 1944; the New York Times carried half  a dozen separate articles, Oct. 22, 1944, on the tour through the city. 4.  St. Louis Post Dispatch, Oct. 23, 1944. 5.  E. Roosevelt, This I Remember, 337. 6.  Chicago Tribune, Oct. 22, 1944. 7. Brinkley, Washington Goes to War, 262. 8.  New York Times, Oct. 22, 1944; Rosenman, ed., Public Papers, vol. 13, 348, 350, 352. 9.  New York Times, Oct. 24, 1944. 10.  Ibid., Oct. 23, 24, 25, 1944. Stassen did indeed split with Ball over the Roose­ velt endorsement. 11.  Washington Star, Chicago Tribune, and Washington Daily News, all Oct. 24, 1944. 12.  New York Times, Oct. 25, 1944.

356

Not e s to page s 277–296

13. Ibid. 14.  Ibid., Oct. 26, 1944. 25.  Dow n to th e W ir e 1.  Washington Post and New York Times, both Oct. 26, 1944. In an editorial on October 27, the New York Times cited Dewey’s endorsement of  Senator Wiley, about as extreme an isolationist as there was in the Senate, as an example of  why the editors were troubled by Dewey’s failure to make clear that the GOP no longer stood for isolation. 2.  Washington Post, Oct. 26, 1944. 3.  New York Times and Washington Post, both Oct. 26, 1944. 4.  Washington Post, Oct. 30, 1944. 5.  New York Times, Oct. 26, 1944. 6.  Ibid., Oct. 29, 1944. 7.  Ibid., Oct. 27, 1944. 8.  Ibid., Nov. 4, 1944. 9.  Washington Post, Oct. 26, 1944. 10.  Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 18, 1944. 11. (Philadelphia) Evening Bulletin, Oct. 12, 1944. 12.  Ibid., Oct. 27, 1944; Rosenman, ed., Public Papers, vol. 13, 354–355. 13.  There was one unfortunate incident near City Hall, where a Secret Service car ran over a policeman’s horse and broke its leg; Hassett, Off  the Record, 284. 14.  Informal Remarks of  t he President, City Hall, Camden, N.J., Oct. 27, 1944, Early Papers. 15.  New York Times, Oct. 28, 1944; Rosenman, ed., Public Papers, vol. 13, 356–359, 365. 16.  (Philadelphia) Evening Bulletin, Oct. 28, 1944. 17.  New York Times, Oct. 29, 1944. 18.  Ward, ed., Closest Companion, 338– 339; Hassett, Off  the Record, 285–286. 19.  New York Times, Oct. 29, 1944; Rosenman, ed., Public Papers, vol. 13, 369–378. 20.  Roger Biles, Big City Boss in Depression and War: Mayor Edward J. Kelly

of  Chicago (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1984), 130–131. 21. Catledge, My Life, 150. 22.  New York Times, Oct. 30, 1944. 23.  Ibid., Nov. 5, 1944. 24.  Telegram, H. A. Wallace to F. D. Roosevelt, Oct. 29, 1944, Presidential Personal File, Roosevelt Papers. 25.  Presidential Press Conferences, vol. 24, 204–206. Later in the same press conference, Roosevelt was asked about what significance there was in the recall and answered, “Just personalities, that’s all”; ibid., 209. 26.  Washington Post and New York Times, both Oct. 29, 1944. 27.  New York Times, Nov. 1, 1944. 28.  Ibid., Oct. 31, 1944. 29.  New York Herald Tribune, Nov. 1, 1944. 30.  New York Times, Nov. 1, 1944. 31.  Culver and Hyde, American Dreamer, 374; Allen, Presidents, 146–147. 32.  New York Times, Nov. 1, 1944. 33.  Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 30, 1944. 34.  Chicago Tribune, Oct. 22, 1944. 26.  Br ick er’s Ca mpa ign 1.  Time, Nov. 6, 1944. 2.  New York Times, Sept. 22, 24, 1944 3.  New York Times and Chicago Tribune, both Sept. 25, 1944. 4.  New York Times, Oct. 5, 6, 7, 1944. Hillman responded to the St. Louis speech, saying, “Honest John Bricker is deliberately continuing his campaign of  l ies . . . dragging the Communist red herring across the real issues of  t he campaign”; ibid., Oct. 5, 1944. 5.  Ibid., Oct. 19, 1944. 6.  Chicago Tribune, Oct. 24, 1944. 7.  Washington Post, Oct. 26, 28, 1944. 8.  New York Times, Oct. 29, 1944. 9.  Washington Post and New York Times, both Oct. 31, 1944. 10.  New York Times, Nov. 1, 1944.

Not e s to page s 296 –322 11.  New York Times and Washington Post, both Nov. 4, 1944. 12.  New York Times, Nov. 7, 1944. 27.  Th e M a n from Missou r i 1.  New York Times, Sept. 5, 1944. 2.  Creel, “Truman of  M issouri,” 24. 3.  New York Times, Oct. 3, 1944. 4.  “Man from Missouri,” Democratic National Committee, Frank Walker Papers. 5.  Chicago Tribune, Sept. 25, 1944. 6.  Ibid., Sept. 30, 1944; Lawrence H. Larsen and Nancy J. Hulston, Pendergast! (Columbia: University of  M issouri Press, 1997),183. 7. Drury, Senate Journal, 283. 8. Gosnell, Truman’s Crises, 199. 9.  New York Times, Oct. 12, 1944. 10.  Ibid., Oct. 16, 1944. 11.  Ibid., Oct. 17, 1944. 12.  Time, Oct. 30, 1944. Gordon L. McDonough, the Republican running against Styles, defeated him with 56.8 percent of  t he vote after Styles was dropped by the local Democratic committee. 13.  New York Times, Oct. 18, 1944. 14.  (Philadelphia) Evening Bulletin, Oct. 24, 1944. 15.  New York Times, Oct. 24, 1944. 16.  Washington Post, Oct. 26, 1944. 17.  New York Times, Oct. 27, 1944. 18.  David McCullough, Truman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), 164–165. 19.  Republican National Committee, “Women’s Choice,” Truman Papers; telegram, H. S. Truman to W. White, Oct. 31, 1944, NA ACP Papers, Library of  Congress; The People’s Voice, Nov. 4, 1944; Hamilton, Powell, 164. 20.  H. S. Truman to J. L. Naylor, Nov. 3, 1944, Truman Papers. 21.  New York Times, Oct. 29, 31, 1944. 22.  Chicago Tribune, Nov. 6, 1944; New York Times, Nov. 1, 1944. 23.  Ibid., Nov. 2, 1944. 24. Allen, Presidents, 148. 25.  New York Times, Nov. 5, 1944.

357

28.  Th e L ast Days 1.  New York Times, Nov. 2, 1944. 2. Watkins, Righteous Pilgrim, 816. 3.  Democratic National Committee File, Roosevelt Library. 4. Hassett, Off  the Record, 288. 5.  New York Times, Nov. 3, 1944; Rosenman, ed., Public Papers, vol. 13, 383. 6.  New York Times, Nov. 3, 1944; Washington Post, Nov. 4, 1944. 7.  New York Daily News, Nov. 3, 1944. 8.  New York Times, Nov. 4, 1944. Carter Glass, the legislative father of  t he Federal Reserve system, was in Congress 1902–1918, secretary of  t he Treasury under Wilson 1918–1920, and in the Senate from 1920 until his death in 1946. In 1933, he turned down FDR’s offer to appoint him secretary of  t he Treasury once again. 9.  Los Angeles Times, Nov. 5, 1944. 10.  New York Times and Los Angeles Times, both Nov. 5, 1944; Rosenman, ed., Public Papers, vol. 13, 402–404. 11.  Chicago Tribune, Nov. 7, 1944. 12.  Los Angeles Times and New York Times, both Nov. 5, 1944. 13.  Chicago Tribune, Nov. 7, 1944. 14.  Los Angeles Times, Nov. 6, 1944. 15.  New York Times, Nov. 5, 1944. 16.  Los Angeles Times, Nov. 7, 1944. 17. Ibid. 18.  Washington Post, Nov. 8, 1944. 29.  Election Day 1.  New York Times, Washington Post, both Nov. 8, 1944. 2.  Chicago Tribune, Nov. 8, 1944. 3.  New York Times, Nov. 8, 1944. 4.  Los Angeles Times, Nov. 8, 1944. 5.  New York Times, Nov. 8, 1944. 6. Hassett, Off  the Record, 294. 30.  Su m ming U p 1.  Sean J. Savage, Roosevelt: The Party Leader 1932–1945 (Lexington: University

358

Not e s to page s 323–333

Press of  Kentucky, 1991), 44; Nancy J. Weiss, Farewell to the Party of  Lincoln: Black Politics in the Age of  F DR (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983), 195; Moon, Balance of  Power, 35–36. While 68 percent voted for Roosevelt, only 40 percent of  voting blacks identified themselves as Democrats. 2.  Washington News, PM, Washington Star, all Nov. 9, 1944. 3.  Los Angeles Times, Nov. 5, 1944. 4. Roosevelt did make one appearance in Ohio, a train stop in Lima on the way to Chicago, but this was hardly what the politicos wanted. 5.  Washington Post, Nov. 9, 1944. 6.  New York Times, Nov. 9, 1944.

7.  St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Denver Post, St. Paul Dispatch, all Nov. 8, 1944. 8.  Washington Post, Nov. 9, 1944. 9.  “Election Afterthoughts,” Life, Nov. 20, 1944. 10.  New York Times, Nov. 9, 1944. 11.  Louise Overacker, “Presidential Campaign Funds, 1944,” American Political Science Review, October 1945, 906, 902. 12.  Ibid., 910–914. 13. Dumond, America, 659. Epilogu e 1. Drury, Senate Journal, 345. 2.  General Edwin “Pa” Watson, who had been a decorated war hero in World War I, died February 20, 1945.

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Nomination.” Missouri Historical Re­ view, January 1986. High, Stanley. “Why the Left Wing Fears Dewey.” Saturday Evening Post, Oct. 14, 1944. Hillman, Sidney. “Is the PAC Beneficial to Labor and to the Country?” Readers Digest, November 1944. “History and Mr. Dewey.” Nation, Sept. 23, 1944. Hutchison, Keith. “Mr. Willkie’s Challenge.” Nation, June 24, 1944. Johnson, Charles S. “The Present Status of Race Relations in the South.” Social Focus, October 1944. Johnson, Gerald W. “A Letter to the Honorable Thomas E. Dewey.” Atlantic Monthly, September 1944. ——— . “Senator Byrd of Virginia.” Life, Aug. 7, 1944. ——— . “This Strange Campaign.” New York Times Magazine, July 9, 1944. Jones, Sam H. “Will Dixie Bolt the New Deal?” Saturday Evening Post, Mar. 6, 1943. Kerney, James, Jr. “Will Hague Defeat F.D.R.?” Nation, Aug. 26, 1944. Kirchwey, Freda. “Campaign Notes.” Na­ tion, Sept. 30, 1944. Kirkendall, Richard S. “Truman and Missouri.” Missouri Historical Review, January 1987. Lawrence, David. “Governor Dewey’s Opportunity.” U.S. News & World Report, July 7, 1944. “The Listener.” “The Radio and the Election.” Atlantic Monthly, September 1944. McCune, Wesley, and John R. Beal. “The Job That Made Truman President.” Harper’s Magazine, June 1945. McGuire, Jack B. “Andrew Higgins Plays Presidential Politics.” Louisiana His­ tory, Summer 1974. “Missouri’s Golden Opportunity.” Slant, September–October 1944.

Molyneaux, Peter. “Roosevelt Ignores Alabama Governor.” Southern Weekly, Sept. 9, 1944. ——— . “That Second Bill of Rights.” Southern Weekly, Jan. 15, 1944. Moses, James L. “William O. Douglas’s ‘Political Ambitions’ and the 1944 VicePresidential Nomination: A Reinterpretation.” Historian, Winter 2000. Murray, Philip. “Labor’s Political Aims.” American Magazine, February 1944. Neuberger, Richard L. “Much-Discussed ‘Bill’ Douglas.” New York Times Maga­ zine, Apr. 19, 1942. Overacker, Louise. “Presidential Campaign Funds, 1944.” American Political Science Review, October 1945. Partin, John W. “Roosevelt, Byrnes, and the 1944 Vice-Presidential Nomination.” Historian, November 1979. Perkins, Jeanne. “The President’s Doctor.” Life, July 31, 1944. Phillips, Cabell. “That Baffling Personality, Mr. Wallace.” New York Times Magazine, Feb. 8, 1948. Robinson, George W. “Alben Barkley and the 1944 Tax Veto.” Register of the Ken­ tucky Historical Society, July 1969. Rosenman, Samuel I. “Franklin Roose­ velt: One Year After.” New York Times Magazine, Apr. 7, 1946. Rovere, Richard H. “Dewey: The Man in the Blue Serge Suit.” Harper’s Magazine, May 1944. ——— . “Labor’s Political Machine.” Harper’s Magazine, June 1945. Saunders, Doris E. “The Day Dawson Saved America from a Racist President.” Ebony, June 1972. Smith, Beverly. “Favorites in the G.O.P. Sweepstakes.” American Magazine, June 1944. Snyder, Ronald H. “Wisconsin Ends the Political Career of Wendell Willkie.” Wisconsin Magazine of History, Autumn 2004.

Bi bl iogr a ph y Stanton, John. “The GHQ’s of the Two Political Armies.” New York Times Maga­ zine, Oct. 8, 1944. Stone, I. F. “Dewey’s Monkey Wrench.” Nation, Aug. 26, 1944. ——— . “FDR, PAC, and the Midwest.” Nation, Sept. 30, 1944. ——— . “Henry Wallace—A Great American.” Nation, July 22, 1944. ——— . “Thomas E. Dewey.” Nation, May 20, 1944. Stuhler, Barbara. “A Minnesota Footnote to the 1944 Presidential Election.” Min­ nesota History, Spring 1990. Toler, Kenneth. “Party Loyalty in Mis­ sissippi.” Southern Weekly, Oct. 16, 1943. Trussell, C. P. “Thirteen Million Elusive Voters.” New York Times Magazine, Aug. 6, 1944. Vargo, John E. “The Truman-Klan Issue of the 1944 Presidential Campaign.” Key­ noter, Spring 2011. Wallace, Henry A. “How a Vice President Is Picked—Inside Look at U.S. Politics.” (From speech to Harvard Law School Forum, Mar. 30, 1956.) U.S. News & World Report, Apr. 6, 1956. Wechsler, James A. “Bricker’s Running Mate.” Nation, Oct. 7, 1944. White, Walter. “The Negro Waits to See.” Nation, Oct. 21, 1944. Willkie, Wendell L. “‘Don’t Stir Distrust of Russia.’” New York Times Magazine, Jan. 2, 1944. Newspa per s a nd Per iodica ls American Mercury Atlanta Journal Atlantic Monthly Augusta (Ga.) Herald Baltimore Sun Birmingham Age-Herald Bridgeport (Conn.) Herald Bridgeport (Conn..) Telegram Buffalo Evening News

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New Yorker Ohio State Journal Pasadena (Calif.) Post (Philadelphia) Evening Bulletin Philadelphia Inquirer Philadelphia Record PM Redlands (Calif.) Facts St. Louis Post-Dispatch St. Paul Dispatch San Francisco Call-Bulletin San Francisco News Southern Weekly Time U.S. News & World Report Wall Street Journal Washington Daily News Washington News Washington Post Washington Star Washington Times-Herald Wilmington (Del.) Journal Every Evening Wilmington (Del.) Star M a n uscr ipt Collections Francis Biddle Papers, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library John Boettiger Papers, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library John W. Bricker Papers, Ohio Historical Society James F. Byrnes Papers, Clemson University Library Tom C. Clark Papers, Harry S. Truman Library Jonathan Daniels Papers, Harry S. Truman Library

Democratic National Committee Files, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library Democratic National Committee Files, Harry S. Truman Library Thomas E. Dewey Papers, University of Rochester Library John Foster Dulles Papers, Seeley G. Mudd Manuscripts Library, Princeton University Stephen T. Early Papers, Franklin D. Roose­ velt Library James V. Forrestal Papers, Seeley G. Mudd Manuscripts Library, Princeton University Edward J. Flynn Papers, Franklin D. Roose­ velt Library Robert E. Hannegan Papers, Harry S. Tru­ man Library William D. Hassett Papers, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library Harry L. Hopkins Papers, Franklin D. Roo­ sevelt Library Harold L. Ickes Papers, Library of Congress Franklin D. Roosevelt Papers, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library Samuel I. Rosenman Papers, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library Richard H. Rovere Papers, State Historical Society of Wisconsin Harry S. Truman Papers, Harry S. Truman Library Frank Comerford Walker Papers, University of Notre Dame Library “Why Truman Is President,” by Edwin W. Pauley, as told to Richard English, Harry S. Truman Library John D. Zook Collection, Ohio Historical Society

INDEX

Aandahl, Fred G., 325 Abbott and Costello, 336n9 Acheson, Dean, 331 Adler, Luther, 353n20 Akron, Ohio, 296 Alabama, 57 Alaska, 1, 207 Albanese, Licia, 71 Albany, N.Y., 210, 212, 215–217, 219, 239–240, 251–252, 262, 289, 309, 313, 344n24 Albright, Robert, 99 Allen, Fred, 12 Allen, George, 57, 126, 144, 160, 300, 305 Allen, Gracie, 107 Alsop, Joseph, 338n5 Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, 17–18 America First, 61, 82–83, 89 American Federation of Labor (AFL), 3, 17, 151, 158, 229, 232, 271, 324 American Institute of Public Opinion, 20 American Labor Party, 156, 269, 274, 325 American Legion, 45 Andrews, Bert, 139 Anzio, 71 Arizona, 233, 314 Arkansas, 280, 323 Arnall, Ellis, 142, 346n1

Arnold, Edward, 231 Arnold, Henry H., 284, 328 Atlanta, 7 Atlanta Journal, 130, 246 Austin, Warren, 92, 113, 115, 213, 277, 343n8 Bacon, Walter, 220 Baker, Newton D., 35 Baldwin, Hanson, 243 Baldwin, Raymond, 105–106, 113, 221, 258 Ball, Joseph H., 112, 117, 263–265, 269, 276–277, 302, 320, 355n10 Baltimore, Md., 306, 308, 320 Baltimore Afro-American, 268 Baltimore Sun, 268 Bankhead, John H., 174, 176 Bankhead, Tallulah, 71 Bankhead, William B., 50 Barkley, Alben W., 43, 45, 72, 84, 126, 179, 324, 332; nominating speech, 158–159, 164–165, 167; veto message, 73–75, 340n26, 341n28, 350n3; vice presidential candidacy, 19, 50–51, 124, 136, 144–146, 148, 150, 152, 154, 161, 174–176, 201, 348n14 Barrymore, Ethel, 247 Barrymore, Lionel, 231 371

372

I n de x

Baruch, Bernard, 133–134 Basie, Count, 232 Bataan, 9, 36 Battle of the Bulge, 331 Beacon, N.Y., 306 Beck, Dave, 2 Bell, Elliott V., 27, 96, 236, 240, 320 Bellevue Stratford Hotel, 223 Benchley, Robert, 353n20 Bender, Riley, 83 Bendix, William, 231 Bennett, Joan, 353n20 Benny, Jack, 12 Benson, Elmer A., 39 Benton, Thomas Hart, 247 Berle, Adolf A., 253–254 Berlin, Irving, 13 Bethune, Mary McLeod, 251 Biddle, Francis, 145, 245, 293 Biffle, Leslie, 165 Black, Hugo, 339n21, 347n1 Blackstone Hotel, 106, 160 Blaik, Earl, 317 Blanchard, Felix “Doc,” 317 Blue Network, 12, 234, 300 Board of Economic Warfare, 9 Boettiger, Anna Roosevelt, 130–131, 134, 148, 203, 208, 319, 345n10 Boettiger, John, 144, 146 Bogart, Humphrey, 12 Bohlen, Charles, 128 Bond, Ford, 241–242 Bone, Homer, 340n27 Bonneville Dam, 287 Bonus Army, 36 Borge, Victor, 291 Boston, 245, 294, 306–308, 310–313; Red Sox, 312 Bottolfsen, Clarence A., 80 Bowles, Chester, 9, 66 Boyer, Charles, 353n20 Bracken, Eddie, 280, 313 Bragg, Edward S., 89 Brandeis, Louis, 51 Brandt, Ray, 274 Brewster, Owen, 97 Brice, Fannie, 232

Bricker, John W., xi, 16, 20, 22–23, 75, 84, 92, 186, 341n32; background, 29–34, 337n21, 337nn24,25; campaign 1944, 203, 209, 213, 215, 220–221, 229, 233, 238, 240–241, 244, 291, 294–297, 299, 321, 327, 356n4; convention 1944, 103, 105–108, 112, 115, 120, 182, 343n15; presidential candidate 1944, 41, 44, 77, 81, 84, 92, 96–99, 101, 104, 122; vice presidential nomination, 117–119, 195 Bricker, Harriet Day, 30, 107 Bridgeport, Conn., 310–311 Bridges, Lloyd, 353n20 Brinkley, David, 27 Bromfield, Louis, 247 Bronx, 272–274 Brooklyn, 272–274; Dodgers, 272–273 Brooks, C. Wayland, 16 Broughton, Charles E., 87 Broughton, J. Melville, 136, 174–176 Browder, Earl, 252; mentioned in campaign, 237, 239–240, 242, 244, 280, 294–296, 307, 313, 327; pardoned, 19, 336n7 Brown, Walter, 158, 341n28 Brown, Wilson, 133, 204 Brownell, Herbert: friend of Dewey, 24, 27–28, 41, 103, 221, 353n8; party chairman, 140, 201, 210, 215, 220, 229, 234, 237, 240, 267–268, 283, 302, 309, 313–314, 320, 352n32 Bruenn, Howard, M.D., ix, 131–134, 204, 208 Brunner, George, 284 Bunche, Ralph, 55 Burton, Harold H., 32, 212, 263, 337n27, 352n9 Busbey, Fred E., 252 Businessmen for Roosevelt, 344n9 Byrd, Harry Flood, 44, 57, 116, 123–124, 153, 161–162, 168–169, 343n16 Byrnes, James F., 45, 74–75, 153, 293, 310, 331, 340n4, 348n12, 351n14; early career, 50; vice presidential hopes, 19, 49, 122, 124, 136, 141, 144, 146, 148–152, 154–158, 160, 200–201, 203, 347n10, 348nn18,24, 349nn10,17, 350n1

I n de x Cagney, James, 232 Cahill, Horace T., 307 Cake, Ralph, 79, 81–82, 257 California, 81, 93, 105, 230–231, 235, 295, 315, 320, 324–325 Cantor, Eddie, 232, 353n20 Cantril, Hadley, 20 Cape Gloucester, 14 Capehart, Homer E., 22, 323 Caraway, Hattie, 323 Carey, Harry, 353n20 Carillo, Leo, 231 Carroll, James J., 310 Catledge, Turner, 38, 49, 61, 63, 98, 104– 105, 109, 134–135, 203, 212, 287 Cerf, Bennett, 247 Chandler, Albert B., 324 Chaplains’ Corps, 30 Chateau Frontenac, 249 Chattanooga News-Free Press, 282 Chattanooga Times, 282 Chavez, Dennis, 154 Cherne, Leo, 109 Chiang Kai-Shek, 217, 288 Chicago, 77, 225, 282; Black Hawks, 77; Chicago Stadium, 102, 113, 163, 166, 171, 173, 201, 280; convention site, 78, 300; election 1944, 246, 296, 302, 318, 358n4 Chicago Defender, 268 Chicago Herald-American, 302 Chicago Tribune, ix, 16, 18, 23, 59, 79, 87, 89, 92, 106, 110–112, 118, 165, 201–202, 211, 240, 267, 270, 274, 287, 292, 299, 312 Childs, Marquis, 2, 98, 200–201, 281, 315 Christian Science Monitor, 257 Churchill, Winston, 10, 37, 128, 191, 230, 249–250, 307, 332 CIO-PAC, 19, 141, 154, 156–158, 165; creation of, 17–18; role in campaign, 204, 221, 237, 244, 247, 253, 296, 301, 324, 326–328 Civic Auditorium, San Francisco, 230 Civic Auditorium, Seattle, 228 Clapper, Raymond, 38

373

Clark, Bennett Champ: defeat of, 323; nomination of Truman, 173–175, 184, 351n22 Clark, Champ, 351n22 Clark, D. Worth, 324 Clark, E. O., 83 Clarke, Carter, 239–240 Clarksburg, W.Va., 288 Cleveland, Grover, 16, 89, 167 Cleveland, Ohio, 32, 294, 296, 306, 308 Cohen, Benjamin, 75 Collier’s, 11, 226 Colorado, 295, 314, 321, 352n32 Columbia Broadcasting System, 307 Columbia University, 24, 46, 51 Columbo, Russ, 12 Columbus, Ohio, 29, 30, 294, 296–297 Commerce Department, 246, 331–332 Commonwealth & Southern, 40 Commonwealth Club, 301 Communists, 336n7; role in campaign, x, 18–19; and Russia, 31; target of Republicans, 118, 202, 204, 221, 237– 238, 240, 244, 252–253, 266, 280, 289, 294–296, 301–302, 307–309, 312, 316, 327, 329, 331, 356n4 Como, Perry, 71 Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), 17, 49, 114, 118, 151, 171, 175, 201–202, 220, 229, 271, 298 Conn, Billy, 13 Connally, Tom, 217, 346n1 Connecticut, 106, 294, 309, 311, 315, 320, 323, 325, 352n32 Conner, Mike, 161 Connolly, Matthew, 344n8 Connors, Margaret, 310 Conte, Richard, 353n20 Convention Hall, Philadelphia, 223–224 Coolidge, Calvin, 164, 235, 238, 323 Cooper, Gary, 231 Cooper, Prentice, 165, 174–176, 346n1 Coral Sea, 9 Corcoran, Thomas, 51, 170, 346n1 Corps of Engineers, 35 Corregidor, 9, 34, 37 Costello, John M., 301

374

I n de x

Costello, Lou, 353n20 Cotten, Joseph, 190, 247 Count Fleet, 13 Courtney, Thomas, 163 Cowles, Gardner, 259 Cox, James M., 46, 246, 293 Cox, William, 213 Crosby, Bing, 11–13 Crowley, Leo, 7, 141, 149–150, 157–158, 347n2 Crum, Bartley, 213, 352n10 Cugat, Xavier, 13 Curran, Thomas J., 324 Curzon Line, 261 Daily Worker, 154 Dakotas, 281, 314, 321, 352n32 Dallas, Tex., 295 Dallas Morning News, 268 Danaher, John, 302, 323, 329 Daniels, Jonathan, 15, 122, 200 Darnell, Linda, 353n20 Davenport, Russell W., 245, 291 Davey, Martin L., 31, 33 Davidson, Jo, 190, 247 Davis, Glenn, 317 Davis, James J., 302, 323 Dawson, William L., 163 Day, Laraine, 353n20 DeCastro Sisters, 71 deHavilland, Olivia, 232 Delano, Frederic A., 266 Delaware, 76, 283, 296, 315, 320, 352n32 DeMille, Cecil B., 106, 231 Democratic Convention of 1924, 46, 256 Democratic Convention of 1944, 44; first day, 163–164; preparation for, 153; second day, 169–173; third day, 174–177 Democratic National Committee, 3, 48, 123, 126, 139, 144, 154, 202, 246–247, 269, 283, 299, 308 Denver, Colo., 224, 295 Denver Post, 326 Detroit, Mich., 225, 296, 298, 308 Detroit Tigers, 243 DeVoto, Bernard, 88 Dewey, Frances Hutt, 24, 223, 238

Dewey, John, 247 Dewey, Thomas E., ix–xi, 1, 4, 20, 29, 75, 330–331, 351n6; background, 23–28, 51, 336n10, 337n12; campaign, 211– 218, 220–221, 223–224, 242–243, 245, 248–254, 261–270, 272–273, 275–278, 284–287, 289–296, 300– 302, 310, 313–316, 351n1, 352nn14,21, 353n7, 356n1; Chicago campaign, 279–281, 283; concession and results, 197, 320–322, 324, 326–329; convention 1944, 103–109, 112, 115–117, 344nn16,24,29; election day, 318– 320; final campaign trip, 308–309; governors conference, 98–99, 214; and Jaeckle, 352n3; Marshall letter, 239–240; New England campaign, 306–307; nominee, 114, 118–121, 137, 140, 161, 164, 183, 186–188, 201, 203, 208; Oklahoma City speech, 234, 236–238, 240–241, 251, 353n8; possible candidate, 16, 19–23, 38–39, 41, 44, 59, 63–64, 78, 82, 93–94, 97, 100–101, 122; publishers’ speech, 96–97, 99, 104, 342n12; Republican National Committee, 209–210; West Coast tour, 216, 225–233, 235, 244; and Willkie, 40–41, 62, 80–81, 92, 113, 210–211, 219, 257–260, 353n6; Wisconsin primary, 84–90, 341n18 Dies, Martin, 301 DiMaggio, Joe, 11 Dirksen, Everett M., 41, 92, 103, 105, 116–117 Disney, Walt, 12, 231 Dodge, William C., 337n10 Donlevy, Brian, 12 Donlon, Mary, 114 Donnell, Forrest, 323 Donnelly, Phil M., 325 Dorsey, Tommy, 12 Doughton, Robert, 73 Douglas, Helen Gahagan, 170, 325, 351n17 Douglas, William O., 50, 136, 143–152, 154, 161, 169–170, 339n21, 348n18 Downey, Sheridan, 324

I n de x Drake, Alfred, 13 Drake Hotel, 174 Drummond, Roscoe, 257 Drury, Allen, 70, 75, 90, 92, 123, 263– 264, 331 Dubinsky, David, 274, 283, 291 Dulles, John Foster, 25; Dewey advisor, 96, 100, 107, 212, 217–218, 220, 244, 282; Republican platform, 113; with Willkie, 219, 256, 258 Dumbarton Oaks, 216–218, 220, 262, 264, 270 DuPont family, 282, 328 Early, Steve, 2, 53, 74, 132–133, 139, 172, 246, 306, 310, 325–326, 340n20 Eastland, James O., 68 Ebbets Field, 272–273 “Economic Bill of Rights,” 66–67, 287 Edge, Walter, 19, 105, 221 Editor and Publisher, 268 Educators for Roosevelt, 247 Eichelberger, Robert, 38 Einstein, Albert, 247 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 14, 78, 239, 338n40, 342n13 Ely, Joseph B., 44 Evjue, William T., 87 Fabray, Nanette, 353n20 Fadiman, Clifton, 247 Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC), 56, 144–145, 154, 166, 211, 251, 287 Fala, 5–6, 204, 273–274, 319, 329 Farley, James, 42, 44, 124, 129, 165, 169 Federal Security Agency, 45 Feller, Bob, 11 Fenway Park, 312 “Ferdinand Magellan,” 156, 208 Ferrer, Jose, 71 Fibber McGee and Molly, 12, 246 Field, Marshall, 282, 328 Fish, Hamilton, 38, 61, 216, 325, 352n22 Flynn, Edward F., 48, 130, 135, 137–138, 144–145, 148–149, 157, 160, 164, 173, 207, 348n12

375

Foch, Nina, 353n20 Fonda, Henry, 11 Fontaine, Joan, 71 Ford, Sam, 227–228 Foreign Economic Administration, 141 Foreign Policy Association, 265, 271, 275 Forrestal, James V., 28, 37, 193, 263, 284 Fort Shafter, 205 Fortune, 123, 315 Frain, Andy, 102–103 Frankensteen, Richard, 175 Frankfurter, Felix, 51, 339n21 Fulbright, J. William, 323 Fulton, Hugh, 54 Gable, Clark, 11 Gallup, George, ix, 292, 314–315 Gallup Poll, 23, 39, 56, 71, 85, 90, 124, 161, 283, 314 Galveston News, 268 Gannett, Frank, 38 Gardiner, Ed, 353n20 Garfield, John, 353n20 Garland, Judy, 71, 232 Garner, John Nance, 42, 50 Garson, Greer, 12 Gates, Ralph, 325 George, Walter, 43, 332 “GI Bill of Rights,” 67 Gillette, Guy, 43, 226, 323, 346n1 Glass, Carter, 310, 357n8 Goddard, Paulette, 247 Golden Gate Ballroom, 307 Goodland, Walter S., 86, 88, 279 Gore, Albert A., Sr., 246 Gossett, Charles C., 325 Grable, Betty, 12 Grafton, Samuel, 103 Grand Coulee Dam, 287 Grayson, Cary, M.D., 129 Green, Dwight, 16, 63, 75, 77, 101, 105, 107–108, 110, 115, 119, 214, 221, 265 Green-Lucas bill, 67–68, 70 Green, Theodore Francis, 67, 71, 76, 169, 340n27 Green, William, 3 Griswold, Dwight, 4, 80, 99, 115, 117

376

I n de x

Grouzard, J. G., 154 Grovey v. Townsend, 339n20 Guadalcanal, 9 Guam, 9, 87 Guilford, Jack, 353n20 Guffey, Joseph, 175, 340n27 “Guru” letters, 48–49, 338n10 Hagerty, James A., 97, 342n13 Hagerty, James C., 219, 342n13 Hague, Frank, 48, 160, 295 Hallanan, Walter, 102 Halleck, Charles A., 78, 101, 213 Halsey, William F., 38, 41, 78, 164, 206, 285 Hamilton, John D. M., 38, 59–60, 63, 81, 339n2 Hammerstein, Oscar, II, 13 Hancock, Winfield Scott, 54 Hanes, Johnnie, 257 Hanley, Joe R., 19, 62 Hannegan, Robert E.: at convention, 154, 157–158, 160, 163–164, 169–170, 173, 200–201, 203; DNC chairman, 48, 84, 123, 126, 148, 150–151, 155, 202, 246, 269, 273, 280–282, 290, 314, 319; pushes Truman, 52, 54, 125, 145, 338n14, 344n10; with FDR, 139, 144, 146–147, 156, 242, 348n18, 349n10 Harding, Warren G., 33, 46, 63, 113, 164, 235, 238, 258, 323, 329 Harlem, 245, 272–273, 303, 307 Harriman, W. Averell, 245, 331 Harris, Ed, 125, 344n10 Harrisburg, Pa., 309 Harrison, Pat, 51 Hartford, Conn., 311 Hartford Times, 268 Harvard University, 45–46, 352n22 Hassett, Bill, 130, 135, 308, 320 Hatch, Carl, 71, 246, 263, 276 Hawaii, 1, 104–105, 107 Hawkes, Albert W., 295 Hayek, Friedrich A., 244 Hayworth, Rita, 232 Hazard, John, 347n3 Hearst, William Randolph, 38, 89,

301–303 Heatter, Gabriel, 12 Henderson, Leon, 9 Henning, Arthur Sears, 106, 111, 165 Hepburn, Katherine, 232 Herbert, Hugh, 353n20 Hershey, Lewis B., 71, 223–225, 237, 241–242, 244 Hickenlooper, Bourke B., 226, 323 Higgins, Andrew, 125, 328, 344n9 Hill, Lister, 174, 263, 340n27 Hillman, Sidney, 143, 350n25; background of, 18–19; campaign 1944, 203–204, 221, 237–239, 241–242, 244, 247, 253, 269, 280, 294–296, 300, 307, 313, 327, 329, 331, 356n4; CIO-PAC, 17; at Democratic convention, 156–157, 159–160, 165, 174; and Roosevelt, 141, 150 Hines, James J., 26 Hitchcock, Alfred, 12, 71 Hitler, Adolf, 5, 7, 18, 26, 126, 164, 227, 237, 239, 252, 261, 329, 333 Hobcaw Barony, 133–134, 346n21 Hoey, Clyde, 176 Hollywood Writers Mobilization for Defense, 11 Homolka, Oscar, 353n20 Hoover, Herbert C., 3, 23, 36–37, 43, 102, 115–116, 164, 228, 235, 238, 256, 293, 320–321, 323 Hope, Bob, 336n9 Hopkins, Harry, 3, 43–44, 128, 130, 151, 155, 237, 295, 305, 338n5 Hoppe, Willie, 77 Hopper, Hedda, 231 Horvath, Les, 317 Hotel Roosevelt, 210, 246, 313, 319, 326, 352n5 House of Representatives, 5, 8, 15, 57, 70–71, 155, 163, 323 House Un-American Activities Committee, 301, 352n10 Houser, Frederick F., 324 Houston Chronicle, 268 Hoving, Walter, 267 Howard, Roy, 38

I n de x Howe, Louis, 345n10 Hoyt, Lansing, 82 Hudson River, 43, 107, 130, 139, 310, 313 Hughes, Charles Evans, 235 Hull, Cordell, 43, 45, 89, 123–124, 209, 217–220, 248, 250, 254, 258, 267, 293, 310, 338n6, 346n1, 351n1, 352n1 Hunt, Lester C., 176 Hunter College, 272 Hurd, Charles, 22 Hurja, Emil, 315, 322 Hurley, Patrick, 288 Hurst, Fannie, 247 Huston, Walter, 353n20 Hyde Park, N.Y., 43, 73–75, 130–131, 150, 259, 276, 318–319, 325–326 Ice Coliseum, 230 Ickes, Harold, 32, 41, 56, 64, 73, 97, 123, 339n19, 340n26, 344n3, 347n3; campaign 1944, 224, 228, 237, 245–248, 293, 307, 329, 331; vice presidential maneuvering, 51, 142–143, 148, 203, 347n6 Idaho, 301, 315, 324–325, 352n32 Illinois, 280–281, 283, 310, 315, 319–321, 324, 352n32; primary, 79, 81, 83, 93, 341n6 Independence, Mo., 52, 305, 318 Independence Hall, 223 Independent Artists & Writers Group for Dewey, 247 Independent Voters Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions, 247 Indiana, 22, 60, 78, 283, 314, 321, 323, 325, 352n32 Indiana University, 40, 45 Ingram, Rex, 353n20 International Ladies Garment Workers Union, 274 Interstate Commerce Commission, 30 Iowa, 281, 314, 321, 323, 352n32 Irwin, Stu, 77 Ismay, Lord Hastings, 128 Jackson, Robert, 339n21 Jackson, Samuel, 148, 159, 162, 166, 168, 170–177, 323, 346n1, 350n20

377

Jaeckle, Edwin F.: as Dewey strategist, 27, 41, 78, 103, 290, 344n16; disappointment of, 210, 352n3 James, Harry, 12 Japanese codes, 239–240 Japanese internment, 11, 335n6 Jefferson Hotel, 265 Jefferson, Thomas, 167 Johnson, Calvin, 69 Johnson, Edwin C., 43, 276 Johnson, Hiram, 329 Johnson, Keen, 175 Johnson, Lyndon B., 340n1, 351n17 Johnson, Van, 11–12 Johnson, Victor, 276 Johnston, Eric, 101 Johnston, Olin D., 324 Jolson, Al, 232 Jones, Jesse: support of Roosevelt, 246, 291, 293; and Wallace, 49, 248, 331–332 Justice Department, 30, 266 Kaiser, Henry J., 3, 5, 346n1, 347n7 Kansas, 281, 295, 314, 318, 321, 352n32 Kansas City, 52, 295, 299–300, 305, 330 Kansas City Star, 111 Kasserine Pass, 10 Kaye, Danny, 353n20 Kazin, Elia, 353n20 Kefauver, Estes, 175, 282 Kelly, Edward J., 48, 144, 156–157, 160, 163, 173–175, 279, 287, 295, 319, 349n10 Kelly, Gene, 353n20 Kelly, Harry, 221 Kennan, George F., 331 Kent, Frank, 119, 203, 315, 338n5 Kentucky, 314, 350n4; election 1943, 19–20 Kerr, Robert, 148, 155, 162, 164, 174–176, 282, 346n1 Kesselring, Albert, 10 Keyes, Evelyn, 353n20 Kiel Auditorium, 61, 266 Kilgore, Harley, 125, 340n27 Kincaid, Thomas, 281

378

I n de x

King, Ernest J., 78, 119–120, 164, 204, 239, 284, 328 King, Mackenzie, 191 Kingston, N.Y., 306 Kintner, Robert, 338n5 Kirkland, Weymouth, 59 Knox, Frank, 87, 284 Knoxville Journal, 351n17 Knutson, Harold, 5, 116, 344n16 Koehler, John P., 118 Koussevitzky, Serge, 247 Krock, Arthur, 16, 62, 69, 94, 123, 148, 154–155, 203, 218, 225, 250, 299, 338n5, 343n8 Ku Klux Klan, 301–302 Kwajalein Atoll, 71 LaFollette, Robert, 85 LaGuardia, Fiorello, 25–26, 32, 245, 269–270, 272, 274 Lahey, Frank, M.D., 132 Lamar, Mo., 247, 298 Landis, Kenesaw Mountain, 11 Landon, Alf, 31, 61, 63, 90, 99, 256, 320– 321, 339nn2,17 Langer, William, 341n27 Langlie, Arthur B., 80, 221, 325 Lattimore, Owen, 347n3 Lausche, Frank J., 325 Lawrence, David, 173 Leahy, William, 95, 133, 138, 204–207, 284, 328 LeHand, Marguerite “Missy,” 130, 207, 345n6 Lehman, Herbert, 25–26, 193, 337n10 Lend-Lease, 4, 27, 86–87, 249–250, 263, 337n12 Lerner, Max, 68, 238 Lewis, Frank J., 282 Lewis, Fulton, Jr., 108 Lewis, John L., 5, 17, 271, 288, 309 Lewis, Sinclair, 307 Leyte Gulf, 281 Liberal Party, 274, 283, 291 Lieberman, Joe, 46 Life, 10, 17, 20, 22, 59, 82, 155, 168, 172, 200, 232, 235, 243, 248, 326

Lilienthal, David, 56 Lima, Ohio, 286, 358n4 Lincoln, Abraham, 7, 55, 167, 172, 214, 338n1 Lindley, Ernest K., 65, 112, 120, 159, 235 Lippmann, Walter, 96, 114 Little Steel Formula, 17, 145 Lockwood, Paul, 344n24 Lodge, Henry Cabot, 329 Lodge, Henry Cabot, Jr., 324 Loesser, Frank, 13 London Economic Conference, 277 Long Beach, 295 Longworth, Alice Roosevelt, 337n13 Look, 10, 61 Los Angeles, 224, 295, 300–301; Coliseum, 231 Los Angeles Daily News, 103, 268 Los Angeles Times, 120–121, 230 Louis, Joe, 13 Louisville, 224–227, 350n4 Lucas, Paul, 353n20 Lucas, Scott, 67, 76, 136, 163, 174–176, 265, 324 Luce, Clare Boothe, 6, 37–38, 102, 115– 117, 170, 311, 325 Luce, Henry, 20, 22, 37, 59, 82, 116, 221–222 Luciano, Charles “Lucky,” 25 Lundeen, Ernest, 263 Lyons, Richard, 265, 324 Lyric Theatre, 308 Maas, Melvin, 325 MacArthur, Arthur, 34–35 MacArthur, Douglas, 4, 78, 185; early career, 34–38; Hawaii meeting, 204– 207; Miller correspondence, 93–95; presidential candidate, 22–23, 41, 44, 63, 82–86, 88, 90, 92, 96, 118, 186, 344n22; wartime performance, 14, 164, 226–228, 238, 265, 270, 284; West Point superintendent, 35–36 MacArthur, Jean Faircloth, 36 MacArthur National Association, 38, 82 Mackinac Island Conference, 23, 41, 63, 96, 212, 214, 336n3

I n de x Madison, James, 338n1 Madison, Wis., 302 Madison Capital Times, 268 Madison Square Garden, 47, 249, 291– 292, 304, 306–307, 309, 313 Magnuson, Warren G., 324 Maine, 226, 294, 315, 317, 320–321, 352n32 Manhattan, 272, 274 Marne, Second Battle of the, 35 Marshall, George C., 8, 43, 78, 164, 205, 284, 328, 331; and Dewey, 119–120, 239–240; pushed for president, 43 Martin, Edward, 75, 105, 108, 118, 214, 223, 283, 309 Martin, Joseph W., Jr., 73, 101, 108, 112, 114, 117–118, 120, 183, 213, 277, 306, 344n16 Martin, Mary, 244 Marvin, Rolland B., 62 Marx, Groucho, 232 Marx, Harpo, 232 Marx, Karl, 78 Maryland, 294, 306, 308, 315, 320, 322, 324–325 Massachusetts, 213, 233, 245, 310, 315, 319–320, 324–325; GOP campaign, 254, 294, 306–307, 352n32; Roosevelt appearance, 304, 308, 311; Truman campaign, 303 Maw, Herbert B., 137 Maybank, Burnet R., 153, 158 Mayo, Eddie, 11 Mayo, Va., 353n20 McClellan, George B., 7 McClellan, John L., 68 McCloy, John J., 11 McCormack, John W., 72 McCormick, Anne O’Hare, 112 McCormick, Robert R.: editor of Tribune, 18, 23, 38, 59, 61, 89, 92, 107–108, 114, 201–202, 204, 237, 258, 270, 275, 301, 303, 312, 320, 339n2, 353n7; Illinois primary, 79, 81, 341n6 McDonough, Gordon L., 357n12 McGrath, J. Howard, 282 McHale, Frank, 175 McHarg, Ormsby, 38, 82–83

379

McIntire, Ross, M.D., 204; press conferences, 133; Roosevelt health, ix–x, 48, 128–132, 135, 332, 345n5, 346n14 McIntyre, Marvin, 122, 130 McKeldin, Theodore R., 308 McKellar, Kenneth D., 68, 167 McKinley, William, 209, 338n1 McKitrick, Roy, 323 McMahon, Brien, 323 McNutt, Paul V.: career of, 45; political possibilities of, 43, 136, 148, 152, 174–176; wartime position, 14 Mead, James M., 238, 276, 341n27 Medalie, George Z., 24 Medwick, Joe, 11 Mein Kampf, 5, 234, 237 Melchior, Lauritz, 71 Melgard, Al, 173 Mellon family, 328 Menjou, Adolph, 231, 280, 313 Merman, Ethel, 247, 291 Merriam, Charles E., 266 Merrill, Robert, 247 Metropolitan Opera, 12, 163 Michigan, 76, 220, 225–226, 281, 296, 298, 310, 314–315, 320–322, 352n32; University of, 24 Michigan Chronicle, 268 Midway, 9, 239 Miller, Arthur L., 93–95, 342n3 Miller, William, 46 Milligan, Maurice, 53, 299 Milliken, Eugene D., 302 Milwaukee: campaign of Willkie, 88; election, 279, 295, 302 Milwaukee Journal, 91 Milwaukee Sentinel, 88–89 Minneapolis, 276–279, 289 Minnesota, 63, 276, 281, 302, 315, 320–321, 325, 352n32; and Stassen, 39, 338n40; University of, 39 Minton, Sherman, 136, 152 Mississippi, 322 Mississippi Valley Association, 300 Missouri, 240, 281, 296, 305, 310, 315, 321, 323, 325, 352n32; Pendergast organization, 266

380

I n de x

Mitchell, Richard, 174 Moley, Raymond, 28, 111 Monroe, Vaughn, 13 Monroney, A. S. Mike, 83 Montana, 228, 295, 301, 314–315 Moore, Edward H., 84, 112, 236 Moore, Roy D., 103, 105 Moorhead, Agnes, 353n20 Morgan, Henry, 353n20 Morgenthau, Henry, Jr., 69; “Morgenthau Plan,” 250–251, 313 Morris, Chester, 353n20 Morse, Wayne, 230, 324 Moscow Declaration, 218 Moscow, Warren, 240 Moses, John, 323 Mountbatten, Lord Louis, 288 Muni, Paul, 232 Municipal Auditorium (Charleston, W.Va.), 253 Municipal Auditorium (Oklahoma City), 236 Murdoch, O. Abram “Abe,” Jr., 166, 175, 341n27 Murphy, Frank, 174, 176, 339n21 Murray, James, 341n27 Murray, Philip, 17, 157, 159 Murrow, Edward R., 12 Mussolini, Benito, 252 Myers, Francis J., 323 Nashville Tennessean, 268 Nation, The, 218, 235, 241 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NA ACP), 19, 167 National Broadcasting Company (NBC), 234 National Citizens Political Action Committee, 247 National Defense Advisory Commission, 9 National Federation of Women’s Republican Clubs, 225 National Labor Relations Act, 4, 228 National Republican Congressional Committee, 78

National Resources Planning Board, 266 National War Labor Board, 3, 17, 229 National Zionist Emergency Council, 262 Nazimova, 353n20 Nebraska, 281, 314, 321, 342n3, 352n32; primary, 99; and Willkie, 80, 85 Neutrality Act of 1935, 277 Nevada, 295, 314 Newburgh, N.Y., 306 New Deal, x, 2, 4, 9, 15, 20, 32, 36, 40, 44, 50–51, 53, 56, 67, 78, 84, 88, 93, 95, 112, 114, 117, 119, 121, 146, 161, 211, 224, 227, 230–232, 235, 237–238, 241, 244, 253, 266, 271, 274, 280–281, 294, 296– 297, 302, 309, 312–313, 322, 326, 329 New Hampshire, 315, 320, 348n15, 352n32; primary, 82 Newhouser, Harold, 11, 243 New Jersey: election 1943, 19; election 1944, 245, 254, 283, 296, 309, 315, 320–323, 352n32 New Mexico, 315 New Orleans, 300 New York, 63; Amsterdam News, 268; campaign 1944, 272–276, 283, 301, 308–310, 313; election 1944, 245–246, 254, 296, 315, 320, 325, 352n32; Navy Yard, 272–273; Philharmonic, 12; Roosevelt campaign, x, 272–276; special election 1943, 19; State Employment Discrimination Commission, 211 New York Age, 268 New York Daily News, 233, 309 New York Herald Tribune, 49, 108, 201; forum, 265, 267, 269, 277 New York Times, 16, 49, 63, 69, 89, 95, 97, 99, 104, 120, 148, 154, 203–204, 210, 224–225, 227, 231, 240, 242, 244, 252–253, 259, 266, 270, 276–277, 288, 305, 314, 327, 351n1, 355n3, 356n1; Roosevelt endorsement, 267–268 New York World-Telegram, 162 New Yorker, 116, 200, 216 Newsweek, 73, 315 Nichols, Jack A., 83 Niebuhr, Reinhold, 291

I n de x Niles, Ohio, 296 Niles, David, 56 Nimitz, Chester W., 164, 185, 204–207 Nixon, Richard M., 351n17 Nobel Peace Prize, 338n6 Noonan, Mrs. Fred, 168 Norfolk Journal and Guide, 268 Norris, George W., 247, 354n11 North Dakota, 323, 325 Nye, Gerald P., 61, 287, 302, 323, 329, 339n2 O’Brien, Margaret, 12 O’Connell, Ambrose J., 154 O’Connor, John J., 343n16 O’Conor, Herbert, 176 O’Daniel, W. Lee “Pappy,” 65, 84, 321, 339n1 O’Donnell, John, 315 Office of Defense Transportation, 3 Office of Economic Stabilization, 50 Office of Price Administration (OPA), 9 Office of Production Management, 9, 350n25 Office of War Information (OWI), 9 Office of War Mobilization, 50 Ohio, 63, 281, 293, 296, 306, 320–322, 324–325, 352n32; and Bricker, 30–33; Ohio State University, 29, 30, 317 Oklahoma, 240, 282, 295, 315; Second District election, 83–84 Oklahoma City, 224, 234, 236, 240–241, 265, 353n8 “One Thousand Club,” 280–282, 290, 308, 313 One World, 13, 41 O’Mahoney, Joseph C., 174, 176, 217, 245, 346n1 Operation Market Garden, 243 Oregon, election campaign, 295, 301, 315, 320–321, 324, 352n32; primary, 80–81 Oshima, Baron Hiroshi, 239 Ott, Mel, 11 Paderewski, Jan Ignace, 261 Palmer House, 161

381

Palmer, Kyle, 38, 230 Pathfinder, 315 Patman, Wright, 246, 282 Patterson, Cissy, 38 Patterson, Joseph M., 38, 339n2 Pauley, Edwin, 349n10; party treasurer, 125, 163, 280, 282; and Wallace, 48, 124, 126, 142, 144, 168, 173 Paullin, James A., M.D., 132 Pearl Harbor, 4–5, 8–9, 205–206, 239– 240, 285, 304, 312 Pearson, Drew, 1, 65, 201, 250, 343n16 Peck, Gregory, 11, 353n20 Pegler, Westbrook, 121 Pendergast, Thomas, 52–53, 266, 299, 305; machine, 52–53, 143, 241, 244, 266, 295, 299, 303, 330 Pennsylvania, 107–108, 338n40; election 1944, 245, 265, 283, 294, 296, 305– 306, 308, 310, 315, 319–320, 323, 325, 352n32; University of, 338n40 Peoria, Ill., 302 Pepper, Claude, 173, 175–176, 245, 341n27 Perkins, Frances, 237, 329 Pew, Joseph N., Jr., 38, 63, 97, 282, 328, 339n2 Philadelphia: Athletics, 283; Dewey campaign, 216, 223–224; election 1944, 283–285, 296, 309; Evening Bulletin, xi; Phillies, 213; Stassen, 338n40 Philadelphia Inquirer, xi Philadelphia Record, xi, 323 Philippines, 8, 36, 204, 207 Pidgeon, Walter, 12, 231 Pinchot, Gifford, 258 Pittsburgh, 283, 309; Dewey visits, 214, 265, 271 Pittsburgh Courier, 268 Pittsfield, Mass., 306 PM, 27, 68, 238 Polish National Alliance, 262 Political Science Academy, 33 Polk, James Knox, 338n1 Pontiac, Mich., 298 Porter, Paul, 144, 156, 203, 246, 347n11 Portland, Ore., 224, 229–230

382

I n de x

Poughkeepsie, N.Y., 306 Powell, Adam Clayton, 245, 303 Powell, Dick, 353n20 Power, Tyrone, 12 Prehn, Arthur W., 84, 341n18 Prescott, Orville, 244 Price, Vincent, 353n20 Princeton University, 348n15 Progressive Party, 85, 87, 325 Pryor, Samuel, 213 Public Utilities Commission (Ohio), 30 Pueblo, Colo., 295 Puget Sound Navy Yard, 207 Pulaski Day, 261–262 Quayle, Dan, 46 Quebec Conference, 249–250 Queens, 272–274 Queeny, Edgar Monsanto, 61–62 Railway Porters Union, 57 Rainbow Division, 35 Randolph, A. Philip, 56 Rankin, John, 70–71 Rayburn, Sam, 15, 45, 72; vice presidential possibility, 19, 50–51, 122, 124–125, 136, 144–145, 148, 152, 161, 176, 344n8, 348n13 Reasoner, Harry, 110 Reconstruction Finance Corporation, 331 Reed, Clyde, 237, 302 Reed, Stanley, 339n21 Reid, Helen, 269 Reilly, Michael, 208 Reinsch, J. Leonard, 246–247 Republican Convention of 1940, 26, 32, 39, 110 Republican Convention of 1944, 3, 22, 82; first day, 110–111; preparation for, 101–103, 109; second day, 113–117; third day, 117–120 Republican National Committee, 77, 209, 215, 221, 283, 303 Research Institute of America, 109 Resolutions Committee, 104, 113–114, 343n8 Revercomb, Chapman, 102

Revere, Ann, 353n20 Reynolds, Quentin, 170 Rhode Island, 314 Rinehart, Mary Roberts, 247 Ritter, Grant A., 118, 344n22 Roberts, Kenneth, 247 Roberts, Owen, 339n21 Robeson, Paul, 71 Robinson, Bill “Bojangles,” 291 Robinson, Edward G., 232, 247 Robinson, Joe, 51 Rodgers, Richard, 13 Roerich, Nicholas, 48–49, 338n10 Rogers, Ginger, 231 Rooney, Mickey, 71 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 57, 130–131, 134–135, 149, 211, 273–274, 318–319, 345nn6,10, 346n21 Roosevelt, Elliott, 233 Roosevelt, Franklin D., ix–xii, 7–11, 14–17, 19–22, 24–25, 27, 31–34, 40, 42–45, 52, 55, 59, 64, 71, 76, 78, 86–87, 91, 93, 95–97, 100, 103, 106–107, 116, 119–121, 164, 209, 211, 226, 239, 256, 266, 344n3, 345n6, 347n7, 348n15, 349n7, 354n20, 356n25; and Browder, 336n7; and Byrnes, 50, 144, 147, 149–151, 156, 158, 200; candidate 1944, 140, 153, 161–162, 165–168, 190–194, 212, 214–216, 218, 227–230, 232, 240, 244–245, 247–248, 251–254, 262–263, 265, 267, 269–270, 277–278, 280–282, 290–295, 298–299, 301, 304–305, 307, 309, 313–316, 352nn10,21, 353nn7,20; and Congress, 65–67; death, 330, 333; elected, 198–199; election day, 318–320; election of 1940, 42, 304; fourth term, 331–332; Hawaii and Alaska, 185, 204–208; health, 46–48, 128–135, 271, 273, 275, 285, 299–300, 345n5, 346nn11,14,15; and Hull, 217; Lucy Mercer, 131, 143, 345n10, 346n21; and MacArthur, 36–37; to New England, 306, 308, 310–312; New York City campaign, 272–276, 285, 289; nominated, 169, 171–173,

I n de x 184, 202; to Philadelphia and Chicago, 283–288, 344n9, 358n4; possibility of running, 122–125, 127, 136, 138–139, 339n19; Quebec conference, 191, 249– 250; results 1944, 321–329, 358n1; tax bill veto, 72–75, 340nn20,26, 350n3; Teamsters dinner, 1–6, 178, 233–237, 240–241, 243, 326, 329; and Truman, 53, 160, 189; on vice presidency, 137, 141–142, 144–148, 152, 155, 157, 170, 201, 348n14, 349n10; and Wallace, 49, 126, 143–144, 147, 154, 159, 175, 203, 347nn3,5, 350n20, 351n11 Roosevelt, Franklin D., Jr., 130, 233 Roosevelt, James, 184, 199, 233 Roosevelt, John, 130, 233 Roosevelt, Sara, 46, 345n10 Roosevelt, Theodore, 46 Roper, Elmo, 123, 292, 315, 322 Rose, Alex, 283 Rose, Billy, 71 Rosenberg, Anna, 148 Rosenman, Samuel, 20, 72, 74–75, 96, 129, 142–143, 148, 204, 207–208, 258, 340n20, 347n5, 348n18, 349n10 Rozmarek, Charles, 262 Ruth, George Herman “Babe,” 313 Rutherfurd, Lucy Mercer: affair with FDR, 345n10; meetings with Roosevelt, 131, 134, 346n21 Rutherfurd, Winthrop, 345n10 Rutledge, Wiley, 339n21 Sacramento, 295 St. Louis, 61, 300, 338n14; Browns, 243, 294; Cardinals, 244, 294; Dewey visit, 214, 220, 265–267 St. Louis Argus, 268 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 125, 268, 326 St. Paul, Minn., 302 St. Paul Dispatch, 326 St. Paul Pioneer Press, 263 Saltonstall, Leverett, 16, 63, 105, 116, 226, 306, 324, 353n6 Samuel, Bernard, 223 San Diego, 171–172, 204, 295 San Francisco, 224, 230–231, 295, 301

383

Saturday Evening Post, 11, 28 Savage, Joseph P., 83, 94–95 Schoeppel, Andrew, 236 Schricker, Henry F., 323, 346n1 Schroeder, Werner, 114, 210, 258, 319–320 Scott, Randolph, 231 Scott, Zachary, 232 Scranton, Pa., 306, 309 Seattle, 224–225, 228–229, 235 Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), 51, 209 Selective Service, 8, 71, 87, 223, 311 Selznick, David O., 231 Senate, 15, 31, 52–53, 70–71, 74, 76, 127, 165, 245, 323 Sevareid, Eric, 12 “78 Club,” 62 78th Congress, 65 Shaw, Artie, 232 Sheboygan Press, 87 Sherman Hotel, 159 Sherman, William T., 7, 341n4 Sherwood, Robert, 19, 75, 268, 338n5 Shibe Park, 283–284, 344n9 Shipstead, Henrik, 277 Shirer, William L., 12–13 Shore, Dinah, 13 Shrine Auditorium, 295, 301 Sidney, Sylvia, 353n20 Silver, Abba Hillel, 262 Silvers, Phil, 353n20 Simpson, Kenneth, 26 Sinatra, Frank, 12, 232, 246–247, 291 Skadding, George, 172, 185 Smaller War Plants Corporation, 9 Smith, Alfred E., 47, 55; death of, 255–256 Smith, Ellison D. “Cotton Ed,” 324 Smith, Gerald L. K., 61, 89, 287, 339n2 Smith, H. Alexander, 323 Smith, Merriman, 132, 139 Smith v. Allwright, 55 Smith-Connally Act, 17, 229 Social Security, 4, 348n15 Sokolsky, George P., 241 Soldier Field, 286, 287 Sothern, Ann, 231

384

I n de x

South Carolina, 283, 324 Spangler, Harrison, 78, 101–102, 108– 110, 226, 336n3, 344n16 Sparks, Chauncey M., 165, 346n1 Spellman, Francis, 50, 338n12 Sportsman’s Park, 300 Sprague, J. Russell, 27, 41, 78, 103 Springfield, Mass., 306, 311 Springfield, Mo., 296 Stalin, Josef, 10, 18, 128, 230, 248, 252, 270, 332 Stambaugh, Lynn, 323 Stanwyck, Barbara, 280 Stark, Lloyd, 53, 160, 338n14 Stassen, Harold E.: background of, 34, 38–40, 338n40; and Ball, 263, 355n10; naval service, 41; presidential candidacy, 16, 22–23, 77, 84–88, 90, 93, 97, 99, 103, 105, 108, 112, 115, 117, 276; and Willkie, 80, 92 State Department, 45, 128, 218, 248, 269 State of the Union address, 66, 287, 340n4 Statler Hotel, 1, 234 Steber, Eleanor, 163 Stettinius, Edward R., 216, 346n1 Stevens Hotel, 77–78, 102, 106–107, 119, 161, 279–280, 302 Stevenson, Adlai E., 350n4 Stewart, James, 11 Stewart, James Garfield, 112, 325 Stigler, William G., 83–84, 175 Stilwell, Joseph W., 288–289, 310 Stimson, Henry L., 8, 11, 37, 43, 193, 224, 250–251, 284, 330 Stone, Harlan Fiske, 339n21 Stone, I. F., 218 Stoneman, Mae, 232 Strout, Richard L., 292 Styles, Hal, 301, 357n12 Suckley, Margaret “Daisy,” 3, 75, 130, 133–134, 138, 148, 251, 347n7 Sullivan and Cromwell, 25 Sulzberger, Arthur Hays, 267 Sumner, Jessie, 102 Sunbury, Pa., 309 Sundergaard, Gayle, 353n20

Supply Priorities and Allocation Board, 9 Swanson, Gloria, 303, 313 Taft, Robert A., 16, 23, 26, 31–32, 34, 69–70, 84, 92, 104–106, 113–114, 120, 237, 277, 293, 302, 324–325, 329 Tamiroff, Akim, 353n20 Tammany Hall, 255 Tarkington, Booth, 247 Tatum, Art, 353n20 Taylor, Glen H., 324 Teamsters Union, 63; dinner, 1–6, 326, 329 Teheran Conference, 66, 128–130, 262 Temporary National Economic Committee, 253 Tennessee Valley Authority, 40, 56, 287 Texas, 295, 300; Democratic conflict, 145, 161, 166, 321 Thomas, Elbert, 174–176, 341n27 Thomas, Elmer, 83 Thomas, Norman, 59, 321 Thompson, Dorothy, 268 Thomson, Vernon, 86 Three Stooges, 232 Thye, Edward J., 39, 277 Time, 116, 152, 169, 294, 301 Timmins, Bascom, 176 Tobey, Charles, 302 Tobias, Channing H., 211, 251 Tobin, Daniel J., 2–3, 63–64 Tobin, Maurice, 325 Todd, Mildred, 318 Tojo, Hideki, 164 Tone, Franchot, 232 Toscanini, Arturo, 12 Tregaskis, Richard, 13 Trohan, Walter, ix, 346n14 Trout, Paul “Dizzy,” 243 Truman, Bess, 245, 318 Truman, Harry S., x, 74, 179; background, 52–54, 241, 244, 338n14; becomes president, 330–331, 333, 352n9; and Byrnes, 150, 160; campaign of, 196, 232, 242, 246–249, 291, 293–295, 298–305, 327–328; and Dewey, 280, 304, 351n6; elected, 198–199; election

I n de x day, 318; and Ku Klux Klan, 301–303; nomination of, 57–58, 173–177, 184, 189, 203; and Roosevelt, 202, 245; vice - presidential possibility, 50–52, 124–126, 136, 143–149, 151–152, 155, 157–158, 161, 164–165, 168–170, 344n10, 348n18, 349n10, 350n26; and Walsh, 303–304, 306–307 Truman Committee, 54, 124, 146, 160, 263, 302, 304–305, 330, 350n25 Trussell, C. P., 285 Tufts, Sonny, 11 Tugwell, Rexford G., 295–296 Tully, Grace, 43, 47, 147, 348n18 Tunisia, 10 Turner, Lana, 232 Tydings, Millard, 324, 346n1 United Mine Workers, 288, 309 United Press, 70, 123, 139 United States Chamber of Commerce, 101 United States Maritime Commission, 3 United States Military Academy, 35–36 United States Supreme Court, 30, 50–51, 352n9 U.S. News and World Report, 244 USS Baltimore, 204–207 USS Cummings, 207–208 Utah, 295, 314 Vallee, Rudy, 12 Vandenberg, Arthur, 16, 26, 69, 101– 102, 237; foreign policy, 212, 277; MacArthur supporter, 37–38, 83, 95; Republican convention, 113, 118 Van Doren, Irita, 49, 338n10 Vassar College, 319 Venuta, Benay, 291 Vermont, 59, 213, 314, 320–321, 352n32 Vincent, John Carter, 347n3 Vinson, Fred M., 341n28 Wage and Hour Act, 4 Wagner Act, 56, 228–229 Wagner, Robert F., 246, 261–262, 272– 273, 291, 324, 341n27 Wake Island, 9

385

Waldorf-Astoria, 269, 275 Walker, Frank C., 48, 122, 126, 144, 146, 148–151, 157, 160, 164 Walker, Robert, 353n20 Wallace, Henry A., x, 46, 56, 179, 310, 324, 330; in campaign 1944, 202, 232, 242, 245, 248–249, 288, 291, 304; Commerce nomination, 331–332; Democratic convention, 154, 159–160, 163, 168–171, 173–176, 200–201, 203, 351n11; opposition to, 44, 48, 52, 57– 58, 126, 136, 143, 145–148, 150–153, 155, 347nn5,6; vice president, 72, 118, 121–122, 124, 127, 141–142, 144, 149, 161, 347n3 Wallace, Ilo, 351n11 Wallgren, Mon C., 125, 324–325, 340n27 Wall Street Journal, 250 Walsh, David I., 303–304, 306–308, 310–312 Wappingers Falls, N.Y., 306 War Department, 224, 288 Waring, Fred, 12 Warm Springs, Ga., 47, 55, 333 War Manpower Commission, 45 War Mobilization Advisory Board, 148 War Production Board, 70 Warner, Jack, 328 Warren, Earl, 16, 41, 63, 93, 105, 109, 341n30; campaign 1944, 188, 221, 231–233, 295; Japanese internment, 11, 335n6; keynote speaker, 102, 111; vice presidential possibility, 79, 99, 109, 112, 115; and Willkie, 81, 342n2 Washington (state), 295, 301, 314, 320, 324–325; Dewey trip, 229 Washington Post, 67, 114, 172, 326 Watson, Claude, 321 Watson, Edwin M. “Pa,” 2, 48, 133, 204, 259, 291, 332, 358n2 Ways and Means Committee, 68, 73 Wechsler, James, 235, 244 Weeks, Sinclair, 210, 213, 257 Wehrmacht, 10, 26, 331 Welles, Orson, 71, 247 Western Union, 120

386

I n de x

West Virginia, 252–253, 288, 309, 315 Wexler, Irving (“Waxey Gordon”), 25, 336n9 Wheeler, Burton K., 53 Wherry, Kenneth S., 95, 264, 277 White, Wallace, 120, 177 White, William Allen, 33 White, William L., 13 White, Walter, 19, 167, 251, 303 Whitney, Alexander, 158, 349n17 Whitney, Richard, 26 Wichita, Kans., 295 Wickard, Claude, 293 Wiley, Alexander, 279, 302, 329, 356n1 Wilhelmina, Queen, 354n20 Wilkes-Barre, Pa., 306, 309 Williams, Aubrey, 130, 135 Williams, Ted, 11 Willis, Simeon S., 19–20, 105 Willkie, Edith, 219, 256, 260, 338n10 Willkie, Wendell L., x, 13, 37, 45, 69, 220, 245, 275, 336n3, 346n1; after withdrawal, 93, 96–97, 99, 108–109, 139, 210, 212; background, 40–41; candidate for 1944, 16, 19, 21–23, 38, 59–64, 81–82, 341n6; death, 256–257, 262; and Dewey, 40–41, 120, 211, 213, 218–219, 221–222, 226, 228, 258, 353n6; nominee in 1940, 7, 26, 39, 42, 49, 102, 256, 321–322, 327, 338n10; on platform, 113–115, 343n8; and Roosevelt, 44, 80, 152, 259–260, 320; western tour, 79–82; withdrawal,

91–92; Wisconsin primary, 84–91, 107, 181 Wills, William H., 59–60, 339n2 Wilson, Charles E., 346n1 Wilson, Dooley, 353n20 Wilson, Woodrow, 16, 44, 56, 129, 167, 329, 338n1, 357n8 Winant, John G., 145, 148, 152, 245, 346n1, 348n15 Winchell, Walter, 131, 135 Winters, Shelley, 353n20 Wisconsin, 281, 301–302, 314, 321–322, 352n32; primary, 84–91, 279 Wisconsin State Journal, 90 Wise, Stephen, 291 Wood, Robert E., 37–38, 83 Woodring, Harry H., 44 Worcester, Mass., 306, 310–311 World Series, 294, 300 Wright, Teresa, 353n20 Wyatt, Wilson W., 165, 167, 350n4 Wyman, Jane, 353n20 Wynn, Keenan, 232 Wyoming, 295, 315, 321–322, 352n32 Yalta Conference, 262, 332 York, Pa., 309 Young Americans for Roosevelt, 246 Young, Harold, 142 Youngstown, Ohio, 296 Zionist Organization of America, 263 Zook, John D., 343n15

David M. Jor da n is author of Roscoe Conkling of New York: Voice in the Senate; Winfield Scott Hancock: A Soldier’s Life (IUP, 1988); “Happiness Is Not My Companion”: The Life of General G. K. Warren (IUP, 2001); and Occasional Glory: A History of the Philadelphia Phillies, among other books.

This book was designed by Jamison Cockerham at Indiana University Press, set in type by Cathy Bailey, and printed by Sheridan Books, Inc. The text face is Arno, designed by Robert Slimbach in 2007, and the display face is DIN 1451, designed by Wilhelm Pischner in 1929, both issued by Adobe Systems.