HENRY A. WALLACE Quixotic Crusade 1948 Men and Movements Series HENRY A. WALLACE: Quixotic Crusade 1948 ☆ Karl M. Schmidt SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY PRESS i960 Library of Congress Catalog Card: 60-16440 COPYRIGHT © 1960, SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY PRESS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC., BINGHAMTON, NEW YORK For Jill and Glen Preface The two-party system has been a feature of the American political scene for all except a few brief periods in our his­ tory. Yet, during most of the last 130 years, the traditional two major parties have had in virtually every election at least one minor-party competitor. Despite this persistence, there has been a continuing pattern of failure. Never has an American third party been successful in displacing a major competitor. (Both the Whigs and the Republicans grew and came to power in two of those rare periods when a single major party was dominant.) The presidential campaign of 1948 was not exceptional in that it witnessed new minor-party challenges to Democratic and Republican supremacy. One of these movements took shape as Henry A. Wallace’s Progressive Party. The present study attempts to examine the background, the leaders, the organization, the campaign, and finally the disintegration of this third party. It attempts to present a history of the Wallace Progressive Party—a political history based to the greatest possible extent upon the firsthand accounts of those who participated in a movement sufficiently distinctive to merit the title of “crusade”—a quixotic crusade. Why is it that minor parties have never been successful in this country? It appears that there must be substantial rea­ sons for the repeated pattern of failure that has greeted their vii viii Wallace: Quixotic Crusade 1948 persistence. Professor William B. Hesseltine had indicated some of them in The Rise and Fall of Third Parties: . . . The obstacles that line the . . . way are indeed discouraging. In general they fall into two classes, the prac­ tical and the philosophical, and neither can be dismissed as unimportant. Both are imperatives—liberals must find a base upon which to make a valid appeal to the reason and conscience of the voters, and they must create a prac­ tical organization to carry out the program. The practical handicaps which a new party must over­ come fall into two groups: financial and legal. . . . can­ dor compels the admission that the barriers are formidable. A postscript might be added that a successful third party also requires a fertile soil of crisis or a favorable climate of unrest in which to flourish. Surrounding conditions may not, of course, be created by the party; they may only be utilized. Nevertheless, their presence or absence may spell life or death to a minor party. In examining these factors to ascertain the role they played in the life cycle of one third party, that of Henry A. Wallace, inquiry will first be made into the currents—streams both philosophical and political—contributing to the initial de­ cision to embark upon such a venture. Since the party was essentially the creation and creature of one man, it seems necessary to examine briefly his personal philosophy, charac­ teristics, and attributes that were to play so great a part in this undertaking. Attention must also be given to the “practical” obstacles mentioned by Professor Hesseltine: matters of party organization—the attempt to establish a new nation-wide group able to compete on the ward and precinct level with well-established party machines and the attempt to set up a structure sturdy enough to endure, regardless of the fate of the individuals connected with it. Part and parcel of these prac- Preface ix tical considerations are the dual legal-financial barriers re­ ferred to, including the statutory weapons so often used by parties in power to discourage or eliminate third-party compe­ tition by keeping insurgent groups off the ballot. Included also are fiscal obstacles—the need to secure funds to meet the tremendous expense of organizing and conducting a nation-wide campaign against well-entrenched machines pos­ sessing established donors as well as patronage favors to dis­ pense. In addition, there are numerous other obstacles that con­ front a third party—the traditional adherence of the Ameri­ can voter to the party of his forbears, the loss of popular policies to major-party “thunder-stealers,” the feeling that pressure group activity may be more productive, defeatism resulting from rebuffs at the polls, and the opinion that more certain—if more restricted—benefits will accrue from work­ ing within the two-party framework. Virtually all of these considerations played a part in the yearlong 1948 campaign of the Wallace Progressive Party, its rejection at the polls, and its subsequent attempts to carry on into the following years. Besides these customary barriers to minor-party success, the Wallace venture was subjected to certain additional and very special handicaps—handicaps attendant upon the nature of the Party’s underlying doctrines and its attempts to intro­ duce what might be described as tolerant politics into a period of intolerance. These special disadvantages must be inquired into—particularly as they were reflected in two aspects of the 1948 campaign: the Philadelphia Convention and the Com­ munist-domination charges so persistently hurled at the party by a hostile press. Ultimately, an evaluation must be made of the party’s per­ formance in carrying out the announced objectives of its founder—Henry A. Wallace—and of its impact on the American political scene. Acting upon his basic faith in and x Wallace: Quixotic Crusade 1948 desire to assist the “common man,” Wallace felt this third- party venture was a means—the only means—of carrying his “fight for peace” over the head of the President of the United States to the American people. For Wallace, the cam­ paign battle reached far beyond America’s shores; it was a battle for a war-free world in which the common men of all nations might live and prosper. If both major parties failed to give the American voter an opportunity to urge peaceful alternatives upon his government, then a new party must come into being—eventually to supplant one of them. “The people,” said Wallace, “must have a choice.” But, beyond the immediate hopes and expectations of its founder and its followers, what was the party’s impact? What were its ultimate effects on the American political scene, upon the conduct of American government? Here the additional perspective provided by the passage of time and the policies of succeeding administrations may prove helpful in arriving at a more balanced picture. Much was written about the 1948 Progressive Party—at least in the columns of the press at the time—but little sys­ tematic attempt has been made to inquire with any measure of objectivity into the many facets of its history. Accordingly, it has been necessary to rely in great measure upon sources other than written for the present study. The primary sources employed have included materials contained in the files of the Progressive Party (to the limited extent that party officials were willing to make them avail­ able), reports filed with the Clerk of the United States House of Representatives (for financial matters), and data gathered by the author and other persons during the course of the 1948 campaign—such as party press releases, letters of in­ struction to local affiliates, and other official communications. However, more important than these documentary sources of information have been the personal interviews with officials of the Progressive Party and others connected with the Wal-