THE NARROWNESS OF ACADEMIC HISTORY

FDR, DEWEY AND THE ELECTION OF 1944

BY DAVID M. JORDAN (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana U. Press, c2011)

Rev. by Hugh Murray

            Jordan concludes his book reflecting “on a particularly nasty election campaign, caused,…,by…Republicans’ lack of real issues (hence the…Communism emphasis)….”(p. 331)  I disagree.  It was a nasty campaign BECAUSE there were real issues that separated Republicans and Democrats, and one issue rightly concerned communism.

            In January 1944 in a radio address President Franklin Roosevelt basically read his State of the Union message to the nation, and also to allay fears about secret arrangements at recent international meetings in Moscow, Cairo, and Teheran, asserted “there were no secret treaties or political or financial commitments.”(66)  October 8, 1944, during a Polish parade in New York City, and with only a month before the presidential election, New York Gov. Dewey denounced FDR’s secret deals concerning the future of Poland.(261)  Three days later President Roosevelt met with Polish Americans to assure them there would be no (Soviet) puppet government established in Poland nor would there be major population transfers.  Who was more accurate, Dewey with his wild, anti-Communist charges, or FDR with his platitudes?  Was this not a “real” issue?  Recall, WWII began as a defense of the Polish nation.

            Somewhat like John Dos Passos’ USA, Jordan punctuates his narrative with short snapshots of the culture of the time: Tallulah Bankhead in the Hitchcock’s film Lifeboat, Broadway singing homage to “Oklahoma,” bobby soxers screaming for Frank Sinatra, Count Fleet winning the Triple Crown, and the flight of Walt Disney’s Dumbo.  Yet, for contrast, Jordan should have included the 1943 film, Mission to Moscow, based on the diaries of FDR’s first Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Joseph Davies.  True, the USSR and the USA were then allies.  But the film stresses the superb leadership of the Soviet Union under Stalin, and it concludes that those executed in the purge trials were indeed traitors, a view challenged at the time by most knowledgeable observers, and one exposed as fraud by Khrushchev in his famous speech of the 1950s.  The movie was such propaganda for the Soviets that during the Cold War, Congress would use this as an example of Communist influence in Hollywood.  Yet, the film was based on the book by FDR’s appointed ambassador.  If it were simply Communist propaganda, what does that indicate about the Ambassador and the man who appointed him?  In 1950 Hollywood mogul Jack Warner testified, telling Congressmen that he had been requested to make the film by Davies and by Roosevelt.  Hollywood produced several films, like North Star, depicting the happy collective farmers of the Ukraine who undergo a terrible sneak attack by the Germans in 1941.  The latter part is true, but the film says nothing of the unhappy Ukrainians who starved by the millions a decade earlier as a consequence of Stalin’s policies.

            How could anyone associate President Roosevelt with Communism?  In his State of the Union speech of January 1944, he introduced his Economic Bill of Rights.  I quote Jordan:  “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 freedom 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.’”(66) 

Even in today’s America, these are radical proposals.  “The right to a decent home?”  To achieve this goal the federal government pressured banks to lower their standards in making loans to purchase housing, basically awarding homes to those who could not pay for them.  When the bubble burst in 2008 the right to decent housing was exposed as a right that required the ability to repay loans.  The US government and the world economies are still suffering because of the liberal attempts to establish this right for poor credit risks.  Moreover, the struggle over Hillary Care in the 1990s and Obama Care in 2010 indicate that many Americans are suspicious of government intrusion in the health industry, even if to establish a right to adequate medical care and good health.  FDR’s Economic Bill of Rights did not make him a Communist, but it did demonstrate that his policies were radical, far more radical than the programs of the Republicans.  There were real issues separating the parties.

The differences can be illustrated again by another issue altogether absent from Jordan’s history, Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9250.  Jordan discusses taxes in his text, and relates an important speech by Ken. Sen. Alben Barkley criticizing President Roosevelt.(73)  Yet, in that Executive Order Roosevelt proposed a tax on all salaries over $25,000.  Basically any earnings above $25,000 were to be taxed at 100%, in effect making a cap on earnings at 25K.  Above that, there would be a confiscatory tax.  Admittedly, there were certain qualifications in the Order, such as regarding life insurance, yet it was a proposal.  Because it was related to a law that was set to expire in 1944, this Order was never enforced.  Yet, it shows the thinking of the President, and how radical it was.  A salary cap of $25K!  And though that amount was worth more than 10 times the amount in today’s dollars, we know that when taxes are initiated with a stated amount, that amount seldom increases as fast as the inflation rate.  Had FDR’s Executive Order been enforced and extended, the US would be a more socialist nation.  But Jordan never mentions this.  He fails to see the major differences between the GOP and the Democrats in 1944.

Because Jordan dismisses the major issues separating Dewey and FDR in 1944, he sees it as a nasty campaign in which the GOP used the Communist issue because it had no real issues.  Jordan does indeed provide many examples of how Gov. Dewey, and especially his running mate, Gov. Bricker used anti-Communism in the campaign.(237, 238, 239, 242, 244, 253, 266, 280, and many more).  Although Roosevelt was engaged in the conduct of the war, he also did some campaigning, and he responded to his critics on the Communist issue in a radio speech on October 5.  “Labor-haters, 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 is 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.  …I have never sought, and I do not welcome the support of any person or group committed to Communism, or Fascism, or any other foreign ideology which would undermine the American system of government, of the American system of free enterprise and private property.”(252)

Not only did the Communists indirectly support FDR and the Democrats, there were those with pro-Communist views inside the Roosevelt Administration (like former Ambassador Davies), AND there were Soviet spies.  The Manhattan Project was developing the A-bomb for the United States, but members of this project, like the young Theodore Hall (Holtzberg), were passing those secrets on to the Rosenbergs or other couriers so the bomb could be developed for Stalin; in the Dept. of State some “experts” were already undermining the official government of Chiang Kai-Shek in China, demanding that he conclude a deadly alliance with Mao and the Communists; and others like Alger Hiss, who by not providing FDR information at Yalta allowed a large Japanese island to be assigned to the Soviets when the war had concluded.  If one thinks I have exaggerated, Russian leader Vladimir Putin, in a speech of January 2012 openly gave thanks to the atomic spies who helped arm the Soviets.  He declared they delivered suitcases full of secrets.  And then he emphasized suitcases full!

One issue Dewey did not raise, and this is discussed only slightly in Jordan’s book, was the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese in December 1941.(240)  Was the surprise attack a surprise?  An officer leaked to Dewey the charge that Roosevelt knew the Japanese would attack because the US had broken their code.  When Gen George Marshall heard what Dewey might do, he wrote to the Republican candidate, asking that he not make this an issue because the Japanese were still using that code, and Americans were still deciphering it to aid Allied movements.  Dewey suspected that the Japs were no longer using the code, and moreover, several media outlets had already stated that the US had broken the code.  Nevertheless, Dewey did not accuse FDR of knowing prior to the “sneak” attack on Pearl Harbor.  The charge of FDR’s duplicity in the attack has been made through the years – most recently and effectively by Robert Stinnett in his 2001 book claiming that the day of infamy was in reality a Day of Deceit.  The History Channel produced a program based on this work.  The point is that in the election following to the Pearl Harbor losses, the American voter had no opportunity to vote on the disputed claims concerning Roosevelt’s role in Pearl Harbor.  

              With Jordan’s omissions of all these important issues – before the public, or suspected behind the scenes, then what is left to report in his book?  The remnants, the scraps, and the scrapes.  Admittedly, Jordan weaves a fine story from the leftovers.

            Republicans had high hopes in 1944 because they had performed so well in the off-year elections of 1942 and 1943.  By January 1944 some 26 of the 48 governors were Republicans, including those of New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and even Kentucky.(22)  Most of the Democratic governors presided in the Southern states – in the North the GOP led 26 to 12.  Moreover, the Republican-governed states cast 339 electoral votes; the Democratic states, 192.

            The chief asset of Jordan’s book is making clear that many believed the Republicans did have a chance to defeat the Democrats in 1944.  He makes the horse race interesting and exciting.

            Who would the candidates be?  The Republican front-runners of 1940, New York Attorney General Thomas Dewey, Michigan Sen. Arthur Vandenberg, and Ohio Sen. Robert Taft fell victim to the Nazi blitz that swept western Europe in spring/summer 1940.  A gangbusters DA, or rather isolationist senators seemed poor choices to many internationalists once Hitler’s troops marched beneath the Eiffel Tower.  The GOP’s convention galleries were packed with interventionists shouting “We Want Willkie!” Wendell Willkie, a Democrat just turned Republican who was critical of Roosevelt, a Wall Street attorney, and an internationalist.  The delegates yielded to the enthusiasm of the balconies and nominated Willkie.  Meanwhile, the Democrats nominated FDR for an unprecedented third term.  Roosevelt dumped his vice-president, Texan John Garner, and demanded his running mate be the Sec. of Agriculture, Iowan Henry Wallace.

            Many isolationists were not happy about either choice in the election.  Similarly, the far left, the Communists were opposed to any aid for the imperialist powers (the UK, or the defeated France, etc.) and determined to keep the US out of war.  (Of course, that would change in summer 1941 when Hitler broke the non-aggression pact with Stalin and began a massive attack on the Soviet Union.)  Willkie did not win, he cut the Republican voter deficit from 11 million in 1936 to 5.5 million in 1940.  After the off-year elections, many Republicans believed that 1944 would be their year.

            Willkie had been the titular leader of the Republicans, but his internationalism and other views made him anathema to many members of the party.  One example, Willkie in his campaign for the nomination proclaimed that taxes were too low, thus shifting the day’s burdens on to the next generation.  Also, Willkie had made an international fact-finding tour at the behest of President Roosevelt.  To some Republicans, Willkie was still a Democrat.  Could he win the nomination once again?  There were many fewer presidential primaries in 1944 than today.  Willkie targeted Wisconsin – what some viewed as the most isolationist state in the nation.(85)  If he could do well there, he could do well with Republicans anywhere.  He campaigned heavily in the state, one in which Democrats might vote in the GOP primary.  Dewey pretended he would not run, but might be drafted, and so did not campaign.  Gov. Stassen was in the service, while Gen. Douglas MacArthur was busy in the Pacific.  The Wisconsin primary results were decisive: Dewey 40%, MacArthur 24%, Stassen 20%, and Willkie 16%.(90)  Willkie failed to win a single delegate, and the following night withdrew from the contest for the nomination.

            Dewey continued as front-runner, and the Republican convention in Philadelphia was dull as everyone assumed they knew the result.  Another important item omitted by Jordan were the Zionists, especially Benzion Netanyahu, father of Benjamin, who persuaded Dewey and other Republican leaders to include a plank in support of a Jewish state in the Middle East.  Some allege that this forced the Democrats to also support a Zionist state.  However, the GOP platform had strong civil rights planks calling for a permanent FEPC, etc., but this did not force the Democrats to adopt a similar platform on Black civil rights.  Jordan acknowledged the Democrats waffled on civil rights issues.  One surprise was the choice for Vice President.  Most thought it would go to California Gov. Earl Warren, but Warren believed chances would be better in 1948, and asked not to be named.  So Dewey, the nominee, selected his conservative rival for the nomination, Ohio’s Gov. John Bricker.  One of their slogans: End the War quicker with Dewey and Bricker!

            Though some feared FDR’s health might preclude another run for office, his long-term doctor (whom Roosevelt had promoted to Admiral and Surgeon General) assured reporters that the President was in good health.  And for the Democrats, the question was, if not FDR, then who?  There seemed to be no other candidate with whom they could win in November.  But what if?  Should VP Henry Wallace continue in that office?  He had the support of the Left Wing, unions, and minorities, but he was hated by big-city bosses and most Southern politicians.

            Jordan is excellent at exposing the duplicitous role played by FDR, assuring Wallace he favored him, then urging South Carolinian and acting president on many issues, James Byrnes, to run for the nomination, then pushing Sen. Alben Barkley to do the same, and even encouraging others to join the fray.  Byrnes, who had resigned a Supreme Court seat, to manage many domestic issues so FDR could concentrate on the war, was opposed by Blacks who did not want a Southerner to come to power, and by the Roman Catholic hierarchy, who resented his leaving the church to become a Protestant.  In a last minute desperate effort to mollify some Democratic bosses, Byrnes told them he could accept a permanent FEPC, but by then the bosses were looking elsewhere.  Kentucky Sen. Barkley was also deemed to Southern by labor and Black groups.  Byrnes thought he was the choice, but Roosevelt, while promising support, told leaders to first “clear it with Sidney” Hillman, leader of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, who had worked in his union with Communist organizers, who was a member of the popular-front American Labor Party in New York, and who led the CIO’s Political Action Committee.  Although Hillman clearly preferred Wallace, he would reject both Byrnes and Barkley, but he could accept Missouri Sen. Harry Truman.  The jilted Byrnes would leak the “clear it with Sidney” statement to the press (203), and it would become part of rhetoric of the Republican campaign, proving how radical left-wingers dominated the Democratic Party.

            The Democratic convention renominated Roosevelt for the top spot.  Although the Left packed the galleries one night, hoping to Willkie the convention to renominate Henry Wallace, the party bosses that night delayed the roll calls for the nomination.  Next day, security prevented many laborites from swelling the galleries and the floor.  On the first ballot Wallace led with 429.5, followed by Truman with 319.5, and others, but 589 were required for the nomination.  The second ballot, many favorites sons released their delegates, and the Truman stampede was on.  The ticket would be Roosevelt and Truman.

While Dewey attacked the inefficiency of the Democrats and their huge bureaucracy, FDR could joke about it.  If his Administration were so incompetent, how come the Allies are winning the war?  Ask Hitler if we are inefficient?  Ask Mussolini or Tojo.  American economic might and American fighting men were winning on ever more fronts against a shrinking Axis.  There were annoying ration cards for sugar, meat, gasoline, but this was a small price to pay. 

            Jordan writes that few Americans were aware that Japanese had been interned in camps – or that German and Italian nationals had also been rounded up.  But perhaps Jordan himself is unaware of the latter as he makes no mention of it.  Indeed, Jordan is silent on the curtailing of civil liberties under FDR;  Father Coughlin had been silenced and his National Union for Social Justice crippled by postal authorities.  Although FDR pardoned Communist leader Earl Browder, FDR’s Administration, with the support of the Communists, prosecuted strikers who were Trotskyists for violation of the Smith Act.  On the other hand, there was an election during a major war, and there was criticism of the incumbents; but there were narrower limits to permitted criticism.

            By autumn 1944 unemployment was a bad memory and labor shortages encouraged women into the workplace as never before.  The Allies were closing the pincers round a losing Axis.  The depression was over and victory in war was visible.  When the votes were counted in November 1944, Roosevelt won by more than 3 million.  It was the last time that the Democrats carried every Southern state.  Because men were at war, it may have been the first election in which more women than men voted.  Turnout was higher than anticipated, but still quite low in Southern states with the poll tax and other restrictions.  Though the GOP platform was far more explicit that the Democratic on protecting rights of Blacks, and even though Dewey had the support of Black newspapers like the Pittsburgh Courier, the Baltimore Afro-American, and the N.Y. Amsterdam News (268), even though Gov. Dewey had enacted New York’s state FEPC, the first such in the nation, FDR won some 68% of the Black vote.

            In January 1945 Roosevelt began his 4^th term as President, and in April he died.  Harry Truman was sworn in as President.  Only then did an  Administration insider inform him about the A-bomb.  Soon after, at a Big-3 conference in Potsdam, Truman told Stalin something about the new weapon the Americans had developed.  Had he wanted, Stalin could have told Truman even more about the American bomb!  Suitcases full!

            The 1944 election was one in which the parties differed sharply on many issues.  Jordan’s book is a good read on popular issues, on the lighter aspects of the campaign.  But his book avoids the many darker issues that troubled America then, and later.