Henry A. Wallace
Encyclopedia
Henry Agard Wallace was the 33rd Vice President of the United States
(1941–1945), the Secretary of Agriculture
(1933–1940), and the Secretary of Commerce
(1945–1946). In the 1948 presidential election
, Wallace was the nominee of the Progressive Party.
, was born on October 7, 1888, at a farm near Orient
, Adair County, Iowa
. Wallace attended Iowa State College
at Ames
where he was a brother in the Delta Tau Delta
fraternity. At Iowa State he became friends with George Washington Carver
, spending time together collecting botanical specimens. He graduated in 1910 with a degree in animal husbandry. He worked on the editorial staff of the family-owned paper Wallace's Farmer in Des Moines, Iowa
, from 1910 to 1924 and edited the publication from 1924 to 1929. He experimented with breeding high-yielding hybrid corn, and authored many publications on agriculture. In 1915 he devised the first corn-hog ratio charts indicating the probable course of markets.
With an inheritance of a few thousand dollars that had been left to his wife, the former Ilo Browne
, whom he married in 1914, Wallace founded the Hi-Bred Corn Company in 1926, which later became Pioneer Hi-Bred
, a major agriculture corporation, acquired in 1999 by the Dupont Corporation for approximately $10 billion.
Wallace was raised as a Presbyterian, but left that denomination early in life. He spent most of his early life exploring other religious faiths and traditions. For many years, he had been closely associated with famous Russian artist and writer Nicholas Roerich
. According to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
, "Wallace's search for inner light took him to strange prophets.... It was in this search that he encountered Nicholas Roerich, a Russian emigre, painter, theosophist. Wallace did Roerich a number of favors, including sending him on an expedition to Central Asia presumably to collect drought-resistant grasses. In due course, H.A. [Wallace] became disillusioned with Roerich and turned almost viciously against him." Wallace eventually settled on Episcopalianism.
Henry Wallace was also a Freemason and attained the 32nd Degree in the Scottish Rite
.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
appointed Wallace United States Secretary of Agriculture
in his Cabinet
, a post his father, Henry Cantwell Wallace
, had occupied from 1921 to 1924. Wallace had been a liberal
Republican
, but he supported Roosevelt's New Deal
and soon switched to the Democratic Party
. Wallace served as Secretary of Agriculture until September 1940, when he resigned, having been nominated for Vice President
as Roosevelt's running mate in the 1940 presidential election. During his tenure as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture he ordered a very unpopular strategy of slaughtering pigs and plowing up cotton fields in rural America to drive the price of these commodities back up in order to improve American farmers' financial situation. He also advocated the ever-normal granary concept.
. His inauguration took place on January 20, 1941, for the term ending January 20, 1945.
Roosevelt named Wallace chairman of the Board of Economic Warfare
(BEW) and of the Supply Priorities and Allocations Board (SPAB) in 1941. Both positions became important with the U.S. entry into World War II
. As he began to flex his newfound political muscle in his position with SPAB, Wallace came up against the conservative wing of the Democratic party in the form of Jesse H. Jones, Secretary of Commerce, as the two differed on how to handle wartime supplies.
On May 8, 1942, Wallace delivered his most famous speech, which became known by the phrase "Century of the Common Man" to the Free World Association in New York City
. This speech, grounded in Christian references, laid out a positive vision for the war beyond the simple defeat of the Nazis. The speech, and the book of the same name which appeared the following year, proved quite popular, but it earned him enemies among the Democratic leadership, among important allied leaders like Winston Churchill
, and among business leaders and conservatives.
Wallace spoke out during race riots in Detroit in 1943
, declaring that the nation could not "fight to crush Nazi brutality abroad and condone race riots at home."
In 1943, Wallace made a goodwill tour of Latin America
, shoring up support among important allies. His trip proved a success, and helped persuade twelve countries to declare war on Germany
. Regarding trade relationships with Latin America, he convinced the BEW to add "labor clauses" to contracts with Latin American producers. These clauses required producers to pay fair wages and provide safe working conditions for their employees and committed the United States to paying for up to half of the required improvements. This met opposition from the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Wallace believed that both the American and the Russian revolution were part of "the march to freedom of the past 150 years." After having met Molotov
, he arranged a trip to the "Wild East" of Russia. On May 23, 1944, he started a 25-day journey accompanied by Owen Lattimore
. Coming from Alaska, they landed at Magadan
where they were received by Sergei Goglidze and Dalstroi director Ivan Nikishov, both NKVD
generals. The NKVD presented a fully sanitized version of the slave labor camps in Magadan and Kolyma
to their American guests, convinced them that all the work was done by volunteers, charmed them with entertainment, and left their guests impressed with the "development" of Siberia and the spirit of the "volunteers". Lattimore's film of the visit tells that "a village ... in Siberia is a forum for open discussion like a town meeting in New England." The trip then continued to Mongolia and then to China.
After Wallace feuded publicly with Jesse Jones and other high officials, Roosevelt stripped him of his war agency responsibilities and entertained the idea of replacing him on the presidential ticket. The Democratic Party, with concern being expressed privately about Roosevelt being able to make it through another term, chose
Harry S. Truman
as Roosevelt's running mate at the 1944 Democratic convention
, after New Deal partisans failed to promote William O. Douglas
. Wallace was succeeded as Vice President on January 20, 1945, by Truman. On April 12, 1945, Vice President Truman succeeded to the Presidency when President Franklin D. Roosevelt
died. Henry A. Wallace had missed being the 33rd President of the United States by just 82 days.
, a series of letters that Wallace had written in the 1930s to Nicholas Roerich
was uncovered by the Republicans. Wallace addressed Roerich as "Dear Guru
" and signed all of the letters as "G" for Galahad
, the name Roerich had assigned him. Wallace assured Roerich that he awaited "the breaking of the New Day" when the people of "Northern Shambhalla
"—a Buddhist term roughly equivalent to the kingdom of heaven—would create an era of peace and plenty. When asked about the letters, Wallace claimed they were forgeries. Wallace had been a devoted supporter of Roerich and his work from the middle 1920s. With the nod from Roosevelt, Wallace had lobbied Congress to support Roerich's Banner and Pact of Peace which was signed in Washington, D.C. by delegates from 22 Latin American countries in 1935. Roerich and his son George were sent to Central Asia by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to search for drought-resistant grasses to prevent another Dust Bowl
. But later, in his memoirs, Wallace tried to conceal his association with Roerich. When the Republicans threatened to reveal his "eccentric" religious beliefs to the public, the Democrats countered by threatening to release information about Republican candidate Wendell Willkie
's rumored extramarital
affair with the writer Irita Van Doren. The Republicans subsequently agreed not to publicize the "Guru" letters. In the winter of 1947, however, independent columnist Westbrook Pegler
published extracts from the letters and promoted them thereafter as evidence that Wallace was not fit to be President.
Roosevelt placated Wallace by appointing him Secretary of Commerce
. Wallace served in this post from March 1945 to September 1946, when he was fired by President Harry S. Truman because of disagreements about the policy towards the Soviet Union
. He is the last former Vice President to serve in the President's cabinet.
of The New Republic
magazine, using his position to vociferously criticize Truman's foreign policy. On the declaration of the Truman Doctrine
in 1947, he predicted it would mark the beginning of "a century of fear".
. With Idaho
Democratic U.S. Senator
Glen H. Taylor
as his running mate, his platform advocated friendly relations with the Soviet Union, an end to the nascent Cold War
, an end to segregation, full voting rights for blacks, and universal government health insurance. His campaign was unusual for his time in that it included African American
candidates campaigning alongside white candidates in the American South, and that during the campaign he refused to appear before segregated audiences or eat or stay in segregated establishments.
As a further sign of the times, he was noted by Time
as ostentatiously riding through various cities and towns in the South "with his Negro secretary beside him". Many eggs and tomatoes were hurled at and struck him and his campaign members during the tour, while at the same time President Truman referred to such behavior towards Wallace as very un-American. Wallace commented that "there is a long chain that links unknown young hoodlums in North Carolina or Alabama with men in finely tailored business suits in the great financial centers of New York or Boston, men who make a dollars-&-cents profit by setting race against race in the far away South." State authorities in Virginia sidestepped enforcing its own segregation laws by declaring Wallace's gatherings as private parties.
One of the more potentially controversial supporters of the campaign was a group called Bachelors for Wallace, organized by Henry Hay
and others as organization of gay and bisexual men who supported Wallace's presidential campaign.http://www.outhistory.org/wiki/Harry_Hay:_Founding_the_Mattachine_Society,_1948-1953 Wallace had not made any official statements in support of gay rights and it is unclear how much support this group gave to the campaign. Yet, in the tenor of the times, such an organization would have been highly controversial. The fact that group generated almost no notice by the press or even the campaign itself, may be because of other controversies facing the campaign.
The "Dear Guru" letters reappeared now and were published, seriously hampering his campaign. Even more damage was done to Wallace's campaign when several prominent journalists, including H.L. Mencken and Dorothy Thompson
, publicly charged that Wallace and the Progressives were under the covert control of Communists. Wallace was endorsed by the Communist Party (USA), and his subsequent refusal to publicly disavow any Communist support cost him the backing of many anti-Communist liberals and socialists, such as Norman Thomas
. Christopher Andrew, a University of Cambridge
historian working with evidence in the famed Mitrokhin Archive
, has stated publicly that he believed Wallace was a confirmed KGB agent, though evidence for this was never produced.
Wallace suffered a decisive defeat in the election to the Democratic incumbent Harry S. Truman
. He finished in fourth place with 2.4% of the popular vote. Dixiecrat
presidential candidate Strom Thurmond outstripped Wallace in the popular vote. He managed to carry several states in the Deep South, gaining 39 electoral votes to Wallace's electoral total of zero.
. During his later years he made a number of advances in the field of agricultural science
. His many accomplishments included a breed of chicken
that at one point accounted for the overwhelming majority of all egg-laying chickens sold across the globe. The Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center
, the largest agricultural research complex in the world, is named for him.
In 1950, when North Korea invaded South Korea, Wallace broke with the Progressives and backed the U.S.-led war effort in the Korean War
. In 1952, Wallace published Where I Was Wrong, in which he explained that his seemingly-trusting stance toward the Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin
stemmed from inadequate information about Stalin's excesses and that he, too, now considered himself an anti-Communist. He wrote various letters to "people who he thought had traduced (maligned) him" and advocated the re-election of President Dwight D. Eisenhower
in 1956.
In 1961, President-elect John F. Kennedy
invited him to his inauguration ceremony, though he had supported Kennedy's opponent Richard Nixon
. A touched Wallace wrote to Kennedy: "At no time in our history have so many tens of millions of people been so completely enthusiastic about an Inaugural Address as about yours."
Wallace first experienced the onsets of Lou Gehrig's disease
on one of his frequent trips to South America in 1954. He died in Danbury, Connecticut
, in 1965. His remains were cremated at Grace Cemetery in Bridgeport, Connecticut
, and the ashes interred in Glendale Cemetery, Des Moines, Iowa
.
Henry Agard Wallace (October 7, 1888 – November 18, 1965) was the 33rd Vice President of the United States
(1941–1945), the Secretary of Agriculture
(1933–1940), and the Secretary of Commerce
(1945–1946). In the 1948 presidential election
, Wallace was the nominee of the Progressive Party.
, was born on October 7, 1888, at a farm near Orient
, Adair County, Iowa
. Wallace attended Iowa State College
at Ames
where he was a brother in the Delta Tau Delta
fraternity. At Iowa State he became friends with George Washington Carver
, spending time together collecting botanical specimens. He graduated in 1910 with a degree in animal husbandry. He worked on the editorial staff of the family-owned paper Wallace's Farmer in Des Moines, Iowa
, from 1910 to 1924 and edited the publication from 1924 to 1929. He experimented with breeding high-yielding hybrid corn, and authored many publications on agriculture. In 1915 he devised the first corn-hog ratio charts indicating the probable course of markets.
With an inheritance of a few thousand dollars that had been left to his wife, the former Ilo Browne
, whom he married in 1914, Wallace founded the Hi-Bred Corn Company in 1926, which later became Pioneer Hi-Bred
, a major agriculture corporation, acquired in 1999 by the Dupont Corporation for approximately $10 billion.
Wallace was raised as a Presbyterian, but left that denomination early in life. He spent most of his early life exploring other religious faiths and traditions. For many years, he had been closely associated with famous Russian artist and writer Nicholas Roerich
. According to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
, "Wallace's search for inner light took him to strange prophets.... It was in this search that he encountered Nicholas Roerich, a Russian emigre, painter, theosophist. Wallace did Roerich a number of favors, including sending him on an expedition to Central Asia presumably to collect drought-resistant grasses. In due course, H.A. [Wallace] became disillusioned with Roerich and turned almost viciously against him." Wallace eventually settled on Episcopalianism.
Henry Wallace was also a Freemason and attained the 32nd Degree in the Scottish Rite
.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
appointed Wallace United States Secretary of Agriculture
in his Cabinet
, a post his father, Henry Cantwell Wallace
, had occupied from 1921 to 1924. Wallace had been a liberal
Republican
, but he supported Roosevelt's New Deal
and soon switched to the Democratic Party
. Wallace served as Secretary of Agriculture until September 1940, when he resigned, having been nominated for Vice President
as Roosevelt's running mate in the 1940 presidential election. During his tenure as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture he ordered a very unpopular strategy of slaughtering pigs and plowing up cotton fields in rural America to drive the price of these commodities back up in order to improve American farmers' financial situation. He also advocated the ever-normal granary concept.
. His inauguration took place on January 20, 1941, for the term ending January 20, 1945.
Roosevelt named Wallace chairman of the Board of Economic Warfare
(BEW) and of the Supply Priorities and Allocations Board (SPAB) in 1941. Both positions became important with the U.S. entry into World War II
. As he began to flex his newfound political muscle in his position with SPAB, Wallace came up against the conservative wing of the Democratic party in the form of Jesse H. Jones, Secretary of Commerce, as the two differed on how to handle wartime supplies.
On May 8, 1942, Wallace delivered his most famous speech, which became known by the phrase "Century of the Common Man" to the Free World Association in New York City
. This speech, grounded in Christian references, laid out a positive vision for the war beyond the simple defeat of the Nazis. The speech, and the book of the same name which appeared the following year, proved quite popular, but it earned him enemies among the Democratic leadership, among important allied leaders like Winston Churchill
, and among business leaders and conservatives.
Wallace spoke out during race riots in Detroit in 1943
, declaring that the nation could not "fight to crush Nazi brutality abroad and condone race riots at home."
In 1943, Wallace made a goodwill tour of Latin America
, shoring up support among important allies. His trip proved a success, and helped persuade twelve countries to declare war on Germany
. Regarding trade relationships with Latin America, he convinced the BEW to add "labor clauses" to contracts with Latin American producers. These clauses required producers to pay fair wages and provide safe working conditions for their employees and committed the United States to paying for up to half of the required improvements. This met opposition from the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Wallace believed that both the American and the Russian revolution were part of "the march to freedom of the past 150 years." After having met Molotov
, he arranged a trip to the "Wild East" of Russia. On May 23, 1944, he started a 25-day journey accompanied by Owen Lattimore
. Coming from Alaska, they landed at Magadan
where they were received by Sergei Goglidze and Dalstroi director Ivan Nikishov, both NKVD
generals. The NKVD presented a fully sanitized version of the slave labor camps in Magadan and Kolyma
to their American guests, convinced them that all the work was done by volunteers, charmed them with entertainment, and left their guests impressed with the "development" of Siberia and the spirit of the "volunteers". Lattimore's film of the visit tells that "a village ... in Siberia is a forum for open discussion like a town meeting in New England." The trip then continued to Mongolia and then to China.
After Wallace feuded publicly with Jesse Jones and other high officials, Roosevelt stripped him of his war agency responsibilities and entertained the idea of replacing him on the presidential ticket. The Democratic Party, with concern being expressed privately about Roosevelt being able to make it through another term, chose
Harry S. Truman
as Roosevelt's running mate at the 1944 Democratic convention
, after New Deal partisans failed to promote William O. Douglas
. Wallace was succeeded as Vice President on January 20, 1945, by Truman. On April 12, 1945, Vice President Truman succeeded to the Presidency when President Franklin D. Roosevelt
died. Henry A. Wallace had missed being the 33rd President of the United States by just 82 days.
, a series of letters that Wallace had written in the 1930s to Nicholas Roerich
was uncovered by the Republicans. Wallace addressed Roerich as "Dear Guru
" and signed all of the letters as "G" for Galahad
, the name Roerich had assigned him. Wallace assured Roerich that he awaited "the breaking of the New Day" when the people of "Northern Shambhalla
"—a Buddhist term roughly equivalent to the kingdom of heaven—would create an era of peace and plenty. When asked about the letters, Wallace claimed they were forgeries. Wallace had been a devoted supporter of Roerich and his work from the middle 1920s. With the nod from Roosevelt, Wallace had lobbied Congress to support Roerich's Banner and Pact of Peace which was signed in Washington, D.C. by delegates from 22 Latin American countries in 1935. Roerich and his son George were sent to Central Asia by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to search for drought-resistant grasses to prevent another Dust Bowl
. But later, in his memoirs, Wallace tried to conceal his association with Roerich. When the Republicans threatened to reveal his "eccentric" religious beliefs to the public, the Democrats countered by threatening to release information about Republican candidate Wendell Willkie
's rumored extramarital
affair with the writer Irita Van Doren. The Republicans subsequently agreed not to publicize the "Guru" letters. In the winter of 1947, however, independent columnist Westbrook Pegler
published extracts from the letters and promoted them thereafter as evidence that Wallace was not fit to be President.
Roosevelt placated Wallace by appointing him Secretary of Commerce
. Wallace served in this post from March 1945 to September 1946, when he was fired by President Harry S. Truman because of disagreements about the policy towards the Soviet Union
. He is the last former Vice President to serve in the President's cabinet.
of The New Republic
magazine, using his position to vociferously criticize Truman's foreign policy. On the declaration of the Truman Doctrine
in 1947, he predicted it would mark the beginning of "a century of fear".
. With Idaho
Democratic U.S. Senator
Glen H. Taylor
as his running mate, his platform advocated friendly relations with the Soviet Union, an end to the nascent Cold War
, an end to segregation, full voting rights for blacks, and universal government health insurance. His campaign was unusual for his time in that it included African American
candidates campaigning alongside white candidates in the American South, and that during the campaign he refused to appear before segregated audiences or eat or stay in segregated establishments.
As a further sign of the times, he was noted by Time
as ostentatiously riding through various cities and towns in the South "with his Negro secretary beside him". Many eggs and tomatoes were hurled at and struck him and his campaign members during the tour, while at the same time President Truman referred to such behavior towards Wallace as very un-American. Wallace commented that "there is a long chain that links unknown young hoodlums in North Carolina or Alabama with men in finely tailored business suits in the great financial centers of New York or Boston, men who make a dollars-&-cents profit by setting race against race in the far away South." State authorities in Virginia sidestepped enforcing its own segregation laws by declaring Wallace's gatherings as private parties.
One of the more potentially controversial supporters of the campaign was a group called Bachelors for Wallace, organized by Henry Hay
and others as organization of gay and bisexual men who supported Wallace's presidential campaign.http://www.outhistory.org/wiki/Harry_Hay:_Founding_the_Mattachine_Society,_1948-1953 Wallace had not made any official statements in support of gay rights and it is unclear how much support this group gave to the campaign. Yet, in the tenor of the times, such an organization would have been highly controversial. The fact that group generated almost no notice by the press or even the campaign itself, may be because of other controversies facing the campaign.
The "Dear Guru" letters reappeared now and were published, seriously hampering his campaign. Even more damage was done to Wallace's campaign when several prominent journalists, including H.L. Mencken and Dorothy Thompson
, publicly charged that Wallace and the Progressives were under the covert control of Communists. Wallace was endorsed by the Communist Party (USA), and his subsequent refusal to publicly disavow any Communist support cost him the backing of many anti-Communist liberals and socialists, such as Norman Thomas
. Christopher Andrew, a University of Cambridge
historian working with evidence in the famed Mitrokhin Archive
, has stated publicly that he believed Wallace was a confirmed KGB agent, though evidence for this was never produced.
Wallace suffered a decisive defeat in the election to the Democratic incumbent Harry S. Truman
. He finished in fourth place with 2.4% of the popular vote. Dixiecrat
presidential candidate Strom Thurmond outstripped Wallace in the popular vote. He managed to carry several states in the Deep South, gaining 39 electoral votes to Wallace's electoral total of zero.
. During his later years he made a number of advances in the field of agricultural science
. His many accomplishments included a breed of chicken
that at one point accounted for the overwhelming majority of all egg-laying chickens sold across the globe. The Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center
, the largest agricultural research complex in the world, is named for him.
In 1950, when North Korea invaded South Korea, Wallace broke with the Progressives and backed the U.S.-led war effort in the Korean War
. In 1952, Wallace published Where I Was Wrong, in which he explained that his seemingly-trusting stance toward the Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin
stemmed from inadequate information about Stalin's excesses and that he, too, now considered himself an anti-Communist. He wrote various letters to "people who he thought had traduced (maligned) him" and advocated the re-election of President Dwight D. Eisenhower
in 1956.
In 1961, President-elect John F. Kennedy
invited him to his inauguration ceremony, though he had supported Kennedy's opponent Richard Nixon
. A touched Wallace wrote to Kennedy: "At no time in our history have so many tens of millions of people been so completely enthusiastic about an Inaugural Address as about yours."
Wallace first experienced the onsets of Lou Gehrig's disease
on one of his frequent trips to South America in 1954. He died in Danbury, Connecticut
, in 1965. His remains were cremated at Grace Cemetery in Bridgeport, Connecticut
, and the ashes interred in Glendale Cemetery, Des Moines, Iowa
.
Henry Agard Wallace (October 7, 1888 – November 18, 1965) was the 33rd Vice President of the United States
(1941–1945), the Secretary of Agriculture
(1933–1940), and the Secretary of Commerce
(1945–1946). In the 1948 presidential election
, Wallace was the nominee of the Progressive Party.
, was born on October 7, 1888, at a farm near Orient
, Adair County, Iowa
. Wallace attended Iowa State College
at Ames
where he was a brother in the Delta Tau Delta
fraternity. At Iowa State he became friends with George Washington Carver
, spending time together collecting botanical specimens. He graduated in 1910 with a degree in animal husbandry. He worked on the editorial staff of the family-owned paper Wallace's Farmer in Des Moines, Iowa
, from 1910 to 1924 and edited the publication from 1924 to 1929. He experimented with breeding high-yielding hybrid corn, and authored many publications on agriculture. In 1915 he devised the first corn-hog ratio charts indicating the probable course of markets.
With an inheritance of a few thousand dollars that had been left to his wife, the former Ilo Browne
, whom he married in 1914, Wallace founded the Hi-Bred Corn Company in 1926, which later became Pioneer Hi-Bred
, a major agriculture corporation, acquired in 1999 by the Dupont Corporation for approximately $10 billion.
Wallace was raised as a Presbyterian, but left that denomination early in life. He spent most of his early life exploring other religious faiths and traditions. For many years, he had been closely associated with famous Russian artist and writer Nicholas Roerich
. According to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
, "Wallace's search for inner light took him to strange prophets.... It was in this search that he encountered Nicholas Roerich, a Russian emigre, painter, theosophist. Wallace did Roerich a number of favors, including sending him on an expedition to Central Asia presumably to collect drought-resistant grasses. In due course, H.A. [Wallace] became disillusioned with Roerich and turned almost viciously against him." Wallace eventually settled on Episcopalianism.
Henry Wallace was also a Freemason and attained the 32nd Degree in the Scottish Rite
.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
appointed Wallace United States Secretary of Agriculture
in his Cabinet
, a post his father, Henry Cantwell Wallace
, had occupied from 1921 to 1924. Wallace had been a liberal
Republican
, but he supported Roosevelt's New Deal
and soon switched to the Democratic Party
. Wallace served as Secretary of Agriculture until September 1940, when he resigned, having been nominated for Vice President
as Roosevelt's running mate in the 1940 presidential election. During his tenure as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture he ordered a very unpopular strategy of slaughtering pigs and plowing up cotton fields in rural America to drive the price of these commodities back up in order to improve American farmers' financial situation. He also advocated the ever-normal granary concept.
. His inauguration took place on January 20, 1941, for the term ending January 20, 1945.
Roosevelt named Wallace chairman of the Board of Economic Warfare
(BEW) and of the Supply Priorities and Allocations Board (SPAB) in 1941. Both positions became important with the U.S. entry into World War II
. As he began to flex his newfound political muscle in his position with SPAB, Wallace came up against the conservative wing of the Democratic party in the form of Jesse H. Jones, Secretary of Commerce, as the two differed on how to handle wartime supplies.
On May 8, 1942, Wallace delivered his most famous speech, which became known by the phrase "Century of the Common Man" to the Free World Association in New York City
. This speech, grounded in Christian references, laid out a positive vision for the war beyond the simple defeat of the Nazis. The speech, and the book of the same name which appeared the following year, proved quite popular, but it earned him enemies among the Democratic leadership, among important allied leaders like Winston Churchill
, and among business leaders and conservatives.
Wallace spoke out during race riots in Detroit in 1943
, declaring that the nation could not "fight to crush Nazi brutality abroad and condone race riots at home."
In 1943, Wallace made a goodwill tour of Latin America
, shoring up support among important allies. His trip proved a success, and helped persuade twelve countries to declare war on Germany
. Regarding trade relationships with Latin America, he convinced the BEW to add "labor clauses" to contracts with Latin American producers. These clauses required producers to pay fair wages and provide safe working conditions for their employees and committed the United States to paying for up to half of the required improvements. This met opposition from the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Wallace believed that both the American and the Russian revolution were part of "the march to freedom of the past 150 years." After having met Molotov
, he arranged a trip to the "Wild East" of Russia. On May 23, 1944, he started a 25-day journey accompanied by Owen Lattimore
. Coming from Alaska, they landed at Magadan
where they were received by Sergei Goglidze and Dalstroi director Ivan Nikishov, both NKVD
generals. The NKVD presented a fully sanitized version of the slave labor camps in Magadan and Kolyma
to their American guests, convinced them that all the work was done by volunteers, charmed them with entertainment, and left their guests impressed with the "development" of Siberia and the spirit of the "volunteers". Lattimore's film of the visit tells that "a village ... in Siberia is a forum for open discussion like a town meeting in New England." The trip then continued to Mongolia and then to China.
After Wallace feuded publicly with Jesse Jones and other high officials, Roosevelt stripped him of his war agency responsibilities and entertained the idea of replacing him on the presidential ticket. The Democratic Party, with concern being expressed privately about Roosevelt being able to make it through another term, chose
Harry S. Truman
as Roosevelt's running mate at the 1944 Democratic convention
, after New Deal partisans failed to promote William O. Douglas
. Wallace was succeeded as Vice President on January 20, 1945, by Truman. On April 12, 1945, Vice President Truman succeeded to the Presidency when President Franklin D. Roosevelt
died. Henry A. Wallace had missed being the 33rd President of the United States by just 82 days.
, a series of letters that Wallace had written in the 1930s to Nicholas Roerich
was uncovered by the Republicans. Wallace addressed Roerich as "Dear Guru
" and signed all of the letters as "G" for Galahad
, the name Roerich had assigned him. Wallace assured Roerich that he awaited "the breaking of the New Day" when the people of "Northern Shambhalla
"—a Buddhist term roughly equivalent to the kingdom of heaven—would create an era of peace and plenty. When asked about the letters, Wallace claimed they were forgeries. Wallace had been a devoted supporter of Roerich and his work from the middle 1920s. With the nod from Roosevelt, Wallace had lobbied Congress to support Roerich's Banner and Pact of Peace which was signed in Washington, D.C. by delegates from 22 Latin American countries in 1935. Roerich and his son George were sent to Central Asia by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to search for drought-resistant grasses to prevent another Dust Bowl
. But later, in his memoirs, Wallace tried to conceal his association with Roerich. When the Republicans threatened to reveal his "eccentric" religious beliefs to the public, the Democrats countered by threatening to release information about Republican candidate Wendell Willkie
's rumored extramarital
affair with the writer Irita Van Doren. The Republicans subsequently agreed not to publicize the "Guru" letters. In the winter of 1947, however, independent columnist Westbrook Pegler
published extracts from the letters and promoted them thereafter as evidence that Wallace was not fit to be President.
Roosevelt placated Wallace by appointing him Secretary of Commerce
. Wallace served in this post from March 1945 to September 1946, when he was fired by President Harry S. Truman because of disagreements about the policy towards the Soviet Union
. He is the last former Vice President to serve in the President's cabinet.
of The New Republic
magazine, using his position to vociferously criticize Truman's foreign policy. On the declaration of the Truman Doctrine
in 1947, he predicted it would mark the beginning of "a century of fear".
. With Idaho
Democratic U.S. Senator
Glen H. Taylor
as his running mate, his platform advocated friendly relations with the Soviet Union, an end to the nascent Cold War
, an end to segregation, full voting rights for blacks, and universal government health insurance. His campaign was unusual for his time in that it included African American
candidates campaigning alongside white candidates in the American South, and that during the campaign he refused to appear before segregated audiences or eat or stay in segregated establishments.
As a further sign of the times, he was noted by Time
as ostentatiously riding through various cities and towns in the South "with his Negro secretary beside him". Many eggs and tomatoes were hurled at and struck him and his campaign members during the tour, while at the same time President Truman referred to such behavior towards Wallace as very un-American. Wallace commented that "there is a long chain that links unknown young hoodlums in North Carolina or Alabama with men in finely tailored business suits in the great financial centers of New York or Boston, men who make a dollars-&-cents profit by setting race against race in the far away South." State authorities in Virginia sidestepped enforcing its own segregation laws by declaring Wallace's gatherings as private parties.
One of the more potentially controversial supporters of the campaign was a group called Bachelors for Wallace, organized by Henry Hay
and others as organization of gay and bisexual men who supported Wallace's presidential campaign.http://www.outhistory.org/wiki/Harry_Hay:_Founding_the_Mattachine_Society,_1948-1953 Wallace had not made any official statements in support of gay rights and it is unclear how much support this group gave to the campaign. Yet, in the tenor of the times, such an organization would have been highly controversial. The fact that group generated almost no notice by the press or even the campaign itself, may be because of other controversies facing the campaign.
The "Dear Guru" letters reappeared now and were published, seriously hampering his campaign. Even more damage was done to Wallace's campaign when several prominent journalists, including H.L. Mencken and Dorothy Thompson
, publicly charged that Wallace and the Progressives were under the covert control of Communists. Wallace was endorsed by the Communist Party (USA), and his subsequent refusal to publicly disavow any Communist support cost him the backing of many anti-Communist liberals and socialists, such as Norman Thomas
. Christopher Andrew, a University of Cambridge
historian working with evidence in the famed Mitrokhin Archive
, has stated publicly that he believed Wallace was a confirmed KGB agent, though evidence for this was never produced.
Wallace suffered a decisive defeat in the election to the Democratic incumbent Harry S. Truman
. He finished in fourth place with 2.4% of the popular vote. Dixiecrat
presidential candidate Strom Thurmond outstripped Wallace in the popular vote. He managed to carry several states in the Deep South, gaining 39 electoral votes to Wallace's electoral total of zero.
. During his later years he made a number of advances in the field of agricultural science
. His many accomplishments included a breed of chicken
that at one point accounted for the overwhelming majority of all egg-laying chickens sold across the globe. The Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center
, the largest agricultural research complex in the world, is named for him.
In 1950, when North Korea invaded South Korea, Wallace broke with the Progressives and backed the U.S.-led war effort in the Korean War
. In 1952, Wallace published Where I Was Wrong, in which he explained that his seemingly-trusting stance toward the Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin
stemmed from inadequate information about Stalin's excesses and that he, too, now considered himself an anti-Communist. He wrote various letters to "people who he thought had traduced (maligned) him" and advocated the re-election of President Dwight D. Eisenhower
in 1956.
In 1961, President-elect John F. Kennedy
invited him to his inauguration ceremony, though he had supported Kennedy's opponent Richard Nixon
. A touched Wallace wrote to Kennedy: "At no time in our history have so many tens of millions of people been so completely enthusiastic about an Inaugural Address as about yours."
Wallace first experienced the onsets of Lou Gehrig's disease
on one of his frequent trips to South America in 1954. He died in Danbury, Connecticut
, in 1965. His remains were cremated at Grace Cemetery in Bridgeport, Connecticut
, and the ashes interred in Glendale Cemetery, Des Moines, Iowa
.
|-
Vice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...
(1941–1945), the Secretary of Agriculture
United States Secretary of Agriculture
The United States Secretary of Agriculture is the head of the United States Department of Agriculture. The current secretary is Tom Vilsack, who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on 20 January 2009. The position carries similar responsibilities to those of agriculture ministers in other...
(1933–1940), and the Secretary of Commerce
United States Secretary of Commerce
The United States Secretary of Commerce is the head of the United States Department of Commerce concerned with business and industry; the Department states its mission to be "to foster, promote, and develop the foreign and domestic commerce"...
(1945–1946). In the 1948 presidential election
United States presidential election, 1948
The United States presidential election of 1948 is considered by most historians as the greatest election upset in American history. Virtually every prediction indicated that incumbent President Harry S. Truman would be defeated by Republican Thomas E. Dewey. Truman won, overcoming a three-way...
, Wallace was the nominee of the Progressive Party.
Early life
Henry A. Wallace, son of Henry Cantwell WallaceHenry Cantwell Wallace
Henry Cantwell Wallace was a United States farm leader. He served as the Secretary of Agriculture between 1921 and 1924. He was the father of Henry Agard Wallace, who would follow in his footsteps as Secretary of Agriculture under President Franklin D. Roosevelt...
, was born on October 7, 1888, at a farm near Orient
Orient, Iowa
Orient is a city in Orient Township, Adair County, Iowa, United States. The population was 402 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Orient is located at ....
, Adair County, Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
. Wallace attended Iowa State College
Iowa State University
Iowa State University of Science and Technology, more commonly known as Iowa State University , is a public land-grant and space-grant research university located in Ames, Iowa, United States. Iowa State has produced astronauts, scientists, and Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, along with a host of...
at Ames
Ames, Iowa
Ames is a city located in the central part of the U.S. state of Iowa in Story County, and approximately north of Des Moines. The U.S. Census Bureau designates that Ames, Iowa metropolitan statistical area as encompassing all of Story County, and which, when combined with the Boone, Iowa...
where he was a brother in the Delta Tau Delta
Delta Tau Delta
Delta Tau Delta is a U.S.-based international secret letter college fraternity. Delta Tau Delta was founded in 1858 at Bethany College, Bethany, Virginia, . It currently has around 125 student chapters nationwide, as well as more than 25 regional alumni groups. Its national community service...
fraternity. At Iowa State he became friends with George Washington Carver
George Washington Carver
George Washington Carver , was an American scientist, botanist, educator, and inventor. The exact day and year of his birth are unknown; he is believed to have been born into slavery in Missouri in January 1864....
, spending time together collecting botanical specimens. He graduated in 1910 with a degree in animal husbandry. He worked on the editorial staff of the family-owned paper Wallace's Farmer in Des Moines, Iowa
Des Moines, Iowa
Des Moines is the capital and the most populous city in the US state of Iowa. It is also the county seat of Polk County. A small portion of the city extends into Warren County. It was incorporated on September 22, 1851, as Fort Des Moines which was shortened to "Des Moines" in 1857...
, from 1910 to 1924 and edited the publication from 1924 to 1929. He experimented with breeding high-yielding hybrid corn, and authored many publications on agriculture. In 1915 he devised the first corn-hog ratio charts indicating the probable course of markets.
With an inheritance of a few thousand dollars that had been left to his wife, the former Ilo Browne
Ilo Wallace
Ilo Browne Wallace was the wife of Henry A. Wallace, the 33rd U.S Vice President and later Secretary of Commerce. She was the Second Lady of the United States from 1941 until 1945...
, whom he married in 1914, Wallace founded the Hi-Bred Corn Company in 1926, which later became Pioneer Hi-Bred
Pioneer Hi-Bred
Pioneer Hi-Bred is the largest U.S. producer of hybrid seeds for agriculture.- History :In 1926, farm journal editor and future U.S. Vice President Henry A. Wallace, along with a group of Des Moines, Iowa businessmen, founded the "Hi-Bred Corn Company". At the time, most corn farmers saved part of...
, a major agriculture corporation, acquired in 1999 by the Dupont Corporation for approximately $10 billion.
Wallace was raised as a Presbyterian, but left that denomination early in life. He spent most of his early life exploring other religious faiths and traditions. For many years, he had been closely associated with famous Russian artist and writer Nicholas Roerich
Nicholas Roerich
Nicholas Roerich, also known as Nikolai Konstantinovich Rerikh , was a Russian mystic, painter, philosopher, scientist, writer, traveler, and public figure. A prolific artist, he created thousands of paintings and about 30 literary works...
. According to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
Arthur Meier Schlesinger, Jr. was an American historian and social critic whose work explored the American liberalism of political leaders including Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Robert F. Kennedy. A Pulitzer Prize winner, Schlesinger served as special assistant and "court historian"...
, "Wallace's search for inner light took him to strange prophets.... It was in this search that he encountered Nicholas Roerich, a Russian emigre, painter, theosophist. Wallace did Roerich a number of favors, including sending him on an expedition to Central Asia presumably to collect drought-resistant grasses. In due course, H.A. [Wallace] became disillusioned with Roerich and turned almost viciously against him." Wallace eventually settled on Episcopalianism.
Henry Wallace was also a Freemason and attained the 32nd Degree in the Scottish Rite
Scottish Rite
The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry , commonly known as simply the Scottish Rite, is one of several Rites of the worldwide fraternity known as Freemasonry...
.
Secretary of Agriculture
In 1933, PresidentPresident of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
appointed Wallace United States Secretary of Agriculture
United States Secretary of Agriculture
The United States Secretary of Agriculture is the head of the United States Department of Agriculture. The current secretary is Tom Vilsack, who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on 20 January 2009. The position carries similar responsibilities to those of agriculture ministers in other...
in his Cabinet
United States Cabinet
The Cabinet of the United States is composed of the most senior appointed officers of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States, which are generally the heads of the federal executive departments...
, a post his father, Henry Cantwell Wallace
Henry Cantwell Wallace
Henry Cantwell Wallace was a United States farm leader. He served as the Secretary of Agriculture between 1921 and 1924. He was the father of Henry Agard Wallace, who would follow in his footsteps as Secretary of Agriculture under President Franklin D. Roosevelt...
, had occupied from 1921 to 1924. Wallace had been a liberal
Liberalism in the United States
Liberalism in the United States is a broad political philosophy centered on the unalienable rights of the individual. The fundamental liberal ideals of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion for all belief systems, and the separation of church and state, right to due process...
Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
, but he supported Roosevelt's New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
and soon switched to the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
. Wallace served as Secretary of Agriculture until September 1940, when he resigned, having been nominated for Vice President
Vice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...
as Roosevelt's running mate in the 1940 presidential election. During his tenure as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture he ordered a very unpopular strategy of slaughtering pigs and plowing up cotton fields in rural America to drive the price of these commodities back up in order to improve American farmers' financial situation. He also advocated the ever-normal granary concept.
Vice President
Wallace was elected in November 1940 as Vice President on the Democratic Party ticket with President Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
. His inauguration took place on January 20, 1941, for the term ending January 20, 1945.
Roosevelt named Wallace chairman of the Board of Economic Warfare
Board of Economic Warfare
The Office of Administrator of Export Control was established in the United States by Presidential Proclamation 2413, July 2, 1940, to administer export licensing provisions of the act of July 2, 1940 . Brigadier General Russell Lamont Maxwell, United States Army, headed up this military entity...
(BEW) and of the Supply Priorities and Allocations Board (SPAB) in 1941. Both positions became important with the U.S. entry into World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. As he began to flex his newfound political muscle in his position with SPAB, Wallace came up against the conservative wing of the Democratic party in the form of Jesse H. Jones, Secretary of Commerce, as the two differed on how to handle wartime supplies.
On May 8, 1942, Wallace delivered his most famous speech, which became known by the phrase "Century of the Common Man" to the Free World Association in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. This speech, grounded in Christian references, laid out a positive vision for the war beyond the simple defeat of the Nazis. The speech, and the book of the same name which appeared the following year, proved quite popular, but it earned him enemies among the Democratic leadership, among important allied leaders like Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
, and among business leaders and conservatives.
Wallace spoke out during race riots in Detroit in 1943
Detroit Race Riot (1943)
The Detroit Race Riot broke out in Detroit, Michigan in June 1943 and lasted for three days before Federal troops restored order. The rioting between blacks and whites began on Belle Isle on 20 June 1943 and continued until 22 June, killing 34, wounding 433, and destroying property valued at $2...
, declaring that the nation could not "fight to crush Nazi brutality abroad and condone race riots at home."
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
, shoring up support among important allies. His trip proved a success, and helped persuade twelve countries to declare war on Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. Regarding trade relationships with Latin America, he convinced the BEW to add "labor clauses" to contracts with Latin American producers. These clauses required producers to pay fair wages and provide safe working conditions for their employees and committed the United States to paying for up to half of the required improvements. This met opposition from the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Wallace believed that both the American and the Russian revolution were part of "the march to freedom of the past 150 years." After having met Molotov
Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov was a Soviet politician and diplomat, an Old Bolshevik and a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to 1957, when he was dismissed from the Presidium of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev...
, he arranged a trip to the "Wild East" of Russia. On May 23, 1944, he started a 25-day journey accompanied by Owen Lattimore
Owen Lattimore
Owen Lattimore was an American author, educator, and influential scholar of Central Asia, especially Mongolia. In the 1930s he was editor of Pacific Affairs, a journal published by the Institute of Pacific Relations, and then taught at Johns Hopkins University from 1938 to 1963...
. Coming from Alaska, they landed at Magadan
Magadan
Magadan is a port town on the Sea of Okhotsk and gateway to the Kolyma region. It is the administrative center of Magadan Oblast , in the Russian Far East. Founded in 1929 on the site of an earlier settlement from the 1920s, it was granted the status of town in 1939...
where they were received by Sergei Goglidze and Dalstroi director Ivan Nikishov, both NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
generals. The NKVD presented a fully sanitized version of the slave labor camps in Magadan and Kolyma
Kolyma
The Kolyma region is located in the far north-eastern area of Russia in what is commonly known as Siberia but is actually part of the Russian Far East. It is bounded by the East Siberian Sea and the Arctic Ocean in the north and the Sea of Okhotsk to the south...
to their American guests, convinced them that all the work was done by volunteers, charmed them with entertainment, and left their guests impressed with the "development" of Siberia and the spirit of the "volunteers". Lattimore's film of the visit tells that "a village ... in Siberia is a forum for open discussion like a town meeting in New England." The trip then continued to Mongolia and then to China.
After Wallace feuded publicly with Jesse Jones and other high officials, Roosevelt stripped him of his war agency responsibilities and entertained the idea of replacing him on the presidential ticket. The Democratic Party, with concern being expressed privately about Roosevelt being able to make it through another term, chose
The Democratic vice president nomination of 1944
The Democratic Party's 1944 nomination for Vice President of the United States was determined on July 21, 1944, when United States Senator Harry S. Truman was nominated to be President Franklin D. Roosevelt's running-mate in his bid to be re-elected for a fourth term. Truman's predecessor as Vice...
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
as Roosevelt's running mate at the 1944 Democratic convention
1944 Democratic National Convention
The 1944 Democratic National Convention was held at the Chicago Stadium in Chicago, Illinois from July 19 - July 21, 1944. The convention resulted in the re-nomination of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt for an unprecedented fourth term. Senator Harry S. Truman of Missouri was nominated for...
, after New Deal partisans failed to promote William O. Douglas
William O. Douglas
William Orville Douglas was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. With a term lasting 36 years and 209 days, he is the longest-serving justice in the history of the Supreme Court...
. Wallace was succeeded as Vice President on January 20, 1945, by Truman. On April 12, 1945, Vice President Truman succeeded to the Presidency when President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
died. Henry A. Wallace had missed being the 33rd President of the United States by just 82 days.
Roerich controversy
During the 1940 presidential electionUnited States presidential election, 1940
The United States presidential election of 1940 was fought in the shadow of World War II as the United States was emerging from the Great Depression. Incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt , a Democrat, broke with tradition and ran for a third term, which became a major issue...
, a series of letters that Wallace had written in the 1930s to Nicholas Roerich
Nicholas Roerich
Nicholas Roerich, also known as Nikolai Konstantinovich Rerikh , was a Russian mystic, painter, philosopher, scientist, writer, traveler, and public figure. A prolific artist, he created thousands of paintings and about 30 literary works...
was uncovered by the Republicans. Wallace addressed Roerich as "Dear Guru
Guru
A guru is one who is regarded as having great knowledge, wisdom, and authority in a certain area, and who uses it to guide others . Other forms of manifestation of this principle can include parents, school teachers, non-human objects and even one's own intellectual discipline, if the...
" and signed all of the letters as "G" for Galahad
Galahad
Sir Galahad |Round Table]] and one of the three achievers of the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend. He is the illegitimate son of Lancelot and Elaine of Corbenic, and is renowned for his gallantry and purity. Emerging quite late in the medieval Arthurian tradition, he is perhaps the knightly...
, the name Roerich had assigned him. Wallace assured Roerich that he awaited "the breaking of the New Day" when the people of "Northern Shambhalla
Shambhala
In Tibetan Buddhist tradition, Shambhala or Shangri-la is a mythical kingdom hidden somewhere in Inner Asia...
"—a Buddhist term roughly equivalent to the kingdom of heaven—would create an era of peace and plenty. When asked about the letters, Wallace claimed they were forgeries. Wallace had been a devoted supporter of Roerich and his work from the middle 1920s. With the nod from Roosevelt, Wallace had lobbied Congress to support Roerich's Banner and Pact of Peace which was signed in Washington, D.C. by delegates from 22 Latin American countries in 1935. Roerich and his son George were sent to Central Asia by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to search for drought-resistant grasses to prevent another Dust Bowl
Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl, or the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms causing major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands from 1930 to 1936...
. But later, in his memoirs, Wallace tried to conceal his association with Roerich. When the Republicans threatened to reveal his "eccentric" religious beliefs to the public, the Democrats countered by threatening to release information about Republican candidate Wendell Willkie
Wendell Willkie
Wendell Lewis Willkie was a corporate lawyer in the United States and a dark horse who became the Republican Party nominee for the president in 1940. A member of the liberal wing of the GOP, he crusaded against those domestic policies of the New Deal that he thought were inefficient and...
's rumored extramarital
Adultery
Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...
affair with the writer Irita Van Doren. The Republicans subsequently agreed not to publicize the "Guru" letters. In the winter of 1947, however, independent columnist Westbrook Pegler
Westbrook Pegler
Francis James Westbrook Pegler was an American journalist and writer. He was a popular columnist in the 1930s and 1940s famed for his opposition to the New Deal and labor unions. Pegler criticized every president from Herbert Hoover to FDR to Harry Truman to John F. Kennedy...
published extracts from the letters and promoted them thereafter as evidence that Wallace was not fit to be President.
Secretary of Commerce
United States Secretary of Commerce
The United States Secretary of Commerce is the head of the United States Department of Commerce concerned with business and industry; the Department states its mission to be "to foster, promote, and develop the foreign and domestic commerce"...
. Wallace served in this post from March 1945 to September 1946, when he was fired by President Harry S. Truman because of disagreements about the policy towards the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. He is the last former Vice President to serve in the President's cabinet.
The New Republic
Following his term as Secretary of Commerce, Wallace became the editorEditing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...
of The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
magazine, using his position to vociferously criticize Truman's foreign policy. On the declaration of the Truman Doctrine
Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was a policy set forth by U.S. President Harry S Truman in a speech on March 12, 1947 stating that the U.S. would support Greece and Turkey with economic and military aid to prevent their falling into the Soviet sphere...
in 1947, he predicted it would mark the beginning of "a century of fear".
The 1948 Presidential election
Wallace left his editorship position in 1948 to make an unsuccessful run as a Progressive Party candidate in the 1948 U.S. presidential electionUnited States presidential election, 1948
The United States presidential election of 1948 is considered by most historians as the greatest election upset in American history. Virtually every prediction indicated that incumbent President Harry S. Truman would be defeated by Republican Thomas E. Dewey. Truman won, overcoming a three-way...
. With Idaho
Idaho
Idaho is a state in the Rocky Mountain area of the United States. The state's largest city and capital is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans". Idaho was admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890, as the 43rd state....
Democratic U.S. Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
Glen H. Taylor
Glen H. Taylor
Glen Hearst Taylor was an American politician, businessman and United States Senator from Idaho. He was the vice presidential candidate on the Progressive Party ticket in the 1948 election. Taylor was otherwise a member of the Idaho Democratic Party...
as his running mate, his platform advocated friendly relations with the Soviet Union, an end to the nascent Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, an end to segregation, full voting rights for blacks, and universal government health insurance. His campaign was unusual for his time in that it included African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
candidates campaigning alongside white candidates in the American South, and that during the campaign he refused to appear before segregated audiences or eat or stay in segregated establishments.
As a further sign of the times, he was noted by Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
as ostentatiously riding through various cities and towns in the South "with his Negro secretary beside him". Many eggs and tomatoes were hurled at and struck him and his campaign members during the tour, while at the same time President Truman referred to such behavior towards Wallace as very un-American. Wallace commented that "there is a long chain that links unknown young hoodlums in North Carolina or Alabama with men in finely tailored business suits in the great financial centers of New York or Boston, men who make a dollars-&-cents profit by setting race against race in the far away South." State authorities in Virginia sidestepped enforcing its own segregation laws by declaring Wallace's gatherings as private parties.
One of the more potentially controversial supporters of the campaign was a group called Bachelors for Wallace, organized by Henry Hay
Henry Hay
Henry "Harry" Hay was an Australian freestyle swimmer of the 1920s, who won a silver medal in the 4x200m freestyle relay at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp...
and others as organization of gay and bisexual men who supported Wallace's presidential campaign.http://www.outhistory.org/wiki/Harry_Hay:_Founding_the_Mattachine_Society,_1948-1953 Wallace had not made any official statements in support of gay rights and it is unclear how much support this group gave to the campaign. Yet, in the tenor of the times, such an organization would have been highly controversial. The fact that group generated almost no notice by the press or even the campaign itself, may be because of other controversies facing the campaign.
The "Dear Guru" letters reappeared now and were published, seriously hampering his campaign. Even more damage was done to Wallace's campaign when several prominent journalists, including H.L. Mencken and Dorothy Thompson
Dorothy Thompson
Dorothy Thompson was an American journalist and radio broadcaster, who in 1939 was recognized by Time magazine as the second most influential women in America next to Eleanor Roosevelt...
, publicly charged that Wallace and the Progressives were under the covert control of Communists. Wallace was endorsed by the Communist Party (USA), and his subsequent refusal to publicly disavow any Communist support cost him the backing of many anti-Communist liberals and socialists, such as Norman Thomas
Norman Thomas
Norman Mattoon Thomas was a leading American socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.-Early years:...
. Christopher Andrew, a University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
historian working with evidence in the famed Mitrokhin Archive
Mitrokhin Archive
The Mitrokhin Archive is a collection of notes made secretly by KGB Major Vasili Mitrokhin during his thirty years as a KGB archivist in the foreign intelligence service and the First Chief Directorate...
, has stated publicly that he believed Wallace was a confirmed KGB agent, though evidence for this was never produced.
Wallace suffered a decisive defeat in the election to the Democratic incumbent Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
. He finished in fourth place with 2.4% of the popular vote. Dixiecrat
Dixiecrat
The States' Rights Democratic Party was a short-lived segregationist political party in the United States in 1948...
presidential candidate Strom Thurmond outstripped Wallace in the popular vote. He managed to carry several states in the Deep South, gaining 39 electoral votes to Wallace's electoral total of zero.
Later career
Wallace resumed his farming interests, and resided in South Salem, New YorkSouth Salem, New York
South Salem is a hamlet in Lewisboro, Westchester County, New York. The county ranks second for wealthiest counties in New York State and the seventh wealthiest county nationally. In the town center is a post office, the town hall, a library and a recycling center.Notable residents have included...
. During his later years he made a number of advances in the field of agricultural science
Agricultural science
Agricultural science is a broad multidisciplinary field that encompasses the parts of exact, natural, economic and social sciences that are used in the practice and understanding of agriculture. -Agriculture and agricultural science:The two terms are often confused...
. His many accomplishments included a breed of chicken
Chicken
The chicken is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird...
that at one point accounted for the overwhelming majority of all egg-laying chickens sold across the globe. The Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center
Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center
The Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, or BARC, is a unit of the United States Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service. It is located at in Beltsville, Maryland, and is named for Henry A. Wallace, former United States vice president and secretary of...
, the largest agricultural research complex in the world, is named for him.
In 1950, when North Korea invaded South Korea, Wallace broke with the Progressives and backed the U.S.-led war effort in the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
. In 1952, Wallace published Where I Was Wrong, in which he explained that his seemingly-trusting stance toward the Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
stemmed from inadequate information about Stalin's excesses and that he, too, now considered himself an anti-Communist. He wrote various letters to "people who he thought had traduced (maligned) him" and advocated the re-election of President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
in 1956.
In 1961, President-elect John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
invited him to his inauguration ceremony, though he had supported Kennedy's opponent Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
. A touched Wallace wrote to Kennedy: "At no time in our history have so many tens of millions of people been so completely enthusiastic about an Inaugural Address as about yours."
Wallace first experienced the onsets of Lou Gehrig's disease
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis , also referred to as Lou Gehrig's disease, is a form of motor neuron disease caused by the degeneration of upper and lower neurons, located in the ventral horn of the spinal cord and the cortical neurons that provide their efferent input...
on one of his frequent trips to South America in 1954. He died in Danbury, Connecticut
Danbury, Connecticut
Danbury is a city in northern Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It had population at the 2010 census of 80,893. Danbury is the fourth largest city in Fairfield County and is the seventh largest city in Connecticut....
, in 1965. His remains were cremated at Grace Cemetery in Bridgeport, Connecticut
Bridgeport, Connecticut
Bridgeport is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. Located in Fairfield County, the city had an estimated population of 144,229 at the 2010 United States Census and is the core of the Greater Bridgeport area...
, and the ashes interred in Glendale Cemetery, Des Moines, Iowa
Des Moines, Iowa
Des Moines is the capital and the most populous city in the US state of Iowa. It is also the county seat of Polk County. A small portion of the city extends into Warren County. It was incorporated on September 22, 1851, as Fort Des Moines which was shortened to "Des Moines" in 1857...
.
See also
- Honeydew (melon)Honeydew (melon)Honeydew is a cultivar group of the muskmelon, Cucumis melo Inodorus group, which includes crenshaw, casaba, Persian, winter, and other mixed melons.-Characteristics:...
, apparently first introduced to ChinaChinaChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
by H.A. Wallace and still locally known there as the "Wallace melon" - Bailan melonBailan melonThe Bailan melon is a locally famous type of melon grown near Lanzhou, the capital city of Gansu province in the People's Republic of China....
, one of the most famous Chinese melon cultivars, bred from the "Wallace melon"
Secondary sources
- "The Prince of Wallace's: Chickens, Communists and Henry Wallace," Times Literary Supplement, November 24, 2000.
- Culver, John C. and John Hyde. American Dreamer: The Life and Times of Henry A. Wallace (2002)
- Markowitz, Norman D. The Rise and Fall of the People's Century: Henry A. Wallace and American Liberalism, 1941-1948 (1973)
- John Maze and Graham White, Henry A. Wallace: His Search for a New World Order. University of North Carolina Press. 1995
- Pietrusza, David 1948: Harry Truman's Improbable Victory and the Year that Changed America, Union Square Press, 2011.
- Schapsmeier, Frederick H. Henry A. Wallace of Iowa: the Agrarian Years, 1910-1940 (1968)
- Schapsmeier, Edward L. and Frederick H. Schapsmeier. Prophet in Politics: Henry A. Wallace and the War Years, 1940-1965 (1970)
- Schmidt, Karl M. Henry A. Wallace, Quixotic Crusade 1948 (1960)
- White, Graham, and John Maze. Henry A. Wallace: His Search for a New World Order (1995)
- Walker, J. Samuel Walker. Henry A. Wallace and American Foreign Policy (1976)
Writings
- Agricultural Prices (1920)
- New Frontiers (1934)
- America Must Choose (1934)
- Statesmanship and Religion (1934)
- Technology, Corporations, and the General Welfare (1937)
- The Century of the Common Man (1943)
- Democracy Reborn (1944)
- Sixty Million Jobs (1945)
- Toward World Peace (1948)
- The Price of Vision - The Diary of Henry A. Wallace 1942-1946 (1973), edited by John Morton Blum
External links
- Selected Works of Henry A. Wallace
- Papers of Henry Wallace Digital Collection
- FBI file on Herny Wallace
- Searchable index of Wallace papers at the Library of Congress, Franklin D Roosevelt Library and the University of Iowa
- Quotes by Henry A. Wallace
- "The Century of the Common Man" - the text of Wallace's 1942 speech.
- Henry A. Wallace Center for Agricultural & Environmental Policy
- An Argument for a New Liberalism by Peter BeinartPeter Beinart-Early life and education:Beinart was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of South African immigrants. His mother, Doreen, works at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and his father, Julian Beinart, is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His stepfather is theatre...
, The New RepublicThe New RepublicThe magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
, December 2, 2004 - argues that Harry S. TrumanHarry S. TrumanHarry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
's defeat of Wallace in 1948 helped make the Democrats an anti-totalitarian party and sees present-day Democrats as "Wallacite", a term it coins to mean soft on totalitarianism and external threats.
Henry Agard Wallace (October 7, 1888 – November 18, 1965) was the 33rd Vice President of the United States
Vice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...
(1941–1945), the Secretary of Agriculture
United States Secretary of Agriculture
The United States Secretary of Agriculture is the head of the United States Department of Agriculture. The current secretary is Tom Vilsack, who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on 20 January 2009. The position carries similar responsibilities to those of agriculture ministers in other...
(1933–1940), and the Secretary of Commerce
United States Secretary of Commerce
The United States Secretary of Commerce is the head of the United States Department of Commerce concerned with business and industry; the Department states its mission to be "to foster, promote, and develop the foreign and domestic commerce"...
(1945–1946). In the 1948 presidential election
United States presidential election, 1948
The United States presidential election of 1948 is considered by most historians as the greatest election upset in American history. Virtually every prediction indicated that incumbent President Harry S. Truman would be defeated by Republican Thomas E. Dewey. Truman won, overcoming a three-way...
, Wallace was the nominee of the Progressive Party.
Early life
Henry A. Wallace, son of Henry Cantwell WallaceHenry Cantwell Wallace
Henry Cantwell Wallace was a United States farm leader. He served as the Secretary of Agriculture between 1921 and 1924. He was the father of Henry Agard Wallace, who would follow in his footsteps as Secretary of Agriculture under President Franklin D. Roosevelt...
, was born on October 7, 1888, at a farm near Orient
Orient, Iowa
Orient is a city in Orient Township, Adair County, Iowa, United States. The population was 402 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Orient is located at ....
, Adair County, Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
. Wallace attended Iowa State College
Iowa State University
Iowa State University of Science and Technology, more commonly known as Iowa State University , is a public land-grant and space-grant research university located in Ames, Iowa, United States. Iowa State has produced astronauts, scientists, and Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, along with a host of...
at Ames
Ames, Iowa
Ames is a city located in the central part of the U.S. state of Iowa in Story County, and approximately north of Des Moines. The U.S. Census Bureau designates that Ames, Iowa metropolitan statistical area as encompassing all of Story County, and which, when combined with the Boone, Iowa...
where he was a brother in the Delta Tau Delta
Delta Tau Delta
Delta Tau Delta is a U.S.-based international secret letter college fraternity. Delta Tau Delta was founded in 1858 at Bethany College, Bethany, Virginia, . It currently has around 125 student chapters nationwide, as well as more than 25 regional alumni groups. Its national community service...
fraternity. At Iowa State he became friends with George Washington Carver
George Washington Carver
George Washington Carver , was an American scientist, botanist, educator, and inventor. The exact day and year of his birth are unknown; he is believed to have been born into slavery in Missouri in January 1864....
, spending time together collecting botanical specimens. He graduated in 1910 with a degree in animal husbandry. He worked on the editorial staff of the family-owned paper Wallace's Farmer in Des Moines, Iowa
Des Moines, Iowa
Des Moines is the capital and the most populous city in the US state of Iowa. It is also the county seat of Polk County. A small portion of the city extends into Warren County. It was incorporated on September 22, 1851, as Fort Des Moines which was shortened to "Des Moines" in 1857...
, from 1910 to 1924 and edited the publication from 1924 to 1929. He experimented with breeding high-yielding hybrid corn, and authored many publications on agriculture. In 1915 he devised the first corn-hog ratio charts indicating the probable course of markets.
With an inheritance of a few thousand dollars that had been left to his wife, the former Ilo Browne
Ilo Wallace
Ilo Browne Wallace was the wife of Henry A. Wallace, the 33rd U.S Vice President and later Secretary of Commerce. She was the Second Lady of the United States from 1941 until 1945...
, whom he married in 1914, Wallace founded the Hi-Bred Corn Company in 1926, which later became Pioneer Hi-Bred
Pioneer Hi-Bred
Pioneer Hi-Bred is the largest U.S. producer of hybrid seeds for agriculture.- History :In 1926, farm journal editor and future U.S. Vice President Henry A. Wallace, along with a group of Des Moines, Iowa businessmen, founded the "Hi-Bred Corn Company". At the time, most corn farmers saved part of...
, a major agriculture corporation, acquired in 1999 by the Dupont Corporation for approximately $10 billion.
Wallace was raised as a Presbyterian, but left that denomination early in life. He spent most of his early life exploring other religious faiths and traditions. For many years, he had been closely associated with famous Russian artist and writer Nicholas Roerich
Nicholas Roerich
Nicholas Roerich, also known as Nikolai Konstantinovich Rerikh , was a Russian mystic, painter, philosopher, scientist, writer, traveler, and public figure. A prolific artist, he created thousands of paintings and about 30 literary works...
. According to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
Arthur Meier Schlesinger, Jr. was an American historian and social critic whose work explored the American liberalism of political leaders including Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Robert F. Kennedy. A Pulitzer Prize winner, Schlesinger served as special assistant and "court historian"...
, "Wallace's search for inner light took him to strange prophets.... It was in this search that he encountered Nicholas Roerich, a Russian emigre, painter, theosophist. Wallace did Roerich a number of favors, including sending him on an expedition to Central Asia presumably to collect drought-resistant grasses. In due course, H.A. [Wallace] became disillusioned with Roerich and turned almost viciously against him." Wallace eventually settled on Episcopalianism.
Henry Wallace was also a Freemason and attained the 32nd Degree in the Scottish Rite
Scottish Rite
The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry , commonly known as simply the Scottish Rite, is one of several Rites of the worldwide fraternity known as Freemasonry...
.
Secretary of Agriculture
In 1933, PresidentPresident of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
appointed Wallace United States Secretary of Agriculture
United States Secretary of Agriculture
The United States Secretary of Agriculture is the head of the United States Department of Agriculture. The current secretary is Tom Vilsack, who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on 20 January 2009. The position carries similar responsibilities to those of agriculture ministers in other...
in his Cabinet
United States Cabinet
The Cabinet of the United States is composed of the most senior appointed officers of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States, which are generally the heads of the federal executive departments...
, a post his father, Henry Cantwell Wallace
Henry Cantwell Wallace
Henry Cantwell Wallace was a United States farm leader. He served as the Secretary of Agriculture between 1921 and 1924. He was the father of Henry Agard Wallace, who would follow in his footsteps as Secretary of Agriculture under President Franklin D. Roosevelt...
, had occupied from 1921 to 1924. Wallace had been a liberal
Liberalism in the United States
Liberalism in the United States is a broad political philosophy centered on the unalienable rights of the individual. The fundamental liberal ideals of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion for all belief systems, and the separation of church and state, right to due process...
Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
, but he supported Roosevelt's New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
and soon switched to the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
. Wallace served as Secretary of Agriculture until September 1940, when he resigned, having been nominated for Vice President
Vice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...
as Roosevelt's running mate in the 1940 presidential election. During his tenure as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture he ordered a very unpopular strategy of slaughtering pigs and plowing up cotton fields in rural America to drive the price of these commodities back up in order to improve American farmers' financial situation. He also advocated the ever-normal granary concept.
Vice President
Wallace was elected in November 1940 as Vice President on the Democratic Party ticket with President Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
. His inauguration took place on January 20, 1941, for the term ending January 20, 1945.
Roosevelt named Wallace chairman of the Board of Economic Warfare
Board of Economic Warfare
The Office of Administrator of Export Control was established in the United States by Presidential Proclamation 2413, July 2, 1940, to administer export licensing provisions of the act of July 2, 1940 . Brigadier General Russell Lamont Maxwell, United States Army, headed up this military entity...
(BEW) and of the Supply Priorities and Allocations Board (SPAB) in 1941. Both positions became important with the U.S. entry into World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. As he began to flex his newfound political muscle in his position with SPAB, Wallace came up against the conservative wing of the Democratic party in the form of Jesse H. Jones, Secretary of Commerce, as the two differed on how to handle wartime supplies.
On May 8, 1942, Wallace delivered his most famous speech, which became known by the phrase "Century of the Common Man" to the Free World Association in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. This speech, grounded in Christian references, laid out a positive vision for the war beyond the simple defeat of the Nazis. The speech, and the book of the same name which appeared the following year, proved quite popular, but it earned him enemies among the Democratic leadership, among important allied leaders like Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
, and among business leaders and conservatives.
Wallace spoke out during race riots in Detroit in 1943
Detroit Race Riot (1943)
The Detroit Race Riot broke out in Detroit, Michigan in June 1943 and lasted for three days before Federal troops restored order. The rioting between blacks and whites began on Belle Isle on 20 June 1943 and continued until 22 June, killing 34, wounding 433, and destroying property valued at $2...
, declaring that the nation could not "fight to crush Nazi brutality abroad and condone race riots at home."
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
, shoring up support among important allies. His trip proved a success, and helped persuade twelve countries to declare war on Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. Regarding trade relationships with Latin America, he convinced the BEW to add "labor clauses" to contracts with Latin American producers. These clauses required producers to pay fair wages and provide safe working conditions for their employees and committed the United States to paying for up to half of the required improvements. This met opposition from the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Wallace believed that both the American and the Russian revolution were part of "the march to freedom of the past 150 years." After having met Molotov
Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov was a Soviet politician and diplomat, an Old Bolshevik and a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to 1957, when he was dismissed from the Presidium of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev...
, he arranged a trip to the "Wild East" of Russia. On May 23, 1944, he started a 25-day journey accompanied by Owen Lattimore
Owen Lattimore
Owen Lattimore was an American author, educator, and influential scholar of Central Asia, especially Mongolia. In the 1930s he was editor of Pacific Affairs, a journal published by the Institute of Pacific Relations, and then taught at Johns Hopkins University from 1938 to 1963...
. Coming from Alaska, they landed at Magadan
Magadan
Magadan is a port town on the Sea of Okhotsk and gateway to the Kolyma region. It is the administrative center of Magadan Oblast , in the Russian Far East. Founded in 1929 on the site of an earlier settlement from the 1920s, it was granted the status of town in 1939...
where they were received by Sergei Goglidze and Dalstroi director Ivan Nikishov, both NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
generals. The NKVD presented a fully sanitized version of the slave labor camps in Magadan and Kolyma
Kolyma
The Kolyma region is located in the far north-eastern area of Russia in what is commonly known as Siberia but is actually part of the Russian Far East. It is bounded by the East Siberian Sea and the Arctic Ocean in the north and the Sea of Okhotsk to the south...
to their American guests, convinced them that all the work was done by volunteers, charmed them with entertainment, and left their guests impressed with the "development" of Siberia and the spirit of the "volunteers". Lattimore's film of the visit tells that "a village ... in Siberia is a forum for open discussion like a town meeting in New England." The trip then continued to Mongolia and then to China.
After Wallace feuded publicly with Jesse Jones and other high officials, Roosevelt stripped him of his war agency responsibilities and entertained the idea of replacing him on the presidential ticket. The Democratic Party, with concern being expressed privately about Roosevelt being able to make it through another term, chose
The Democratic vice president nomination of 1944
The Democratic Party's 1944 nomination for Vice President of the United States was determined on July 21, 1944, when United States Senator Harry S. Truman was nominated to be President Franklin D. Roosevelt's running-mate in his bid to be re-elected for a fourth term. Truman's predecessor as Vice...
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
as Roosevelt's running mate at the 1944 Democratic convention
1944 Democratic National Convention
The 1944 Democratic National Convention was held at the Chicago Stadium in Chicago, Illinois from July 19 - July 21, 1944. The convention resulted in the re-nomination of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt for an unprecedented fourth term. Senator Harry S. Truman of Missouri was nominated for...
, after New Deal partisans failed to promote William O. Douglas
William O. Douglas
William Orville Douglas was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. With a term lasting 36 years and 209 days, he is the longest-serving justice in the history of the Supreme Court...
. Wallace was succeeded as Vice President on January 20, 1945, by Truman. On April 12, 1945, Vice President Truman succeeded to the Presidency when President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
died. Henry A. Wallace had missed being the 33rd President of the United States by just 82 days.
Roerich controversy
During the 1940 presidential electionUnited States presidential election, 1940
The United States presidential election of 1940 was fought in the shadow of World War II as the United States was emerging from the Great Depression. Incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt , a Democrat, broke with tradition and ran for a third term, which became a major issue...
, a series of letters that Wallace had written in the 1930s to Nicholas Roerich
Nicholas Roerich
Nicholas Roerich, also known as Nikolai Konstantinovich Rerikh , was a Russian mystic, painter, philosopher, scientist, writer, traveler, and public figure. A prolific artist, he created thousands of paintings and about 30 literary works...
was uncovered by the Republicans. Wallace addressed Roerich as "Dear Guru
Guru
A guru is one who is regarded as having great knowledge, wisdom, and authority in a certain area, and who uses it to guide others . Other forms of manifestation of this principle can include parents, school teachers, non-human objects and even one's own intellectual discipline, if the...
" and signed all of the letters as "G" for Galahad
Galahad
Sir Galahad |Round Table]] and one of the three achievers of the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend. He is the illegitimate son of Lancelot and Elaine of Corbenic, and is renowned for his gallantry and purity. Emerging quite late in the medieval Arthurian tradition, he is perhaps the knightly...
, the name Roerich had assigned him. Wallace assured Roerich that he awaited "the breaking of the New Day" when the people of "Northern Shambhalla
Shambhala
In Tibetan Buddhist tradition, Shambhala or Shangri-la is a mythical kingdom hidden somewhere in Inner Asia...
"—a Buddhist term roughly equivalent to the kingdom of heaven—would create an era of peace and plenty. When asked about the letters, Wallace claimed they were forgeries. Wallace had been a devoted supporter of Roerich and his work from the middle 1920s. With the nod from Roosevelt, Wallace had lobbied Congress to support Roerich's Banner and Pact of Peace which was signed in Washington, D.C. by delegates from 22 Latin American countries in 1935. Roerich and his son George were sent to Central Asia by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to search for drought-resistant grasses to prevent another Dust Bowl
Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl, or the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms causing major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands from 1930 to 1936...
. But later, in his memoirs, Wallace tried to conceal his association with Roerich. When the Republicans threatened to reveal his "eccentric" religious beliefs to the public, the Democrats countered by threatening to release information about Republican candidate Wendell Willkie
Wendell Willkie
Wendell Lewis Willkie was a corporate lawyer in the United States and a dark horse who became the Republican Party nominee for the president in 1940. A member of the liberal wing of the GOP, he crusaded against those domestic policies of the New Deal that he thought were inefficient and...
's rumored extramarital
Adultery
Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...
affair with the writer Irita Van Doren. The Republicans subsequently agreed not to publicize the "Guru" letters. In the winter of 1947, however, independent columnist Westbrook Pegler
Westbrook Pegler
Francis James Westbrook Pegler was an American journalist and writer. He was a popular columnist in the 1930s and 1940s famed for his opposition to the New Deal and labor unions. Pegler criticized every president from Herbert Hoover to FDR to Harry Truman to John F. Kennedy...
published extracts from the letters and promoted them thereafter as evidence that Wallace was not fit to be President.
Secretary of Commerce
United States Secretary of Commerce
The United States Secretary of Commerce is the head of the United States Department of Commerce concerned with business and industry; the Department states its mission to be "to foster, promote, and develop the foreign and domestic commerce"...
. Wallace served in this post from March 1945 to September 1946, when he was fired by President Harry S. Truman because of disagreements about the policy towards the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. He is the last former Vice President to serve in the President's cabinet.
The New Republic
Following his term as Secretary of Commerce, Wallace became the editorEditing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...
of The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
magazine, using his position to vociferously criticize Truman's foreign policy. On the declaration of the Truman Doctrine
Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was a policy set forth by U.S. President Harry S Truman in a speech on March 12, 1947 stating that the U.S. would support Greece and Turkey with economic and military aid to prevent their falling into the Soviet sphere...
in 1947, he predicted it would mark the beginning of "a century of fear".
The 1948 Presidential election
Wallace left his editorship position in 1948 to make an unsuccessful run as a Progressive Party candidate in the 1948 U.S. presidential electionUnited States presidential election, 1948
The United States presidential election of 1948 is considered by most historians as the greatest election upset in American history. Virtually every prediction indicated that incumbent President Harry S. Truman would be defeated by Republican Thomas E. Dewey. Truman won, overcoming a three-way...
. With Idaho
Idaho
Idaho is a state in the Rocky Mountain area of the United States. The state's largest city and capital is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans". Idaho was admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890, as the 43rd state....
Democratic U.S. Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
Glen H. Taylor
Glen H. Taylor
Glen Hearst Taylor was an American politician, businessman and United States Senator from Idaho. He was the vice presidential candidate on the Progressive Party ticket in the 1948 election. Taylor was otherwise a member of the Idaho Democratic Party...
as his running mate, his platform advocated friendly relations with the Soviet Union, an end to the nascent Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, an end to segregation, full voting rights for blacks, and universal government health insurance. His campaign was unusual for his time in that it included African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
candidates campaigning alongside white candidates in the American South, and that during the campaign he refused to appear before segregated audiences or eat or stay in segregated establishments.
As a further sign of the times, he was noted by Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
as ostentatiously riding through various cities and towns in the South "with his Negro secretary beside him". Many eggs and tomatoes were hurled at and struck him and his campaign members during the tour, while at the same time President Truman referred to such behavior towards Wallace as very un-American. Wallace commented that "there is a long chain that links unknown young hoodlums in North Carolina or Alabama with men in finely tailored business suits in the great financial centers of New York or Boston, men who make a dollars-&-cents profit by setting race against race in the far away South." State authorities in Virginia sidestepped enforcing its own segregation laws by declaring Wallace's gatherings as private parties.
One of the more potentially controversial supporters of the campaign was a group called Bachelors for Wallace, organized by Henry Hay
Henry Hay
Henry "Harry" Hay was an Australian freestyle swimmer of the 1920s, who won a silver medal in the 4x200m freestyle relay at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp...
and others as organization of gay and bisexual men who supported Wallace's presidential campaign.http://www.outhistory.org/wiki/Harry_Hay:_Founding_the_Mattachine_Society,_1948-1953 Wallace had not made any official statements in support of gay rights and it is unclear how much support this group gave to the campaign. Yet, in the tenor of the times, such an organization would have been highly controversial. The fact that group generated almost no notice by the press or even the campaign itself, may be because of other controversies facing the campaign.
The "Dear Guru" letters reappeared now and were published, seriously hampering his campaign. Even more damage was done to Wallace's campaign when several prominent journalists, including H.L. Mencken and Dorothy Thompson
Dorothy Thompson
Dorothy Thompson was an American journalist and radio broadcaster, who in 1939 was recognized by Time magazine as the second most influential women in America next to Eleanor Roosevelt...
, publicly charged that Wallace and the Progressives were under the covert control of Communists. Wallace was endorsed by the Communist Party (USA), and his subsequent refusal to publicly disavow any Communist support cost him the backing of many anti-Communist liberals and socialists, such as Norman Thomas
Norman Thomas
Norman Mattoon Thomas was a leading American socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.-Early years:...
. Christopher Andrew, a University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
historian working with evidence in the famed Mitrokhin Archive
Mitrokhin Archive
The Mitrokhin Archive is a collection of notes made secretly by KGB Major Vasili Mitrokhin during his thirty years as a KGB archivist in the foreign intelligence service and the First Chief Directorate...
, has stated publicly that he believed Wallace was a confirmed KGB agent, though evidence for this was never produced.
Wallace suffered a decisive defeat in the election to the Democratic incumbent Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
. He finished in fourth place with 2.4% of the popular vote. Dixiecrat
Dixiecrat
The States' Rights Democratic Party was a short-lived segregationist political party in the United States in 1948...
presidential candidate Strom Thurmond outstripped Wallace in the popular vote. He managed to carry several states in the Deep South, gaining 39 electoral votes to Wallace's electoral total of zero.
Later career
Wallace resumed his farming interests, and resided in South Salem, New YorkSouth Salem, New York
South Salem is a hamlet in Lewisboro, Westchester County, New York. The county ranks second for wealthiest counties in New York State and the seventh wealthiest county nationally. In the town center is a post office, the town hall, a library and a recycling center.Notable residents have included...
. During his later years he made a number of advances in the field of agricultural science
Agricultural science
Agricultural science is a broad multidisciplinary field that encompasses the parts of exact, natural, economic and social sciences that are used in the practice and understanding of agriculture. -Agriculture and agricultural science:The two terms are often confused...
. His many accomplishments included a breed of chicken
Chicken
The chicken is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird...
that at one point accounted for the overwhelming majority of all egg-laying chickens sold across the globe. The Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center
Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center
The Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, or BARC, is a unit of the United States Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service. It is located at in Beltsville, Maryland, and is named for Henry A. Wallace, former United States vice president and secretary of...
, the largest agricultural research complex in the world, is named for him.
In 1950, when North Korea invaded South Korea, Wallace broke with the Progressives and backed the U.S.-led war effort in the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
. In 1952, Wallace published Where I Was Wrong, in which he explained that his seemingly-trusting stance toward the Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
stemmed from inadequate information about Stalin's excesses and that he, too, now considered himself an anti-Communist. He wrote various letters to "people who he thought had traduced (maligned) him" and advocated the re-election of President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
in 1956.
In 1961, President-elect John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
invited him to his inauguration ceremony, though he had supported Kennedy's opponent Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
. A touched Wallace wrote to Kennedy: "At no time in our history have so many tens of millions of people been so completely enthusiastic about an Inaugural Address as about yours."
Wallace first experienced the onsets of Lou Gehrig's disease
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis , also referred to as Lou Gehrig's disease, is a form of motor neuron disease caused by the degeneration of upper and lower neurons, located in the ventral horn of the spinal cord and the cortical neurons that provide their efferent input...
on one of his frequent trips to South America in 1954. He died in Danbury, Connecticut
Danbury, Connecticut
Danbury is a city in northern Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It had population at the 2010 census of 80,893. Danbury is the fourth largest city in Fairfield County and is the seventh largest city in Connecticut....
, in 1965. His remains were cremated at Grace Cemetery in Bridgeport, Connecticut
Bridgeport, Connecticut
Bridgeport is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. Located in Fairfield County, the city had an estimated population of 144,229 at the 2010 United States Census and is the core of the Greater Bridgeport area...
, and the ashes interred in Glendale Cemetery, Des Moines, Iowa
Des Moines, Iowa
Des Moines is the capital and the most populous city in the US state of Iowa. It is also the county seat of Polk County. A small portion of the city extends into Warren County. It was incorporated on September 22, 1851, as Fort Des Moines which was shortened to "Des Moines" in 1857...
.
See also
- Honeydew (melon)Honeydew (melon)Honeydew is a cultivar group of the muskmelon, Cucumis melo Inodorus group, which includes crenshaw, casaba, Persian, winter, and other mixed melons.-Characteristics:...
, apparently first introduced to ChinaChinaChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
by H.A. Wallace and still locally known there as the "Wallace melon" - Bailan melonBailan melonThe Bailan melon is a locally famous type of melon grown near Lanzhou, the capital city of Gansu province in the People's Republic of China....
, one of the most famous Chinese melon cultivars, bred from the "Wallace melon"
Secondary sources
- "The Prince of Wallace's: Chickens, Communists and Henry Wallace," Times Literary Supplement, November 24, 2000.
- Culver, John C. and John Hyde. American Dreamer: The Life and Times of Henry A. Wallace (2002)
- Markowitz, Norman D. The Rise and Fall of the People's Century: Henry A. Wallace and American Liberalism, 1941-1948 (1973)
- John Maze and Graham White, Henry A. Wallace: His Search for a New World Order. University of North Carolina Press. 1995
- Pietrusza, David 1948: Harry Truman's Improbable Victory and the Year that Changed America, Union Square Press, 2011.
- Schapsmeier, Frederick H. Henry A. Wallace of Iowa: the Agrarian Years, 1910-1940 (1968)
- Schapsmeier, Edward L. and Frederick H. Schapsmeier. Prophet in Politics: Henry A. Wallace and the War Years, 1940-1965 (1970)
- Schmidt, Karl M. Henry A. Wallace, Quixotic Crusade 1948 (1960)
- White, Graham, and John Maze. Henry A. Wallace: His Search for a New World Order (1995)
- Walker, J. Samuel Walker. Henry A. Wallace and American Foreign Policy (1976)
Writings
- Agricultural Prices (1920)
- New Frontiers (1934)
- America Must Choose (1934)
- Statesmanship and Religion (1934)
- Technology, Corporations, and the General Welfare (1937)
- The Century of the Common Man (1943)
- Democracy Reborn (1944)
- Sixty Million Jobs (1945)
- Toward World Peace (1948)
- The Price of Vision - The Diary of Henry A. Wallace 1942-1946 (1973), edited by John Morton Blum
External links
- Selected Works of Henry A. Wallace
- Papers of Henry Wallace Digital Collection
- FBI file on Herny Wallace
- Searchable index of Wallace papers at the Library of Congress, Franklin D Roosevelt Library and the University of Iowa
- Quotes by Henry A. Wallace
- "The Century of the Common Man" - the text of Wallace's 1942 speech.
- Henry A. Wallace Center for Agricultural & Environmental Policy
- An Argument for a New Liberalism by Peter BeinartPeter Beinart-Early life and education:Beinart was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of South African immigrants. His mother, Doreen, works at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and his father, Julian Beinart, is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His stepfather is theatre...
, The New RepublicThe New RepublicThe magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
, December 2, 2004 - argues that Harry S. TrumanHarry S. TrumanHarry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
's defeat of Wallace in 1948 helped make the Democrats an anti-totalitarian party and sees present-day Democrats as "Wallacite", a term it coins to mean soft on totalitarianism and external threats.
Henry Agard Wallace (October 7, 1888 – November 18, 1965) was the 33rd Vice President of the United States
Vice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...
(1941–1945), the Secretary of Agriculture
United States Secretary of Agriculture
The United States Secretary of Agriculture is the head of the United States Department of Agriculture. The current secretary is Tom Vilsack, who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on 20 January 2009. The position carries similar responsibilities to those of agriculture ministers in other...
(1933–1940), and the Secretary of Commerce
United States Secretary of Commerce
The United States Secretary of Commerce is the head of the United States Department of Commerce concerned with business and industry; the Department states its mission to be "to foster, promote, and develop the foreign and domestic commerce"...
(1945–1946). In the 1948 presidential election
United States presidential election, 1948
The United States presidential election of 1948 is considered by most historians as the greatest election upset in American history. Virtually every prediction indicated that incumbent President Harry S. Truman would be defeated by Republican Thomas E. Dewey. Truman won, overcoming a three-way...
, Wallace was the nominee of the Progressive Party.
Early life
Henry A. Wallace, son of Henry Cantwell WallaceHenry Cantwell Wallace
Henry Cantwell Wallace was a United States farm leader. He served as the Secretary of Agriculture between 1921 and 1924. He was the father of Henry Agard Wallace, who would follow in his footsteps as Secretary of Agriculture under President Franklin D. Roosevelt...
, was born on October 7, 1888, at a farm near Orient
Orient, Iowa
Orient is a city in Orient Township, Adair County, Iowa, United States. The population was 402 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Orient is located at ....
, Adair County, Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
. Wallace attended Iowa State College
Iowa State University
Iowa State University of Science and Technology, more commonly known as Iowa State University , is a public land-grant and space-grant research university located in Ames, Iowa, United States. Iowa State has produced astronauts, scientists, and Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, along with a host of...
at Ames
Ames, Iowa
Ames is a city located in the central part of the U.S. state of Iowa in Story County, and approximately north of Des Moines. The U.S. Census Bureau designates that Ames, Iowa metropolitan statistical area as encompassing all of Story County, and which, when combined with the Boone, Iowa...
where he was a brother in the Delta Tau Delta
Delta Tau Delta
Delta Tau Delta is a U.S.-based international secret letter college fraternity. Delta Tau Delta was founded in 1858 at Bethany College, Bethany, Virginia, . It currently has around 125 student chapters nationwide, as well as more than 25 regional alumni groups. Its national community service...
fraternity. At Iowa State he became friends with George Washington Carver
George Washington Carver
George Washington Carver , was an American scientist, botanist, educator, and inventor. The exact day and year of his birth are unknown; he is believed to have been born into slavery in Missouri in January 1864....
, spending time together collecting botanical specimens. He graduated in 1910 with a degree in animal husbandry. He worked on the editorial staff of the family-owned paper Wallace's Farmer in Des Moines, Iowa
Des Moines, Iowa
Des Moines is the capital and the most populous city in the US state of Iowa. It is also the county seat of Polk County. A small portion of the city extends into Warren County. It was incorporated on September 22, 1851, as Fort Des Moines which was shortened to "Des Moines" in 1857...
, from 1910 to 1924 and edited the publication from 1924 to 1929. He experimented with breeding high-yielding hybrid corn, and authored many publications on agriculture. In 1915 he devised the first corn-hog ratio charts indicating the probable course of markets.
With an inheritance of a few thousand dollars that had been left to his wife, the former Ilo Browne
Ilo Wallace
Ilo Browne Wallace was the wife of Henry A. Wallace, the 33rd U.S Vice President and later Secretary of Commerce. She was the Second Lady of the United States from 1941 until 1945...
, whom he married in 1914, Wallace founded the Hi-Bred Corn Company in 1926, which later became Pioneer Hi-Bred
Pioneer Hi-Bred
Pioneer Hi-Bred is the largest U.S. producer of hybrid seeds for agriculture.- History :In 1926, farm journal editor and future U.S. Vice President Henry A. Wallace, along with a group of Des Moines, Iowa businessmen, founded the "Hi-Bred Corn Company". At the time, most corn farmers saved part of...
, a major agriculture corporation, acquired in 1999 by the Dupont Corporation for approximately $10 billion.
Wallace was raised as a Presbyterian, but left that denomination early in life. He spent most of his early life exploring other religious faiths and traditions. For many years, he had been closely associated with famous Russian artist and writer Nicholas Roerich
Nicholas Roerich
Nicholas Roerich, also known as Nikolai Konstantinovich Rerikh , was a Russian mystic, painter, philosopher, scientist, writer, traveler, and public figure. A prolific artist, he created thousands of paintings and about 30 literary works...
. According to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
Arthur Meier Schlesinger, Jr. was an American historian and social critic whose work explored the American liberalism of political leaders including Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Robert F. Kennedy. A Pulitzer Prize winner, Schlesinger served as special assistant and "court historian"...
, "Wallace's search for inner light took him to strange prophets.... It was in this search that he encountered Nicholas Roerich, a Russian emigre, painter, theosophist. Wallace did Roerich a number of favors, including sending him on an expedition to Central Asia presumably to collect drought-resistant grasses. In due course, H.A. [Wallace] became disillusioned with Roerich and turned almost viciously against him." Wallace eventually settled on Episcopalianism.
Henry Wallace was also a Freemason and attained the 32nd Degree in the Scottish Rite
Scottish Rite
The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry , commonly known as simply the Scottish Rite, is one of several Rites of the worldwide fraternity known as Freemasonry...
.
Secretary of Agriculture
In 1933, PresidentPresident of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
appointed Wallace United States Secretary of Agriculture
United States Secretary of Agriculture
The United States Secretary of Agriculture is the head of the United States Department of Agriculture. The current secretary is Tom Vilsack, who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on 20 January 2009. The position carries similar responsibilities to those of agriculture ministers in other...
in his Cabinet
United States Cabinet
The Cabinet of the United States is composed of the most senior appointed officers of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States, which are generally the heads of the federal executive departments...
, a post his father, Henry Cantwell Wallace
Henry Cantwell Wallace
Henry Cantwell Wallace was a United States farm leader. He served as the Secretary of Agriculture between 1921 and 1924. He was the father of Henry Agard Wallace, who would follow in his footsteps as Secretary of Agriculture under President Franklin D. Roosevelt...
, had occupied from 1921 to 1924. Wallace had been a liberal
Liberalism in the United States
Liberalism in the United States is a broad political philosophy centered on the unalienable rights of the individual. The fundamental liberal ideals of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion for all belief systems, and the separation of church and state, right to due process...
Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
, but he supported Roosevelt's New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
and soon switched to the Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
. Wallace served as Secretary of Agriculture until September 1940, when he resigned, having been nominated for Vice President
Vice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...
as Roosevelt's running mate in the 1940 presidential election. During his tenure as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture he ordered a very unpopular strategy of slaughtering pigs and plowing up cotton fields in rural America to drive the price of these commodities back up in order to improve American farmers' financial situation. He also advocated the ever-normal granary concept.
Vice President
Wallace was elected in November 1940 as Vice President on the Democratic Party ticket with President Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
. His inauguration took place on January 20, 1941, for the term ending January 20, 1945.
Roosevelt named Wallace chairman of the Board of Economic Warfare
Board of Economic Warfare
The Office of Administrator of Export Control was established in the United States by Presidential Proclamation 2413, July 2, 1940, to administer export licensing provisions of the act of July 2, 1940 . Brigadier General Russell Lamont Maxwell, United States Army, headed up this military entity...
(BEW) and of the Supply Priorities and Allocations Board (SPAB) in 1941. Both positions became important with the U.S. entry into World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. As he began to flex his newfound political muscle in his position with SPAB, Wallace came up against the conservative wing of the Democratic party in the form of Jesse H. Jones, Secretary of Commerce, as the two differed on how to handle wartime supplies.
On May 8, 1942, Wallace delivered his most famous speech, which became known by the phrase "Century of the Common Man" to the Free World Association in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. This speech, grounded in Christian references, laid out a positive vision for the war beyond the simple defeat of the Nazis. The speech, and the book of the same name which appeared the following year, proved quite popular, but it earned him enemies among the Democratic leadership, among important allied leaders like Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
, and among business leaders and conservatives.
Wallace spoke out during race riots in Detroit in 1943
Detroit Race Riot (1943)
The Detroit Race Riot broke out in Detroit, Michigan in June 1943 and lasted for three days before Federal troops restored order. The rioting between blacks and whites began on Belle Isle on 20 June 1943 and continued until 22 June, killing 34, wounding 433, and destroying property valued at $2...
, declaring that the nation could not "fight to crush Nazi brutality abroad and condone race riots at home."
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
, shoring up support among important allies. His trip proved a success, and helped persuade twelve countries to declare war on Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. Regarding trade relationships with Latin America, he convinced the BEW to add "labor clauses" to contracts with Latin American producers. These clauses required producers to pay fair wages and provide safe working conditions for their employees and committed the United States to paying for up to half of the required improvements. This met opposition from the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Wallace believed that both the American and the Russian revolution were part of "the march to freedom of the past 150 years." After having met Molotov
Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov was a Soviet politician and diplomat, an Old Bolshevik and a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to 1957, when he was dismissed from the Presidium of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev...
, he arranged a trip to the "Wild East" of Russia. On May 23, 1944, he started a 25-day journey accompanied by Owen Lattimore
Owen Lattimore
Owen Lattimore was an American author, educator, and influential scholar of Central Asia, especially Mongolia. In the 1930s he was editor of Pacific Affairs, a journal published by the Institute of Pacific Relations, and then taught at Johns Hopkins University from 1938 to 1963...
. Coming from Alaska, they landed at Magadan
Magadan
Magadan is a port town on the Sea of Okhotsk and gateway to the Kolyma region. It is the administrative center of Magadan Oblast , in the Russian Far East. Founded in 1929 on the site of an earlier settlement from the 1920s, it was granted the status of town in 1939...
where they were received by Sergei Goglidze and Dalstroi director Ivan Nikishov, both NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
generals. The NKVD presented a fully sanitized version of the slave labor camps in Magadan and Kolyma
Kolyma
The Kolyma region is located in the far north-eastern area of Russia in what is commonly known as Siberia but is actually part of the Russian Far East. It is bounded by the East Siberian Sea and the Arctic Ocean in the north and the Sea of Okhotsk to the south...
to their American guests, convinced them that all the work was done by volunteers, charmed them with entertainment, and left their guests impressed with the "development" of Siberia and the spirit of the "volunteers". Lattimore's film of the visit tells that "a village ... in Siberia is a forum for open discussion like a town meeting in New England." The trip then continued to Mongolia and then to China.
After Wallace feuded publicly with Jesse Jones and other high officials, Roosevelt stripped him of his war agency responsibilities and entertained the idea of replacing him on the presidential ticket. The Democratic Party, with concern being expressed privately about Roosevelt being able to make it through another term, chose
The Democratic vice president nomination of 1944
The Democratic Party's 1944 nomination for Vice President of the United States was determined on July 21, 1944, when United States Senator Harry S. Truman was nominated to be President Franklin D. Roosevelt's running-mate in his bid to be re-elected for a fourth term. Truman's predecessor as Vice...
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
as Roosevelt's running mate at the 1944 Democratic convention
1944 Democratic National Convention
The 1944 Democratic National Convention was held at the Chicago Stadium in Chicago, Illinois from July 19 - July 21, 1944. The convention resulted in the re-nomination of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt for an unprecedented fourth term. Senator Harry S. Truman of Missouri was nominated for...
, after New Deal partisans failed to promote William O. Douglas
William O. Douglas
William Orville Douglas was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. With a term lasting 36 years and 209 days, he is the longest-serving justice in the history of the Supreme Court...
. Wallace was succeeded as Vice President on January 20, 1945, by Truman. On April 12, 1945, Vice President Truman succeeded to the Presidency when President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
died. Henry A. Wallace had missed being the 33rd President of the United States by just 82 days.
Roerich controversy
During the 1940 presidential electionUnited States presidential election, 1940
The United States presidential election of 1940 was fought in the shadow of World War II as the United States was emerging from the Great Depression. Incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt , a Democrat, broke with tradition and ran for a third term, which became a major issue...
, a series of letters that Wallace had written in the 1930s to Nicholas Roerich
Nicholas Roerich
Nicholas Roerich, also known as Nikolai Konstantinovich Rerikh , was a Russian mystic, painter, philosopher, scientist, writer, traveler, and public figure. A prolific artist, he created thousands of paintings and about 30 literary works...
was uncovered by the Republicans. Wallace addressed Roerich as "Dear Guru
Guru
A guru is one who is regarded as having great knowledge, wisdom, and authority in a certain area, and who uses it to guide others . Other forms of manifestation of this principle can include parents, school teachers, non-human objects and even one's own intellectual discipline, if the...
" and signed all of the letters as "G" for Galahad
Galahad
Sir Galahad |Round Table]] and one of the three achievers of the Holy Grail in Arthurian legend. He is the illegitimate son of Lancelot and Elaine of Corbenic, and is renowned for his gallantry and purity. Emerging quite late in the medieval Arthurian tradition, he is perhaps the knightly...
, the name Roerich had assigned him. Wallace assured Roerich that he awaited "the breaking of the New Day" when the people of "Northern Shambhalla
Shambhala
In Tibetan Buddhist tradition, Shambhala or Shangri-la is a mythical kingdom hidden somewhere in Inner Asia...
"—a Buddhist term roughly equivalent to the kingdom of heaven—would create an era of peace and plenty. When asked about the letters, Wallace claimed they were forgeries. Wallace had been a devoted supporter of Roerich and his work from the middle 1920s. With the nod from Roosevelt, Wallace had lobbied Congress to support Roerich's Banner and Pact of Peace which was signed in Washington, D.C. by delegates from 22 Latin American countries in 1935. Roerich and his son George were sent to Central Asia by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to search for drought-resistant grasses to prevent another Dust Bowl
Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl, or the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms causing major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands from 1930 to 1936...
. But later, in his memoirs, Wallace tried to conceal his association with Roerich. When the Republicans threatened to reveal his "eccentric" religious beliefs to the public, the Democrats countered by threatening to release information about Republican candidate Wendell Willkie
Wendell Willkie
Wendell Lewis Willkie was a corporate lawyer in the United States and a dark horse who became the Republican Party nominee for the president in 1940. A member of the liberal wing of the GOP, he crusaded against those domestic policies of the New Deal that he thought were inefficient and...
's rumored extramarital
Adultery
Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...
affair with the writer Irita Van Doren. The Republicans subsequently agreed not to publicize the "Guru" letters. In the winter of 1947, however, independent columnist Westbrook Pegler
Westbrook Pegler
Francis James Westbrook Pegler was an American journalist and writer. He was a popular columnist in the 1930s and 1940s famed for his opposition to the New Deal and labor unions. Pegler criticized every president from Herbert Hoover to FDR to Harry Truman to John F. Kennedy...
published extracts from the letters and promoted them thereafter as evidence that Wallace was not fit to be President.
Secretary of Commerce
United States Secretary of Commerce
The United States Secretary of Commerce is the head of the United States Department of Commerce concerned with business and industry; the Department states its mission to be "to foster, promote, and develop the foreign and domestic commerce"...
. Wallace served in this post from March 1945 to September 1946, when he was fired by President Harry S. Truman because of disagreements about the policy towards the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. He is the last former Vice President to serve in the President's cabinet.
The New Republic
Following his term as Secretary of Commerce, Wallace became the editorEditing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...
of The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
magazine, using his position to vociferously criticize Truman's foreign policy. On the declaration of the Truman Doctrine
Truman Doctrine
The Truman Doctrine was a policy set forth by U.S. President Harry S Truman in a speech on March 12, 1947 stating that the U.S. would support Greece and Turkey with economic and military aid to prevent their falling into the Soviet sphere...
in 1947, he predicted it would mark the beginning of "a century of fear".
The 1948 Presidential election
Wallace left his editorship position in 1948 to make an unsuccessful run as a Progressive Party candidate in the 1948 U.S. presidential electionUnited States presidential election, 1948
The United States presidential election of 1948 is considered by most historians as the greatest election upset in American history. Virtually every prediction indicated that incumbent President Harry S. Truman would be defeated by Republican Thomas E. Dewey. Truman won, overcoming a three-way...
. With Idaho
Idaho
Idaho is a state in the Rocky Mountain area of the United States. The state's largest city and capital is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans". Idaho was admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890, as the 43rd state....
Democratic U.S. Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
Glen H. Taylor
Glen H. Taylor
Glen Hearst Taylor was an American politician, businessman and United States Senator from Idaho. He was the vice presidential candidate on the Progressive Party ticket in the 1948 election. Taylor was otherwise a member of the Idaho Democratic Party...
as his running mate, his platform advocated friendly relations with the Soviet Union, an end to the nascent Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, an end to segregation, full voting rights for blacks, and universal government health insurance. His campaign was unusual for his time in that it included African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
candidates campaigning alongside white candidates in the American South, and that during the campaign he refused to appear before segregated audiences or eat or stay in segregated establishments.
As a further sign of the times, he was noted by Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
as ostentatiously riding through various cities and towns in the South "with his Negro secretary beside him". Many eggs and tomatoes were hurled at and struck him and his campaign members during the tour, while at the same time President Truman referred to such behavior towards Wallace as very un-American. Wallace commented that "there is a long chain that links unknown young hoodlums in North Carolina or Alabama with men in finely tailored business suits in the great financial centers of New York or Boston, men who make a dollars-&-cents profit by setting race against race in the far away South." State authorities in Virginia sidestepped enforcing its own segregation laws by declaring Wallace's gatherings as private parties.
One of the more potentially controversial supporters of the campaign was a group called Bachelors for Wallace, organized by Henry Hay
Henry Hay
Henry "Harry" Hay was an Australian freestyle swimmer of the 1920s, who won a silver medal in the 4x200m freestyle relay at the 1920 Summer Olympics in Antwerp...
and others as organization of gay and bisexual men who supported Wallace's presidential campaign.http://www.outhistory.org/wiki/Harry_Hay:_Founding_the_Mattachine_Society,_1948-1953 Wallace had not made any official statements in support of gay rights and it is unclear how much support this group gave to the campaign. Yet, in the tenor of the times, such an organization would have been highly controversial. The fact that group generated almost no notice by the press or even the campaign itself, may be because of other controversies facing the campaign.
The "Dear Guru" letters reappeared now and were published, seriously hampering his campaign. Even more damage was done to Wallace's campaign when several prominent journalists, including H.L. Mencken and Dorothy Thompson
Dorothy Thompson
Dorothy Thompson was an American journalist and radio broadcaster, who in 1939 was recognized by Time magazine as the second most influential women in America next to Eleanor Roosevelt...
, publicly charged that Wallace and the Progressives were under the covert control of Communists. Wallace was endorsed by the Communist Party (USA), and his subsequent refusal to publicly disavow any Communist support cost him the backing of many anti-Communist liberals and socialists, such as Norman Thomas
Norman Thomas
Norman Mattoon Thomas was a leading American socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.-Early years:...
. Christopher Andrew, a University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
historian working with evidence in the famed Mitrokhin Archive
Mitrokhin Archive
The Mitrokhin Archive is a collection of notes made secretly by KGB Major Vasili Mitrokhin during his thirty years as a KGB archivist in the foreign intelligence service and the First Chief Directorate...
, has stated publicly that he believed Wallace was a confirmed KGB agent, though evidence for this was never produced.
Wallace suffered a decisive defeat in the election to the Democratic incumbent Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
. He finished in fourth place with 2.4% of the popular vote. Dixiecrat
Dixiecrat
The States' Rights Democratic Party was a short-lived segregationist political party in the United States in 1948...
presidential candidate Strom Thurmond outstripped Wallace in the popular vote. He managed to carry several states in the Deep South, gaining 39 electoral votes to Wallace's electoral total of zero.
Later career
Wallace resumed his farming interests, and resided in South Salem, New YorkSouth Salem, New York
South Salem is a hamlet in Lewisboro, Westchester County, New York. The county ranks second for wealthiest counties in New York State and the seventh wealthiest county nationally. In the town center is a post office, the town hall, a library and a recycling center.Notable residents have included...
. During his later years he made a number of advances in the field of agricultural science
Agricultural science
Agricultural science is a broad multidisciplinary field that encompasses the parts of exact, natural, economic and social sciences that are used in the practice and understanding of agriculture. -Agriculture and agricultural science:The two terms are often confused...
. His many accomplishments included a breed of chicken
Chicken
The chicken is a domesticated fowl, a subspecies of the Red Junglefowl. As one of the most common and widespread domestic animals, and with a population of more than 24 billion in 2003, there are more chickens in the world than any other species of bird...
that at one point accounted for the overwhelming majority of all egg-laying chickens sold across the globe. The Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center
Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center
The Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, or BARC, is a unit of the United States Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service. It is located at in Beltsville, Maryland, and is named for Henry A. Wallace, former United States vice president and secretary of...
, the largest agricultural research complex in the world, is named for him.
In 1950, when North Korea invaded South Korea, Wallace broke with the Progressives and backed the U.S.-led war effort in the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
. In 1952, Wallace published Where I Was Wrong, in which he explained that his seemingly-trusting stance toward the Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
stemmed from inadequate information about Stalin's excesses and that he, too, now considered himself an anti-Communist. He wrote various letters to "people who he thought had traduced (maligned) him" and advocated the re-election of President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
in 1956.
In 1961, President-elect John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
invited him to his inauguration ceremony, though he had supported Kennedy's opponent Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
. A touched Wallace wrote to Kennedy: "At no time in our history have so many tens of millions of people been so completely enthusiastic about an Inaugural Address as about yours."
Wallace first experienced the onsets of Lou Gehrig's disease
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis , also referred to as Lou Gehrig's disease, is a form of motor neuron disease caused by the degeneration of upper and lower neurons, located in the ventral horn of the spinal cord and the cortical neurons that provide their efferent input...
on one of his frequent trips to South America in 1954. He died in Danbury, Connecticut
Danbury, Connecticut
Danbury is a city in northern Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It had population at the 2010 census of 80,893. Danbury is the fourth largest city in Fairfield County and is the seventh largest city in Connecticut....
, in 1965. His remains were cremated at Grace Cemetery in Bridgeport, Connecticut
Bridgeport, Connecticut
Bridgeport is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. Located in Fairfield County, the city had an estimated population of 144,229 at the 2010 United States Census and is the core of the Greater Bridgeport area...
, and the ashes interred in Glendale Cemetery, Des Moines, Iowa
Des Moines, Iowa
Des Moines is the capital and the most populous city in the US state of Iowa. It is also the county seat of Polk County. A small portion of the city extends into Warren County. It was incorporated on September 22, 1851, as Fort Des Moines which was shortened to "Des Moines" in 1857...
.
See also
- Honeydew (melon)Honeydew (melon)Honeydew is a cultivar group of the muskmelon, Cucumis melo Inodorus group, which includes crenshaw, casaba, Persian, winter, and other mixed melons.-Characteristics:...
, apparently first introduced to ChinaChinaChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
by H.A. Wallace and still locally known there as the "Wallace melon" - Bailan melonBailan melonThe Bailan melon is a locally famous type of melon grown near Lanzhou, the capital city of Gansu province in the People's Republic of China....
, one of the most famous Chinese melon cultivars, bred from the "Wallace melon"
Secondary sources
- "The Prince of Wallace's: Chickens, Communists and Henry Wallace," Times Literary Supplement, November 24, 2000.
- Culver, John C. and John Hyde. American Dreamer: The Life and Times of Henry A. Wallace (2002)
- Markowitz, Norman D. The Rise and Fall of the People's Century: Henry A. Wallace and American Liberalism, 1941-1948 (1973)
- John Maze and Graham White, Henry A. Wallace: His Search for a New World Order. University of North Carolina Press. 1995
- Pietrusza, David 1948: Harry Truman's Improbable Victory and the Year that Changed America, Union Square Press, 2011.
- Schapsmeier, Frederick H. Henry A. Wallace of Iowa: the Agrarian Years, 1910-1940 (1968)
- Schapsmeier, Edward L. and Frederick H. Schapsmeier. Prophet in Politics: Henry A. Wallace and the War Years, 1940-1965 (1970)
- Schmidt, Karl M. Henry A. Wallace, Quixotic Crusade 1948 (1960)
- White, Graham, and John Maze. Henry A. Wallace: His Search for a New World Order (1995)
- Walker, J. Samuel Walker. Henry A. Wallace and American Foreign Policy (1976)
Writings
- Agricultural Prices (1920)
- New Frontiers (1934)
- America Must Choose (1934)
- Statesmanship and Religion (1934)
- Technology, Corporations, and the General Welfare (1937)
- The Century of the Common Man (1943)
- Democracy Reborn (1944)
- Sixty Million Jobs (1945)
- Toward World Peace (1948)
- The Price of Vision - The Diary of Henry A. Wallace 1942-1946 (1973), edited by John Morton Blum
External links
- Selected Works of Henry A. Wallace
- Papers of Henry Wallace Digital Collection
- FBI file on Herny Wallace
- Searchable index of Wallace papers at the Library of Congress, Franklin D Roosevelt Library and the University of Iowa
- Quotes by Henry A. Wallace
- "The Century of the Common Man" - the text of Wallace's 1942 speech.
- Henry A. Wallace Center for Agricultural & Environmental Policy
- An Argument for a New Liberalism by Peter BeinartPeter Beinart-Early life and education:Beinart was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of South African immigrants. His mother, Doreen, works at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and his father, Julian Beinart, is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His stepfather is theatre...
, The New RepublicThe New RepublicThe magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
, December 2, 2004 - argues that Harry S. TrumanHarry S. TrumanHarry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
's defeat of Wallace in 1948 helped make the Democrats an anti-totalitarian party and sees present-day Democrats as "Wallacite", a term it coins to mean soft on totalitarianism and external threats. - Is There Any 'Wallace' Left in the Democratic Party? - The Real News (TRNN) - Paul Jay interviews Scott Wallace, grandson of Henry A. Wallace (video)
|-