November 1948

It’s the eve of the election.  I’m on my way home – Iowa.  Home.   Home is something I lost in Philadelphia to the Spanish Flu.  I regained a home with my Great Aunt in Iowa.  I had hoped to build a new home in Spain with my anarchist comrades.  But I failed. 

I also lied.  I did not have to leave Spain.  I was not a fighter.  Only the fighters were required to leave.  I was an ambulance driver.  The Major stayed on after I left – I abandoned my post. 

I was afraid.  The retreat stole my courage – I had to come home.  Home to safety. 

However, I have learned from my cowardice in Spain.  As did the world.  Had we stopped fascism in Spain we could have put an earlier stop to Hitler – saving millions of lives and much destruction.  You can’t stop fighting the forces of oppression, perhaps retreat to regroup, but you can’t stop fighting.   I was absent when Spain feel.  I promised myself that I would not be absent from the fight again.  I believe it is far better to face our fears and perhaps be buried in the ruble than to be absent a second time.

Today, I’m afraid again, but not cowardly.  Not this time.  Regardless of the outcome of this campaign I will continue to fight for the rights of the common man.  This fight is against the oppression of big business and the corruption of government, which only serves the interest of the powerful few. 

America is my home.  If we lose this election, even my Great Aunt’s home may no longer be safe for me.  There is nowhere to run to be safe this time.  Like the people I left behind in Spain, they had nowhere to go to be safe.  Now, I too have no option to flee, so regardless of the outcome of this election I am committed to continue the good fight. 


©  2015 Ron Millar

October 1948

I never thought I would say this, because we are not close, but with all the violence and pain that has been inflicted in this campaign I feel the sorriest for Ilo Wallace.  This campaign has been agony for her. 

The names that H.A. have been called seem to slide of him, but they deeply wound Mrs. Wallace.  Now like I said before she and I have never been close.  Let’s just say that her small-town Iowa upbringing make her uncomfortable around people with dark complexions or those whose faith does not include Jesus Christ as the Messiah. 

The H.A. and Ilo relationship is a very traditional marriage.  H.A. never discusses politics with his wife and he does not discuss his wife with his political associates.  He is a loving husband and she is a supportive wife and they seem very happy together. 

But as I said before, Ilo wants the respectability due to H.A. as a person and as his office should hold.  Thanks to the Whisky Rebels and the Dixiecrats, this campaign provided neither.

Undaunted by attacks, H.A. traveled some 25,000 miles during the fall campaign and appeared in almost every state, often speaking several times a day.  H.A. has given his all in this campaign and now it is up to the voters.  H.A. has faith in the American people to choose the best candidate, who will then work to produce the best America he can. 

Regardless of how the election turns out, I’m headed back to Iowa for a much needed rest with my family.  My Great Aunt is anxious to receive my scrapbook of autographs, speeches, press clippings and campaign paraphernalia.  I can’t wait to go home.

However, H.A. can’t go home.  In what some say is an ominous sign, just a week ago the flooring in the White House collapsed.  H.A. was not there at the time.  He is traveling nonstop until the election and afterwards plans to vacation in Key West.  Following the vacation H.A. will live in the Blair House (just across the street from the White House).  The repairs needed are so extensive that the White House will need to be gutted and rebuilt from the cellar up.  H.A.’s enemies are taking great joy in comparing the state of the White House with the state of the nation under H.A.’s Administration.


©  2015 Ron Millar

September 1948

Got to campaign with one of my hero’s yesterday – Paul Robeson [a leader of communist front organizations such as the Congress of Civil Rights – A.S.]

I first met Mr. Robeson in November of 1942, when Robeson appeared with H.A. at two tributes to the Soviet Union on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the October Revolution.   One was an afternoon reception at the Soviet embassy in Washington followed by an evening at Madison Square Garden in New York City.  This was when the Soviet Union was a brave ally against fascism a dramatic transformation in public opinion from its pariah state prior to the war and where it is returning now.   Twelve hundred guests, including Secretary of State Cordell Hull and other members of FDR’s cabinet, packed the embassy.  Naturally, an even larger crowd of dignitaries, celebrities, and average Americans filled the Garden in New York.  One of my favorite photos is of H.A., Albert Einstein, Lewis L. Wallace, no relation [of Princeton University – A.S.] and Paul Robeson from a meeting in September 1947.  I just love the diverse and interesting people H.A. mingles with. 

Mr. Robeson has been campaigning hard for H.A. and he always draws large and supportive crowds.  Robeson also spoke and sang at H.A.’s nominating convention. 

©  2015 Ron Millar

August 1948

H.A. the diligent scientist has been transformed into a wild eyed mystic.  The letters are out!  Those stupid letters to Nicholas Roerich from H.A. are being published by Westbrook Pegler, a reactionary columnist for the Hearst newspapers.   Pegler said, “The voters of this country are entitled to know whether or not those letters were written to a Russian whose followers regarded him as Almighty God and to member of this Russian’s Oriental political and pseudo-religious cult” were indeed written by H.A.  What an idiot – and I mean H.A. not Pegler, although he is an idiot too.   Pegler added, “The man who wrote those letters was, by American popular standards, as dizzy as a dervish.  These letters are revolting in their idiotic, juvenile prattle of esoteric jargon.”  Pegler is demanding that H.A. confess that he wrote these letters.  At press conferences the issue keeps coming up.  H.A. simply replies, “I never comment on Westbrook Pegler.”  When Pegler showed up at the press conference and asked the question, H.A. responded, “I never engage in any discussions with Westbrook Pegler.”  At the next press event, the question arose again.  H.A. answered “I will not engage in any discussion with a stooge of Westbrook Pegler.”  H.A. was confronted by H.L. Mencken, who is nobody’s stooge, asking, “Mr. Wallace , do you call me a stooge of Pegler?”  Fortunately, the entire room including H.A. burst into laughter.  But Mencken was not done, “If you won’t answer the question as to whether you wrote those letters, tell us, at least, the reason you won’t answer it.”  H.A.’s reply was “Because it is not important.”

The reporters and newpapers are not convinced.  The story makes for good headlines, that is good for them – bad for us.   A typical article that ran in the Chicago Daily News, exclaimed that if H.A. is the author of these letters in addition to president, we will have the “Master Guru,” who will be “in tune with the Infinite, vibrate in the correct plane, outstare the Evil Eye, reform the witches, overcome all malicious spells and ascend the high road to health and happiness.”

[August - Disk 2 – A.S.]

We just finished a campaign tour in the South – what a horror.  I can’t believe I wanted to go, but I was just so proud of H.A. for his courage and his principled stance to refuse to speak before segregated audiences, sleep in segregated hotels, or eat in segregated restaurants.  No candidate for president has ever made this commitment. 

For his efforts, we were constantly harassed and under threat of violence.  We saw lots of signs saying “Drop Dead” and “Peddle Your Junk in Moscow.”  In Dallas, we received a Western Union telegram at 2 A.M.  reading, “Get out of town.”  Although the president was relatively safe, even with supposedly enhanced security, his supporters were on the receiving end of the white-hot hatred.  Car windshields were smashed and our supporters were jostled and harangued by mobs.  In Durham, North Carolina a supporter was stabbed when a mob went wild.    At most events, when H.A. began to speak he was greeted with boos and jeers and eggs and tomatoes.  Eventually the most aggressive rabble-rousers were cleared and H.A could continue with his speech. 

“You can call us black, or you can call us Red, but you can’t call us yellow,” exclaimed one of our campaign workers [Clark Foreman a native Georgian who worked in both the Roosevelt and Wallace New Deal Administration] However, twice, in once in Alabama and again in Louisiana, the threat of violence was deemed too great and the speaking event had to be cancelled.  When the President and his supporters are not safe to campaign – are we still in America?  The South feels like a foreign country – still in rebellion with the United States  83 years after the end of the Civil War.

H.A. held with temper and dignity during the tour with one exception. At an egg throwing incident H.A. lost his composure, for just a few seconds, and actually grabbed a man and shouted “Are you an American? Am I in America?” Quickly regaining his composure, H.A. then said calmly that “I don’t mind a little good natured throwing of eggs and tomatoes, but I’d much rather see that food being fed to children.  The faces I’ve seen distorted by hatred are of people for whom I have in my heart profound compassion, because most of them have not had enough to eat.”

Naturally, H.A. blamed the problem on a lack of food, but I knew this was a sickness that could not be cured by a good meal.

Immediately after leaving the south we flew to New York and had a rally of 48,000 supporters in Yankee Stadium and H.A. related his experience in the South.  “To me, fascism is no longer a second-hand experience… No, fascism has become an ugly reality – a reality, which I have tasted.  I have tasted it neither so fully nor so bitterly as millions of others.  But I have tasted it.” 

Southern newspapers attacked Wallace.   The most measured, and perhaps the most accurate, response came from Raleigh News and Observer, “Henry Wallace came into the South not wishing to understand it but to irritate it.  He has left the South not wishing to understand it but to use his unfortunate experience in it as propaganda in the North and in the world.”  Although this is true, it has been far too long since the White South has been “irritated” about it’s treatment of people.  There is nothing to understand about Jim Crow and segregation except that it is evil and it must be destroyed.  With the visibility our tour created no American can now ignore the horrors that occur daily in America.

©  2015 Ron Millar

July 1948

The Republicans are acting very arrogant.  They are certain that they will prevail in the elections and took cheap shots at H.A. and at F.D.R.’s New Deal, which H.A. now represents and is working to expand.  At the Republican Convention [held in Philadelphia – June 21-25 – AS], former Congresswomen Clare Boothe Luce, and wife of the powerful publishing magnate Henry Luce, called H.A., “Stalin’s Mortimer Snerd [a reference to ventriloquist Edgar Bergen’s dimwitted dummy -AS]” and said his supporters are “economic spoonies and political bubbleheads…labor racketeers, native and imported Communists and foreign agents of the Kremlin.”  Keynote speaker Dwight Green, Governor of Illinois, called H.A. the last representative of the New Deal coalition, which was “held together by bosses, boodle, buncombe and blarney.”  He claimed the New Deal coalition was never a “legitimate majority.”

While the Republican convention was united against H.A., our convention [also held in Philadelphia – July 12-14 – AS] exposed the stark divisions of the Democratic Party.  H.A. rejected efforts to retain the vague civil rights language from the 1944 convention. Progressives and liberals lead by Hubert Humphrey [Mayor of Minneapolis - AS] voted to put the Democratic Party on record opposing the poll tax, supporting federal anti-lynching legislation, and the desegregation of the armed forces. 

Once the vote was taken, [Levin] Handy Ellis [former Lieutenant Governor of Alabama – AS] grabbed an open microphone and said, “We bid you good-bye.”  Thirteen Alabaman delegates and all twenty-three Mississippi delegates walked out of the Convention.  Within a few days politicians from across the South announced their departure from the Democratic Party.  Holding their own convention in Birmingham [July 17 – AS], they formed the States’ Rights Democratic Party [better known as Dixiecrats – AS], and adopted a party platform dedicated to the preservation of segregation through Jim Crow laws and white political and economic supremacy.  They nominated Governor J. Storm Thurmond of South Carolina for President and Governor Fielding Wright of Mississippi for Vice President. Here is a little flavor of their campaign – straight from the mouth of their presidential nominee – “I wanna tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that there’s not enough troops in the army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the Nigra race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches.”  What a nice Christian!  These bigoted racists actually have a plan that could put them into the White House.  

Incredibly, the threat of the States’ Rights Party coupled with the Whiskey Rebels in taking the White House is real.  Their plan is to win in Southern states and perhaps even capture some border states to create a three way split in the Electoral College.  If no candidate obtains a majority of electoral votes, the House of Representatives, per the Twelfth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, selects the president.  Sadly,  in the House, supporters of white supremacy through guise of states’ rights, hold the majority of power.  President Strom Thurmond – I shudder as I speak the words. 

On a positive note, H.A.’s nominating speech at the Democratic Convention was spectacular.

He concluded his acceptance speech with, “The American dream is the dream of the prophets of old, the dream of each man living in peace under his own vine and fig tree; then all the nations of the world shall flow up to the mountains of the Lord and man shall learn war no more.  We are the generation blessed above all generations, because to us is given for the first time in all history the power to make that dream come true.  To make that dream come true, we shall rise above the pettiness of those who preach hate and factionalism, of those who think of themselves rather than the great cause they serve.  All you who are within the sound of my voice tonight have been called to serve and to serve mightily, in fulfilling the dream of the prophets and the founders of the American system.”

Now that is the voice of a true Christian!  My hope is that the American people will reject the hate of our opponents and embrace the positive message of our campaign.

Unfortunately, many Americans are embracing the fear.  HUAC [House Un-American Activities Committee – AS] brought Elizabeth Bentley [a former Soviet spy who defected and turned informant - AS] to star in another of their melodramas to spin her tales of how the government was riddled with Communists and fellow travelers.  However, in exposing the vast Communist conspiracy she was only able to name one obscure Commerce Department official [an economist and Soviet spy William Remington - AS]. 

Only being able to destroy one career and reputation must have been a disappointment to the HUAC mob because they brought her back several days later and surprise -- this time -- she was able to name more Communists [Nathan Gregory Silvermaster - formerly an economist at the Board of Economic Warfare, Harry Dexter White - former Assistant Treasury Secretary, and Lauchin Currie - a former economic advisor to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt - AS].  Next they trotted out Whittaker Chambers who had the names of seventy-five government officials who were alleged Communists.

Many of the people accused of being Communists were colleagues and friends of H.A.  Naturally, the newspapers ran with the connections.  Columnist Dorothy Thompson [journalist with the New York Tribune  and Ladies Home Journal – AS] called H.A. a “mask for communism.”  Collier’s said “Henry Wallace is the voice of Russia.”  Columnist Frank Kent [of the Baltimore Sun – AS] called H.A. a “biased, embittered and unbalanced man” who was apparently leading the Communists and “every crackpot radical and opponent of the American way of life” to undermine the nation. 

These reporters seemed to have forgot that H.A. actually fired people when he was head of the Department of Agriculture because he thought they were too far to the left [in 1935 Wallace fired Lee Pressman and John Abt who were exposed by Whittaker Chambers as Communists  – AS].  Most of the named appeared before the committee forced by subpoena and defended themselves by taking the Fifth Amendment – refusing to participate in this horrible farce.   An infuriated Harry White, who was a senior official at the U.S. Treasury, demanded to be allowed to speak before the committee and gave a spirited defense of his career and principles.  Three days later he died of a heart attack.  A bitter H.A. announced that “Harry D. White, my good friend and close associate on many New Deal committees, died Monday – a victim of the Un-American [J. Parnell] Thomas Committee.”

H.A. denounced HUAC as using “the technique of political gangsterism and tyranny” and that at worst the hearings were “the first step toward a reactionary police state” and at best the hearings were a red herring to distract the public away from their unwillingness to pass his reforms or offer their own alternatives.  Already this 80^th U.S. Congress is known as the “do-nothing” Congress.

The platform created at the Republican Convention called for many actions that H.A. supports, such as, federal aid to states for low-cost housing, the extension of social security benefits, anti-lynching legislation, and civil rights legislation – including the abolition of poll taxes.  To show his eagerness to work with Republicans and to the test their dedication to their new platform, H.A. called a special session of Congress to put into law the high sounding goals from the Republican Convention.  The Congress angry that the president called them back for two weeks from their summer recess – refused to act on any legislation, which played into the “do-nothing Congress” campaign message.  We must make sure the American voters realize the New Deal coalition needs to retain the White House and win back the Congress.  While Congress failed to act, H.A. fulfilled his promise to end segregation in the armed forces and federal government with executive orders.  

Have I mentioned that I work for a great American!

©  2015 Ron Millar