But H.A. is not concerned.
H.A. believes in government, not politics. This is the opposite of most everyone else here in Washington who focus almost exclusively on the politics. Their goal is achieving high office to obtain power. H.A.’s focus is using government as a tool for doing good for the public welfare, not to enhance his own welfare. I fear he believes that most people think like he does. He believes that when presented with multiple options people will select the superior option. Sadly, in Washington politics, they will select the option that their political boss tells them to select.
I told H.A. he needed to spend this time to rally support for his renomination. He said he needed to spend his energies in helping to win the war and the peace, and that the delegates will do the right thing in the end.
H.A. asked me to go with him on the trip, but I begged out saying I did not have the language skills – H.A. has been studying Russian – and that I would be most helpful by keeping things organized for him on this end. What I am really going to do is to work with Senators Joe Guffey [Pennsylvania] and Claude Pepper [Florida], who will be our floor managers in Chicago, and Sidney Hillman [head of the CIO Political Action Committee - A.S.], who is organizing labor, to ensure that H.A. continues as F.D.R.’s Vice President.
Against us is Ed Pauley, Treasurer of the Democratic Party, its chief fund-raiser, and a rich big business oil man. Pauley has organized powerful group of allies intent on ousting H.A.: Robert Hannagan, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, [Edwin M.] Pa Watson, F.D.R.’s appointments secretary, [Oscar R.] Jack Ewing, the Vice Chairman of the Democratic Party, Charles Michelson, the Party’s Publicity Director, George Allen, the Party’s National Secretary, Frank Walker, Postmaster General, and Edward Kelly, Mayor of Chicago, where the convention is being held. This is a formidable group.
And, lots of people want H.A.’s job including such powerful men as Senate Majority Leader Alben Barkley, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, former South Carolina Senator and F.D.R. confidant James Byrnes, and House Speaker Sam Rayburn.
However, H.A. has what they don’t – the support of the people. A recent Gallup poll determined that H.A. had the support of 65 percent of Democratic voters. No one else was even close: Barkley, 17 percent, Rayburn, 5 percent, Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia, 4 percent, Brynes 3 percent, Douglas, 2 percent, Senator Harry Truman of Missouri, 2 percent, and Undersecretary of State Edward Stettinius, 2 percent.
The bosses may hate us, but the people love us.
So why do the bosses want H.A. out? It’s really simple. They want to protect big business and maintain the war machine, and H.A. will not serve their interests. A memo that an ally obtained for me from George Allen best sums up their paranoid fantasies:
I see President Henry A. Wallace sitting in front of a microphone in the Oval Room of the White House, reading a message to the people of the world. His forelock droops appealingly over his right eye. His flat Iowa voice proclaims that the United States of America shall henceforth be called the Soviet States of America, that all Democrats from Mississippi weighing more than two hundred pounds shall be rendered in order that unwashed comrades in Greater Russia can be assured an adequate soap supply, and that scientific socialism shall bring to the Western Hemisphere that same conditions that prevail through the glorious territories of mother Russia.
This guy is an idiot. I know Communists and H.A. is not a Communist - but anyone who supports any regulation to protect people and a fair market place is considered a Communist by these people.
There is only person whose choice in the matter really counts and that person is F.D.R., and no one knows what he is planning. He hasn’t even announced yet if he will accept another term as President! F.D.R. is a great man, but he can be very frustrating.
There is only person whose choice in the matter really counts and that person is F.D.R., and no one knows what he is planning. He hasn’t even announced yet if he will accept another term as President! F.D.R. is a great man, but he can be very frustrating.
Hmmm. I guess I really don’t want to talk about Spain.
© 2011 Ron Millar
