The
mid-term elections were a disaster for H.A. and the progressive Democrats. The Republicans two-word slogan “Had Enough?”
captured the mood of the nation. The
slogan was also modified to include “Had enough strikes?” and “Had enough
communism?” Senator Robert Taft of Ohio
accused the president of seeking a Congress “dominated by a policy of appeasing
the Russians abroad and of fostering Communism at home.” The Archbishop of New York, Francis Cardinal
Spellman wrote an article prior to the election saying “only the bat-blind can
fail to be aware of the Communist invasion of our country.” The U.S. Chamber of Commerce widely
distributed a report entitled “Communist Infiltration in the United
States.”
The
voters gave the Republicans control of both houses of Congress for the first
time since 1928. The Republicans now
have a 58-seat majority in the House (246 to 188 -AS) and a six-seat edge in
the Senate. However, the actual loss for
H.A. is even higher when you consider that the vast majority of the Southern
delegation is also hostile to H.A. Many
Republican elected officials are talking of leaving the Democratic Party to be
more closely associated with the Whiskey Rebel controlled Republicans. I guess their hatred of Communists exceeds
their hatred of the party of Lincoln. Two
rabid anti-communists are going to be taking seats in Congress. Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin and
Representative Richard Nixon of California both of whom obtained their seats by
smearing their opponents as pinkos and communists. Nixon defeated Congressman Jerry Voorhis by
linking him to the “Moscow-CIO PAC-Henry Wallace line.”
H.A.
responded by saying that “As a result of this election, the Democratic Party
will either become more progressive or it will die. I do not expect it to die.” He added, “The American people have rejected,
as they will always reject, a Democratic Party that is not militantly
progressive… Of course, we need organization.
The primary effort of progressives may be to rebuild the Democratic
Party as a liberal party.”
In
response the red-baiting of the Republicans, conservative Democrats and Whiskey
Rebels, H.A. said, “We shall hold firmly to the American theme of peace,
prosperity and freedom and shall repel all the attacks of the plutocrats and
monopolists who will try to brand us as reds.
If it is traitorous to believe in peace, we are traitors. If it is communistic to believe in prosperity
for all, we are communists. If it is
red-baiting to fight for free speech and real freedom of the press, we are
red-baiters. If it is un-American to
believe in freedom from monopolistic dictation, we are un-American. I say that we are more American than the
neo-Fascists who attack us. I say on
with the fight.”
In
response to subsequent attacks, H.A. said, “Those who put hatred of Russia
first in all their feelings and actions do not believe in peace. We shall never be against anything simply
because Russia is for it. Neither shall
we ever be for anything simply because Russia is for it. We shall hold firmly to the American theme of
peace, prosperity and freedom.”
Needless
to say the Whiskey Rebels and other opponents used this language to confirm
their rhetoric of fear and hate. To
further drum up the fears of Communism, J. Edgar Hoover at a speech before the
American Legion charged that at least 100,000 Communists were loose in the
nation’s schools, colleges, churches, newspapers, movie studios, and radio
stations.
H.A.
had dealt with this type of fear mongering before. Texas Congressman Martin Dies, an ultra-conservative
and chairman of the House Special Committee on Un-American Activities, wrote a
letter to H.A. on March 28, 1942, which he gave to reporters the next day,
charging that “at least thirty-five high government officials employed by the
Board of Economic Warfare have public records which show affiliations with
front organizations of the Community Party.”
H.A. hit back immediately and strongly.
In a four-page rebuttal H.A. accused Dies of seeking “to inflame the
public mind by a malicious distortion of the facts.” Citing the need for unity in our war effort,
H.A. said, “the doubts and anger which this and similar statements of Mr. Dies
tend to arouse in the public mind might as well come from [Nazi propagandist
Joseph -AS] Goebbels himself as far as their practical effect is
concerned.” The newspapers, and the
public, saw this as yet another attempt by Dies to promote himself at the
expense of others and then sided with the Vice President.
© 2013 Ron Millar
