The Last Progressive President

December 1946

Although mid-term election results were bad [see November 1946 entry –AS], this was a good financial year for H.A., he expected his 40 percent ownership of Pioneer Hi-Bred will provide him with $150,000. This compared to his presidential salary of $75,000, Vice President salary of $20,000, and his former Secretary salary of $15,000.

Even with this income, H.A. is notoriously cheap. One of my jobs, before he became President, was to surreptitiously supplement his restaurant tips. As President, this does not come up as often, since he doesn’t need to carry cash or even a wallet, but on occasion still need to reach into my pocket.

Fortunately, H.A. is generous to labor in the big picture.

H.A. used the full force of his office to mediate labor disputes and helped prevent strikes. His efforts helped ensure that wages did not fall as the labor force increased with the returning service men and women. He did this through the public bully pulpit of shaming big business in their efforts to reduce wages and through private meetings explaining the importance of big business to work with his administration to ensure the continuance of lucrative government contracts, fair business regulation, and open markets overseas. Strikes still occurred but I believe our efforts greatly limited the number of strikes and shortened their duration. For those recalcitrant big businesses, unidentified members of our administration hinted that we were considering using the administration’s authority under the Smith-Connally Act of 1947, passed over FDR’s veto, to seize plants closed by labor disputes. Since the law was designed to weaken organized labor, our opponents howled that this would be an illegal nationalizing of industry. H.A. has not had to use this option, but the threat has been powerful.

This month, we created a Committee on Civil Rights to provide recommendation on how to eliminate, or at least reduce, racial discrimination in government. H.A. wants the government to serve all Americans and to ensure that it does he knows that government must be made up of all Americans. Once these recommendations are made, I hope that H.A. will expand the focus of this committee. The Whiskey Rebels attacked the formation of the committee in their normal hysteria that promoting civil rights is a communist plot to divide and destroy America.

November 1946

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.

This election is a clear indication that public option is turning away from H.A. I hope he can stem the tide and return the electorate to the sanity of progressive Democrats. Also, I hope H.A. sees that it is time to fire that fascist Hoover!

October 1946

H.A. gave a speech in Madison Square Garden that is giving him grief from both the Left and Right. The Left boo’d and hiss’d when he said, “We may not like what Russia is doing in Eastern Europe. Her type of land reform, industrial expropriation, and suppression of basic liberties offends the great majority of the people of the United States.” And the vast majority of people attending were of the Left.

The Right attacked him for appeasing the Russians and interference with States Rights – read Jim Crow and segregation for saying, “During the past year or so, the significance of peace has been increased immeasurably by the atom bomb, guided missiles, and airplanes which soon will travel as fast as sound. Make no mistake about it – another war would hurt the United States many times as much as the last war… He who trusts in the atom bomb will sooner or later perish by the atom bomb – or something worse. I say this as one who steadfastly backed preparedness throughout the thirties. We have no use for namby-pamby pacifism. But we must realize that modern inventions have now made peace the most enticing thing in the world – and we should be willing to pay the price for peace… The price for peace – for us and for every nation in the world – is the price of giving up prejudice, hatred, fear and ignorance… Hatred breeds hatred. The doctrine of racial superiority produces a desire to get even on the part of its victims. If we are to work for peace in the rest of the world, we here in the United States must eliminate racism from our unions, our business organizations, our educational institutions, and our employment practices. Merit alone must be the measure of men.”

H.A. closed by saying that peace was the “basic issue” facing voters in the coming mid-term elections and in the presidential election two years from now. “How we meet this issue will determine whether we will live not in ‘one world’ or ‘two worlds’ – but whether we live at all.”

A New York Times reporter [James Haggerty -AS] asked if the boos and hisses surprised him. H.A. said, “It was to be expected. I was following a straight American line.”

On a happier note, Jean [Wallace’s daughter -AS] was married this month.

September 1946

President Avila Camacho asked H.A. to attend ceremonies marking the end of his six-year term. The two presidents were on friendly terms since H.A. visit in 1940 [see November 1944 entry -AS]. The highlight of this trip for H.A. was visiting the international experiment station founded by the Rockefeller Foundation at H.A.’s suggestion. We met Norman Borlaug and H.A. “was amazed to see corn that would go more than seventy bushels to the acre.”

On the 17^th, Truman made a speech in New York calling for a confrontational containment policy with the Soviet Union. H.A. was furious with Truman. Truman thought he had the President’s support for the speech because he had given him a foreign policy memorandum in late July (apparently several cabinet members had produced memos following a cabinet meeting focused on foreign affairs). Truman had also met with H.A. for 15 minutes earlier in the day of the speech. H.A. told me Truman’s tone of the speech was to be that the U.S. did not have a special friendship with Britain the Soviets or any nation. We want to see a peaceful world with all nations working together on an equal basis. H.A. thought Truman was on board with the administration’s foreign policy, and was quite surprised by Truman’s support of Britain’s imperialist policies and his fear of the Soviet Union.

On the 20^th, H.A. spent two hours with Truman to try to either convince him to make no further foreign policy statements or to accept the Administration’s position. Truman refused so he was fired.

August 1946

Not yet transcribed. -AS

July 1946

H.A. is fighting a segment of the military and the industries that supply the military. They want to maintain the budgets and profits of the war economy. These insidious and incestuous allies are fostering the fear of the red menace, in the form of the Soviet Union, to keep the United States on a constant war status. H.A. is fighting these efforts and is working with Congress to reduce the budget of the military to bring us into a peace economy. Fortunately, there are leaders in the military who share H.A.'s interest in turning to peace. Our efforts will be successful. Our efforts must be successful ensure world peace and the extension of the New Deal.

For example, we have prohibited additional tests of atomic bombs that were planned in the Pacific and the production of additional bombs. H.A. wants to demonstrate to the Soviets that we are not seeking global dominance as the sole holder of these horrific weapons. Testing and building more of these bombs will scare the Soviet Union - - Stalin is already paranoid - - in developing this weapon and out manufacturing us in the number of bombs. This would become a race to produce more and more bombs, which would create the capacity to destroy the world multiple times over. We must act reasonably now to prevent this arms race insanity.

Too ensure that the world understands his commitment to peace, H.A. has also stopped plans to arm Latin America with conventional weapons, the production of more B-29s, the planned production of B-36s, and efforts to secure and build air bases across the globe.

H.A. said, "We should not act as if we too felt that we were threatened in today's world. We are by far the most powerful nation in the world, the only Allied nation which came out of the war without devastation and much stronger than before the war. Any talk on our part about the need for strengthening our defenses further is bound to appear hypocritical to other nations."

June 1946

The Supreme Court has a new leader. In addition to our other challenges, H.A. had a very difficult decision in replacing Chief Justice [Harlan Fiske] Stone, whose unforeseen death occurred in April. The Court has not been a harmonious place. There are personality conflicts among the Justices and even a feud between [Hugo] Black and [Robert] Jackson, who were strongly supported by various factions for the top job at the Court. The animosity between Black and Roberts was so high that both threatened to resign if the other was appointed as Chief Justice.

H.A. decided to sidestepped this controversy by appointing someone who was not currently on the Court. [Harry] Truman was pushing for a sitting cabinet member and personal friend for the position [Fred Moore Vinson, Secretary of the Treasury], but Truman's petty comments and opposition to H.A.'s foreign policy did not put his recommendations in good standing with H.A.

There were many good names on the short list of candidates including Thurman Arnold, Jerome Frank, and Walter Huxman. All had been appointed to the Court of Appeals by FDR and were strong advocates of the New Deal. Since opposition to the New Deal was growing with the advent of the Whiskey Rebels, the Administration wanted to make sure that his appointment would promote the New Deal long after H.A.'s tenure in the White House ended. Since these candidates had been recently approved by the Senate for the Court of Appeals, we felt that the Senate would have difficulty in attempting to block an appointment.

H.A. picked Frank for his nominee. Frank worked with H.A. at the Department of Agriculture when H.A. was the Secretary. In 1935, Frank along with Alger Hiss [Communist Party member -A.S.] got into trouble when they created regulations in H.A.'s name to provide some protections for sharecroppers from their landlords in the south. This endears me greatly to Frank. Naturally, the landlords and cotton interests were enraged by this interference and put a great deal of pressure on FDR who then pressured H.A. to fire Frank and Hiss. H.A. said that, "I had no doubt that Frank and Hiss were animated by the highest motives, but their lack of agricultural background exposed them to the danger of going to absurd lengths." This was just another example of the New Deal not protecting my people. The southern Democrats were necessary to hold the New Deal coalition together and FDR folded yet again as he did in excluding agricultural and domestic workers from the Social Security Act of 1935 and other programs. At the time of Frank's firing, H.A. is reported to have had tears in his eyes and when he said, "Jerome, you've been the best fighter I've had for my ideas, but I've had to fire you... The farm people are just too strong."

However, FDR made sure that Frank's talents were not lost and quickly appointed him as Special Counsel to the Reconstruction Finance Association and later to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Now H.A. has elevated Frank from the Court of Appeals to serve as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Naturally, the Whiskey Rebels are appalled that the Supreme Court is now run by a Jew, and a Communist one in their narrow view. This confirms in their minds that H.A. is part of the Jewish and Communist conspiracy to destroy America.

To me this nomination proves that H.A. is now his own man and is done trying to placate the Whiskey Rebels and their conservative Democratic and Republican allies. We are going to move the New Deal forward and leave these reactionaries in the dust.