Wallace in 1948

NYE, RUSSEL B.

Wallace in 1948 Henry A. Wallace: Quixotic Crusade 1948, by Karl M. Schmidt. Syracuse University Press. 361 pp. $5.50. Reviewed by Russel B. Nye The story of a third party always makes...

...As a record of a third party's rise and fall, the book is a precise and carefully-researched record...
...Schmidt's analysis of Henry Wallace's character and personal philosophy is especially acute, clearing away much of the confusion which surrounds his motives, and refuting many of the misconceptions spread by a hostile press...
...The party had its origins in fairly widespread dissatisfaction—with American relations with Russia, the peace problem, the Truman Administration's apparent drift away from Rooseveltian tradition, and domestic policies related to labor and employment...
...But it could never pull together all those who disagreed...
...In addition, times were good in 1948 (though inflation was beginning to be a bit of a problem), and, most important of all, the first faint beginnings of the great Communist scare to come made it a bad time for dissenters...
...Americans for Democratic Action, however, formed a few months later, attracted most of the important union elements away from the PCA and robbed it of much of its rank and file support...
...Henry Wallace's New York speech of September, 1946, in which he split with Administration foreign policy, served as a rallying point for a good many of the dissatisfied...
...The Wallace Progressives of 1948 had neither...
...It offered "no hope for progressives," he wrote in The New Leader, since it met none of the three tests necessary for success: "a genuinely new position in the extension and enrichment of democracy . . . ; responsible, competent, thoroughly democratic leadership . . . ; and roots in the trade union movement...
...Schmidt concludes, after examining the evidence, that it does not seem likely that "Communists exercised any preponderant influence on Henry Wallace's activities," or upon basic matters of Progressive Party policy...
...The Communists probably claimed more influence in the party than they had...
...After the party's crushing failure in the elections, and after increasing trouble with the remaining left-wingers in the party councils, Wallace lost confidence in the movement...
...The most difficult problem facing the Wallace Progressives, and one to which the author devotes an entire chapter, was the nature and extent of Communist participation...
...Author Karl Schmidt's account of subsequent events shows how accurate Dewey's predictions were...
...at the same time, there were known Communists in the party councils, and they did have influence...
...He has examined about all the evidence one could, including long interviews with Henry Wallace, Glen Taylor (the Vice Presidential candidate), and other key figures in the movement...
...After that the end came swiftly...
...They had no existing organization and little time to build one...
...there was more work to do than manpower to do it...
...How the political ideas which motivated these three men could ever be combined in one party organization or platform is beyond conjecture—and, of course, they could not...
...The result is a neat, incisive study, written with objectivity, skill, and insight...
...John Dewey was one of several old liberal leaders who called the turn on the new party in mid-1948...
...When the National Committee dragged its feet on the Korean decision of 1950, he formally resigned...
...Probably the Wallace party's most damaging decision was its refusal to disavow Communist support or participation, which left it wide open to attack...
...The Progressive Citizens of America, founded in December of 1946 to "make the Democratic Party out and out progressive," soon organized the Progressive Party to compete in the 1948 elections...
...The Progressives began their campaign without the support of any significant group from labor, agriculture, or business...
...One of the book's photographs vividly illustrates this point, showing Paul Robeson, the New Deal's Rexford Tugwell, and Elmer Benson of Minnesota's Farmer-Labor Party, all smiling in Henry Wallace's direction...
...The greatest extent of Communist activity seems to have been in the sphere of organization...
...It is also the story of a "quixotic crusade" waged by some sincere idealists for high goals, and of quite another kind, steered by manipulators and cynics...
...Reviewed by Russel B. Nye The story of a third party always makes fascinating reading for the politically-minded, and that of Henry Wallace's Progressive Party of 1948— born in discontent, nurtured in dissension, and dissolved in disillusion— is no exception...
...In 1948 The Progressive itself put its finger on the fatal flaw in the Wallace organization...
...Third parties in the United States, as Professor William B. Hesseltine explained more than a decade ago in a shrewd little book about them, face two sets of discouraging obstacles, philosophical and practical...
...Nevertheless, the "peace and abundance" platform of the Progressives did have appeal and attracted more attention than some of its leaders had expected...
...They must have a broad philosophical base from which to launch an appeal to the widest possible electorate, and they must be well-managed and well-financed...
...The author, a professor of political science at Syracuse University, labels it a "quixotic crusade," referring to the goals (if not always the methods) of some of its leaders...
...No truly progressive movement," remarked Editor Morris Rubin, "can be built as a popular front, harboring believers in freedom and devotees of dictatorship under the same tent...

Vol. 25 • March 1961 • No. 3


 
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