Tag: Harry S. Truman

The Butterfly’s Wings: FDR, Truman, and Henry Wallace

Posted on by Michael Liss

by Michael Liss

If you don’t like people, you hadn’t ought to be in politics at all, and Henry talked about the common people but I don’t think he liked them… —Harry S. Truman to Merle Miller, in Plain Speaking.

Bust of Henry A. Wallace, by Jo Davidson. U.S. Senate Collection.

Truman wasn’t the most diplomatic of men, particularly when he’d had a couple of bourbons, but as harsh as the above might sound, it was probably a pretty accurate evaluation of the man who was his immediate predecessor as Vice President and wanted to be his replacement as President. Henry Wallace wasn’t a cold-blooded stuffed shirt, like Truman’s 1948 opponent, Thomas E. Dewey. Instead, his warmth was limited to his passions, and people, at least individuals, generally weren’t among those.  

This strange man—and he was strange—part visionary, part brilliant scientist, part fantasist, part organizer and administrator, part orator, alternatively inspiring and exasperating, competent and a little crazy, came very close to being President. The question of “what if he had” may be the biggest “what if” since Abraham Lincoln was assassinated and Andrew Johnson succeeded him. Had a Wallace butterfly been given enough time to flap his wings, we would probably be living in a very different world. 

How different? At home, one that reflected his passions: a re-invigoration of the New Deal after the loss of velocity during World War II, and an entirely different approach toward domestic “security” with a scaled-back role for those agencies doing the “domestic securing.” Abroad, no NATO, no Marshall Plan, no Berlin Airlift, no support for a continuation of colonialism, including America’s. An altered alignment with Mao and the Chinese Communists, and, perhaps most fatefully, an entirely different approach to the use and proliferation of nuclear weapons. Finally, the Bear in the Room—a different, less confrontational way of engaging Joe Stalin and Russia. Read more »

Harry Truman’s Train Ride

Posted on by Michael Liss

by Michael Liss

Our Government is made up of the people. You are the Government. I am only your hired servant. I am the Chief Executive of the greatest nation in the world, the highest honor that can ever come to a man on earth. But I am the servant of the people of the United States. They are not my servants. I can’t order you around, or send you to labor camps, or have your heads cut off if you don’t agree with me politically. We don’t believe in that. —Harry S. Truman, “Whistle-Stop” speech, San Antonio, Texas, September 28, 1948

President Harry S. Truman on the rear platform of the presidential train, speaking to a crowd in Parkersburg, West Virginia, July 1948. Photograph by Abbie Rowe. National Archives and Records Administration.

He was going to lose and lose big. “Dewey Defeats Truman” seemed more a certainty than what later became a meme. Trailing badly in political polls, dismissed by savvy media figures, beset by multiple crises, both foreign and domestic, he was written off by elected officials even in his own party, who feared he would take down the entire ticket. Perhaps the only person who, in the summer of 1948, actually believed Harry Truman could win in November was Harry Truman.

Why he believed this is hard to say, but why his doubters doubted makes perfect sense: Truman was widely seen as a mediocrity, a product of a corrupt local political machine, undereducated (the first President since McKinley not to have a college degree), a former haberdasher, and even a bankrupt. Perhaps above all, Truman was a commoner, and commoners did not become Presidents, at least not in the 20th Century.

It was an accident that Truman was in this situation. He was FDR’s third Vice President in four terms. Roosevelt’s first, John Nance Gardner, served two terms before the two men had a falling out. Gardner’s replacement, Henry Wallace, was brilliant, accomplished, eloquent, and ultimately what can only be described as a flake. Roosevelt, showing that ice-in-the-veins quality of which he was capable, had others deliver the message to Wallace that he wanted a change. FDR had a favorite choice as well: James Byrnes, whom he had appointed to the Supreme Court in 1941, then convinced to return to the Executive Branch to help with the war effort. But Byrnes had some liabilities—he was perceived as anti-labor, and, while Senator, had helped spearhead Southern opposition to a federal anti-lynching law. For these reasons, FDR considered but ultimately rejected Speaker Sam Rayburn (Texas), and finally turned to Truman. Read more »

Last Person Standing: The Presidential Succession Act Turns 75

Posted on by Michael Liss

by Michael Liss

I have a terrific pain in the back of my head.

—Franklin Delano Roosevelt, April 12, 1945.

Cartoon by Jim Barstow, originally published in General Electric News, October 2, 1949.

It was all so fast. Just moments earlier, FDR was sitting for an official portrait, reading the newspapers, writing a few notes. Now, after 12 years of turmoil, World War and Depression, he is gone, work unfinished. Within hours, his successor, Harry S. Truman, is sworn in, and, for the first time, is told of the Manhattan Project. The awesome moral responsibility for the use of nuclear weapons falls on his shoulders, and a bullseye appears on his back.

The fact is that Vice Presidents are pretty much non-entities, supporting actors in a one-man play, unless and until they suddenly become the most important person in the world. History shows us that this occurs far more often than simple mortality tables might suggest. By one estimate, being President is about 27 times more dangerous than being a lumberjack.

The authors of the Constitution understood this, but, after vigorously debating the extent of Executive Power and the interrelationship of the three branches of government, and creating the future monster known as the Electoral College, they flickered out a bit when it came to figuring out Presidential succession beyond the elevation of the VP. Instead, they kicked the can to Congress in Article II, Section 1, Clause 6, to declare which “Officer” would act as President if both the President and Vice President died or were otherwise unavailable to serve during their terms of office “until the disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.” Read more »

The Counter Revolution

Posted on by Akim Reinhardt

by Akim Reinhardt

FDRThe United States boasts a deeply conservative economic tradition. From its origins as a colonial, agricultural society, it quickly emerged as a slave holding republic built on the ethnic cleansing and occasional genocide of Indigenous peoples. After the Civil War (1861-65), it reshaped itself in the crucible of unfettered laissez-faire capitalism straight through to the Roaring ‘20s. A post-Depression Keynesian consensus led U.S. leaders to reign in the most conservative impulses during the mid-20th century, but the Reagan Revolution of the 1980s set the stage for the current neo-liberal moment.

Consequently, ever since the industrial revolution, the United States has typically trailed other developed nations in establishing a basic social welfare system. It has never fielded a competitive socialist or labor party. It was the last major nation to implement an old age pension. More recently, ObamaCare made it the last major nation to mandate that all of its citizens receive some sort of healthcare coverage, even if it's quite wanting in many cases.

Amid its overriding conservativism, the United States has had only three presidents with any real socialist tendencies: Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933-45), Harry S. Truman (1945-53), and most recently Lyndon Baines Johnson, whose presidency (1963-69) ended before half of current Americans were born (median age 37.9).

The election of Donald Trump as president and, just as important, the impending Republican dominance of Congress, make certain that the United States will not correct its social welfare shortcomings anytime soon. Indeed, the nation may take significant steps backwards.

However, a quick review of America's stunted progressive history suggests that the opportunity for a progressive counter-revolution may be closer than it appears at this dark moment.

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