Henry
Agard Wallace was born in Adair Country,
Iowa, on 7th October, 1888. After studying at
the
Iowa State University he began work on his grandfather's
journal, Wallaces'
Farmer
in 1910. His father, Henry
Cantwell Wallace, served as Secretary
of Agriculture (1921-24) under Warren Harding
and Calvin Coolidge.
Wallace became editor of Wallaces
Farmer
and during the Great Depression advocated government intervention
in agricultural production. He urged his readers to vote for Robert
LaFollette and
his Progressive
Party in
the 1924 presidential election.
Although
previously a Republican, Wallace supported
Franklin D. Roosevelt during the 1932
presidential campaign.
In 1933 Roosevelt appointed Wallace as his Secretary of Agriculture.
Wallace was a successful administrator and was the architect of the
AAA. In 1940 Roosevelt picked Wallace as his vice president and his
popularity in the farm states contributed to the Democratic
Party winning the election.
During the Second World War Wallace headed the
powerful Board of Economic Warfare. Wallace's left-wing views made
him increasingly unpopular in the Democratic
Party and Roosevelt came under pressure to drop him as his vice-president
in 1944. Roosevelt was unwilling to protect Wallace and Harry
S. Truman
got the nomination. However, Roosevelt continued to value Wallace's
abilities and when he was re-elected he appointed him as his Secretary
of Commerce.
Wallace,
who was Secretary of Commerce after the war, favoured co-operation
with the Soviet Union. In private he disagreed
with Harry S. Truman about what he considered
to be an aggressive foreign policy. Wallace went public about his
fears at a meeting in New York in September,
1946. After complaints from James F. Byrnes,
Secretary of State, and James Forrestal,
Secretary of Defence, Truman sacked Wallace as
Secretary of Commerce.
Wallace was editor of the New Republic
(1946-48) and helped to launch the new Progressive
Party.
In 1948 Wallace became the new party's candidate in the presidential
election. His programme included new civil
rights legislation that would give equal opportunities for black
Americans in voting, employment and education, repeal of the Taft-Hartley
Bill and increased spending on welfare, education, and public
works. Wallace's foreign policy program was based on opposition to
the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall
Plan.
In the presidential election Wallace polled over 1,157,172 votes but
was beaten by Harry Truman (24,105,812)
and Thomas Dewey (21,970,065). This defeat
marked Wallace's retirement from politics. Henry Agard Wallace
died on 18th November, 1965.
(1)
Frances
Perkins was secretary for labour in Franklin D. Roosevelt's first
cabinet. She wrote about Henry Wallace in her book, The Roosevelt
I Knew (1946)
Wallace
was very able, clear-thinking, high-minded, a man of patriotism and
nobility of character. Her had a following among farmers. He was one
of the few people with an agricultural background who had begun to
make himself comprehensible to the industrial working people of the
country.
(2)
Henry Wallace, diary
(3rd
February, 1935)
In
this administration, the
objectives are experimental and not clearly stated; therefore, there
is certain to be, from the White House down, a certain amount of what
seems to be intrigue. I do not think this situation will be remedied
until the President (Roosevelt) abandons ... his experimental and
somewhat concealed approach. There are ... many advantages to this
approach but it does not lead to the happiest personal relationships
and the best administration.
(3)
Henry Wallace, diary
(3rd
June, 1942)
At
the USSR embassy I sat beside Molotov, who, I found, was exceedingly
interested in postwar problems. He is very deeply interested in an
enduring peace and realizes that Russia cannot have the enduring peace
which she requires to develop her territory unless there is economic
justice elsewhere in the world (as well as complete and enduring disarmament
of Germany). I told him I thought one of the great problems of the
postwar world was to bring about a rapid industrialization and improvement
in nutrition in India, China, Siberia, and Latin America. He agreed
completely and felt that there was a 50 - or a 100 - year job in developing
these areas and that the job should be done by the United Nations
together. No one nation could do it by itself.
(4)
In his diary Henry Wallace wrote about being approached by
Emanuel
Celler (7th
January, 1943)
Congressman
Celler is seriously disturbed about the way in which the Jews are
being killed off by Hitler and wanted to know if I thought there was
anything Congress could do about it. I said I thought the best thing
to do was to consult with the liberal-minded Republicans and suggested
he talk with Senator Austin on the Senate side.
(5)
Henry Wallace had lunch with Winston Churchill
at the White House on 22nd May, 1943. That night he wrote about the
meeting in his diary.
He
made it more clear than he had at the luncheon on Saturday that he
expected England and the United States to run
the world and he expected the staff organizations which had been set
up for winning the war to continue when the peace came, that these
staff organizations would by mutual understanding really run the world
even though there was a supreme council and three regional councils.
I said bluntly that I
thought the notion of Anglo-Saxon superiority, inherent in Churchill's
approach, would be offensive to many of the nations of the world as
well as to a number of people in the United States. Churchill had
had quite a bit of whiskey, which, however, did not affect the clarity
of his thinking process but did perhaps increase his frankness. He
said why be apologetic about Anglo-Saxon superiority, that we were
superior, that we had the common heritage which had been worked out
over the centuries in England and had been perfected by our constitution.
He himself was half American, he felt that he was called on as a result
to serve the function of uniting the two great Anglo-Saxon civilizations
in order to confer the benefit of freedom
on the rest of the world.
(6)
Henry Wallace,
diary
(18th
December, 1943)
Stalin
said that thinking about the future peace of the world, he decided
there could not be any assurance of peace until 100,000 of the leading
Prussian army officers had been killed. He might be willing to cut
this down to 50,000 but he thought that was as low as he could go.
Churchill was annoyed at this and said it had not been the British
habit to slaughter prisoners of war, especially officers. The President
then proposed a toast and said, "Suppose we compromise and make
it 40,000" The President looked on the whole conversation as
deliberate ribbing of Churchill by Stalin. However, it seemed that
Stalin was more or less serious.
The President then went
on to talk about dividing up Germany into five states, a proposal
which did not please Churchill but did please Stalin. I interrupted
to ask, "Did you propose a customs union for the five German
states?" The President said, "No, I would propose a customs
union for all of Europe."
(7)
Henry
Wallace, letter to Harry
S. Truman
(24th September,
1945).
You have asked for the comment,
in writing, of each cabinet officer on
the proposal submitted by Secretary Stimson for the free and continuous
exchange of scientific information (not industrial blueprints and
engineering "know-how") concerning atomic energy between
all of the United
Nations. I agreed with Henry Stimson.
At the present time, with
the publication of the Smyth report and other published information,
there are no substantial scientific secrets that would serve as obstacles
to the production of atomic bombs by other nations. Of this I am assured
by the most competent scientists who know the facts. We have not only
already made public much of the scientific information about the atomic
bomb, but above all with the authorization of the War Department we
have indicated the road others must travel in order to reach the results
we have obtained.
With respect to future
scientific developments I am confident that both the United States
and the world will gain by the free interchange of scientific information.
In fact, there is danger that in attempting to maintain secrecy about
these scientific developments we will, in the long run, as a prominent
scientist recently put it, be indulging "in the erroneous hope
of being safe behind a scientific Maginot Line."
The nature of science
and the present state of knowledge in other countries are such that
there is no possible way of preventing other nations from repeating
what we have done or surpassing it within five or six years. If the
United States, England, and Canada act the part of the dog in the
manger on this matter, the other nations will come to hate and fear
all Anglo-Saxons without our having gained anything thereby. The world
will be divided into two camps with the non- Anglo-Saxon world eventually
superior in population, resources, and scientific knowledge.
We have no reason to fear
loss of our present leadership through the free interchange of scientific
information. On the other hand, we have every reason to avoid a shortsighted
and unsound attitude which will invoke the hostility of the rest of
the world.
In my opinion, the quicker
we share our scientific knowledge the greater will be the chance that
we can achieve genuine and durable world cooperation. Such action
would be interpreted as a generous gesture on our part and lay
the foundation for sound
international agreements that would assure the control and development
of atomic energy for peaceful use rather than destruction.
(8)
Henry Wallace, letter to
Harry
S. Truman
(23rd July
1946).
It
looks to the rest of the world as if we were only paying lip service
to peace at the conference table. These facts rather make it appear
either (1) that we are preparing ourselves to win the war which we
regard as inevitable or (2) that we are trying hard to build up a
preponderance of force to intimidate the rest of mankind.
(9)
Henry Wallace, The
Way to Peace (1946)
The price
of peace - for us and for every nation in the world - is the price
of giving up prejudice, hatred, fear, and ignorance.
Let's
get down to cases here at home.
First
we have prejudice, hatred, fear, and ignorance of certain races. The
recent mass lynching in Georgia was not merely the most unwarranted,
brutal act of mob violence in the United States in recent years; it
was also an illustration of the kind of prejudice that makes war inevitable.
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 man.
Second,
in payment for peace, we must give up prejudice, hatred, fear, and
ignorance in the economic world. This means working earnestly, day
after day, for a larger volume of world trade. It means helping undeveloped
areas of the world to industrialize themselves with the help of American
technical assistance and loans.
We should welcome the
opportunity to help along the most rapid possible industrialization
in Latin America, China, India, and the Near East. For as the productivity
of these peoples increases, our exports will increase.
(10)
Arnold
A. Rogow, James Forrestal: A Study of Personality, Politics and
Policy (1963)
Although
Wallace was fully aware long before September that his attitudes toward
foreign-policy questions had earned him the enmity of Forrestal, Byrnes,
and other high-ranking Administration officials, his conversations
with the President gave him the impression that while Truman did not
support his position he was not opposed to Wallace's making statements
on foreign-policy issues. As a consequence of this impression, mistaken
or otherwise, Wallace in the late summer of 1946 accepted an invitation
to deliver a foreign-policy address on September 12 to a Democratic
Party rally at New York's Madison Square Garden.
Two
days before the rally Wallace visited the President and showed him
a copy of the speech he proposed to deliver. The President read a
few pages of the speech, glanced over the rest, and told Wallace that
he had no objection to the contents. Wallace left a copy of the speech
with Truman, and added to the copies released to the press a sentence
stating that his speech had received the President's approval.
(11)
Henry Wallace, speech in New York (12th
September, 1946)
Tonight I want to talk
about peace - and how to get peace. Never have the common people of
all lands so longed for peace. Yet, never in a time of comparative
peace have they feared war so much. Up till now peace has been negative
and unexciting. War has been positive and exciting. Far too often,
hatred and fear, intolerance and deceit have had the upper hand over
love and confidence, trust and joy. Far too often, the law of nations
has been the law of the jungle; and the constructive spiritual forces
of the Lord have bowed to the destructive forces of Satan.
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.
We cannot rest in the assurance that we invented the atom bomb - and
therefore that this agent of destruction will work best for us. 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 exciting thing
in the world - and we should be willing to pay a just price for peace.
If modern war can cost us $400 billion, we should be willing and happy
to pay much more for peace. But certainly, the cost of peace is to
be measured not in dollars but in the hearts and minds of men.
The
price of peace - for us and for every nation in the world - is the
price of giving up prejudice, hatred, fear and ignorance.
I
plead for an America vigorously dedicated to peace - just as I plead
for opportunities for the next generation throughout the world to
enjoy the abundance which now, more than ever before, is the birthright
of men.
To achieve lasting peace, we must study in detail just how the Russian
character was formed - by invasions of Tarters, Mongols, Germans,
Poles, Swedes, and French; by the intervention of the British, French
and Americans in Russian affairs from 1919 to 1921. Add to all this
the tremendous emotional power with Marxism and Leninism gives to
the Russian leaders - and then we can realize that we are reckoning
with a force which cannot be handled successfully by a "Get tough
with Russia" policy. "Getting tough" never bought anything
real and lasting - whether for schoolyard bullies or businessmen or
world powers. The tougher we get, the tougher the Russians will get.
We must not let our Russian policy be guided or influenced by those
inside or outside the United States who want war with Russia.
(12)
James
F. Byrnes, Secretary
of State, found himself in conflict over
foreign policy over the left-wing views of Henry Wallace.
My hope for united support of our foreign policies received a serious
setback when, on September 12, 1946, while I was in Paris, Secretary
of Commerce Henry A. Wallace made a speech at Madison Square Garden
contending that the policy which had been approved by the President,
and carried out by me, was too harsh to the Soviet Union and that
a more conciliatory approach to them was necessary. I was not greatly
surprised by the Secretary's action. Previously, he had made a statement
to the New York Times referring to our negotiations with Iceland for
the use of the airfield we had built there. His statement was effectively
used by the Communists in Iceland and it had obstructed the efforts
of the State Department to secure an agreement important to the defense
of this hemisphere.
In Paris, the importance
of Mr. Wallace's Madison Square Garden speech was magnified in the
minds of the representatives of foreign governments by newspaper reports
quoting President Truman as saying at a press conference that he approved
the Wallace speech in its entirety. This report stimulated widespread
discussion among the governmental representatives attending the peace
conference; it inspired inquiries to our representatives in various
capitals. Foreign Ministers wondered whether
in my various public statements I had correctly presented American
policy.
(13)
James
F. Byrnes,
Secretary of State, letter to Harry
S. Truman, after the speech
by Henry Wallace on 12th September 1946.
If it is not possible for you, for any reason, to keep Mr. Wallace,
as a member of your Cabinet, from speaking on foreign affairs it would
be a grave mistake from every point of view for me to continue
in office, even temporarily. Therefore, if it is not completely clear
in your own mind that Mr. Wallace should be asked to refrain from
criticizing the foreign policy of the United States while he is a
member of your Cabinet, I must ask you to accept my resignation immediately.
At this critical time, whoever is Secretary of State must be known
to have the undivided support of your administration and, so far as
possible, of the Congress.
I shall, of course, remain
here until my successor arrives. In case you are not ready to make
that appointment promptly, you can, of course, appoint someone other
than the Secretary of State to head
the United States delegation at the Peace Conference.
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