The Real Third-Party Candidate in 1948 (It Wasn't Thurmond)

HIstory News Network ^ | 12/20/02 | Jim Sleeper

[genefromjersey]

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.......

The Nation once again...

[Eric in the Ozarks]

The more I read about Henry Wallace, the more I cannot understand why my home state of Iowa honored him with a state office building.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

The more I read about Henry Wallace, the more I cannot understand why my home state of Iowa honored him with a state office building.

[genefromjersey]

Yeah, ol' Wallace was a "closet communist " , as I recall: never an actual card-carrying,meeting attending Communist, but entirely comfortable with those who were.

My late brother was a bit like Wallace : all caught up in the civil rights aspects of what the party was doing , but almost totally unaware the Reds were pushing civil rights as a means of tearing America apart once more. The Reds wanted nothing less than an armed Black insurrection : something they figured would be good for the party whichever way it went.

If the Blacks succeeded, the party would have the inside track in whatever government resulted. If they failed, the party would have martyrs to shout about.The best case scenario, they reasoned, would be a Black guerilla movement :lots of bloodshed, American military forces bogged down, lots of repression, etc.

What's left of the party faithful now calls themselves "Progressives" - same name Wallace's party used. Their aims are still about the same : splinter the Nation by setting factions against one another - something you may have noticed the major media networks also attempt...

[davisfh]

"Yeah, ol' Wallace was a "closet communist " , as I recall: never an actual card-carrying,meeting attending Communist, but entirely comfortable with those who were.

Sort of like modern day Democrats, eh?

[Free the USA]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[genefromjersey]

Speaking as a profoundly independent voter, classifying all-or the majority-or even an exceptionally high percentage of Democrats as " communists " is about as silly as picturing typical Republicans as "fascist, racist homophobes" the way a few, very vocal left-wingers do.

[aristeides]

Everyone knows by now that Thurmond's States' Rights Party meant to thwart Truman's unprecedentedly strong commitment to civil rights. The segregationist apostates didn't expect Thurmond to win the election (he carried only four Southern states); they meant to divert enough Electoral College votes from Truman to throw his contest with Republican Thomas Dewey into the House of Representatives. There, the next President would have to sell out civil rights to win all-powerful Southern committee chairmen's backing.

That's true. Thurmond was only on the ballot in Southern states (and South Dakota as the one exception in the North.) So it was quite impossible for him to win the election.

[davisfh]

"Speaking as a profoundly independent voter, classifying all-or the majority-or even an exceptionally high percentage of Democrats as " communists " is about as silly as picturing typical Republicans as "fascist, racist homophobes" the way a few, very vocal left-wingers do. "

Yes, you're right. The majority of the democratic voters aren't communists. They're just camp followers.

We only worry about the camp followers because they are the ones who put the communists into office. They (the camp followers) understand that they can use the government as an instrument of plunder and don't hesitate to do so. And the Democrat leadership fully understands how to keep the camp followers in their camp. Government largess at the productive taxpayers' expense.

[writmeister]

Is the building named after Henry Wallace, the former VP and 1948 presidential candidate, or after his father, also named Henry Wallace, who was a long-time Agriculture secretary (under Harding, Coolidge and Hoover) and Iowa politician?

[aristeides]

Wallace was disillusioned by how the Communists used him in the '48 campaign, and later in life was the coldest of Cold Warriors.

[aristeides]

The best book on the '48 campaign is H.L. Mencken's Mencken's Last Campaign, which is a collection of Mencken's journalism on the campaign. (The '48 campaign was Mencken's last hurrah -- he had an incapacitating stroke shortly after the election).

Here is what Mencken had to say about the Dixiecrats (p. 94):

The result today [of the South's previous history of misdeeds] is that the Dixiecrat movement is getting a great deal less sober attention than it deserves. It looks, from across the Potomac and Ohio, like nothing more than a fresh pestilence of Longs, Bilbos, Tillmans, Bleases, Talmadges and Pappy O'Daniels. It is, in fact, nothing of the sort, whatever the excrescences that now burden it. It is fundamentally quite as serious in purpose, and quite as rational, as any other regional movement that has appeared in recent years, and some of its leaders are worthy of the highest respect. Certainly it would be absurd to dismiss such men as Governor J. Strom Thurmond, of South Carolina, and former Governor Dan Moody, of Texas, as windbags of the common sort. They are men of intelligence, and they are men of honor, and when they take to the bush it is safe to assume that they have a genuine grievance.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

You know...I don't really know. I believe it is the "Henry A. Wallace State Office Building" on East Grand Avenue in Des Moines.
I'm a little ashamed to say I don't know which Wallace the building in named for. I do recall that the Wallace' were associated with Pioneer Seed Company and published a farm weekly newsletter called Wallace's Farmer. The building went up in the early 1970's.

[x]

The father was Henry C. Wallace, so the building must have been named after the son, a "useful idiot" in the old American tradition, like Harry Hopkins or many others.

[dighton]

Mr. Sleeper, a lecturer . . .

Name File alert.

[general_re]

Ah, yes - Mr. Sleeper. I took an introductory statistics course from Mr. Sleeper once. Stood in stark contrast to Professor Hyperkinesis, the exceptionally animated fellow who taught intro physics...

[genefromjersey]

One of the reasons I remain independent is the simple fact Republicans have been ( historically ) just as avid to buy votes with the use of tax dollars : something that started in the days of Greece and Rome, and that has never lost popularity.

Me ? I believe in reasonable compassion - can't seem to help myself there !

When compassion becomes a cottage industry for giver and recipient, and well-meant assistance becomes an "entitlement", and when entitlements are used to buy voting blocs,compassion ceases to be anything but self-interest.

Unfortunately, I can remember when Wendell Wilkie ran against Franklin Roosevelt - and can also remember Wilkie tried to out-do Roosevelt in the special offers department ; but didn't quite have the charisma to win over the voters. I can remember Tom Dewey trying to look more like Santa Claus than Harry Truman, etc., etc.

'Tain't party label that makes the difference !

[aculeus]

A Sleeper perhaps but not a snoozer.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/104-2431816-3567157

[patton]

The KGB files indicate that Wallace, while VP, was in the employ of the Soviet.