Wendell Willkie
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Wendell Lewis Willkie (born Lewis Wendell Willkie; February 18, 1892 – October 8, 1944) was an American lawyer, corporate executive and the 1940
Willkie was born in Elwood, Indiana, in 1892; both his parents were lawyers, and he also became one. He served in World War I but was not sent to France until the final days of the war, and saw no action. Willkie settled in Akron, Ohio, where he was initially employed by Firestone, but left for a law firm, becoming one of the leaders of the Akron Bar Association. Much of his work was representing electric utilities, and in 1929 Willkie accepted a job in New York City as counsel for Commonwealth & Southern Corporation (C&S), a utility holding company. He was rapidly promoted, and became corporate president in 1933. Roosevelt was sworn in as U.S. president soon after Willkie became head of C&S, and announced plans for a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) that would supply power in competition with C&S. Between 1933 and 1939, Willkie fought against the TVA before Congress, in the courts, and before the public. He was ultimately unsuccessful, but sold C&S's property for a good price, and gained public esteem.
A longtime Democratic activist, Willkie changed his party registration to Republican in late 1939. He did not run in the 1940 presidential primaries, but positioned himself as an acceptable choice for a deadlocked convention. He sought backing from uncommitted delegates, while his supporters—many youthful—enthusiastically promoted his candidacy. As German forces advanced through western Europe in 1940, many Republicans did not wish to nominate an isolationist like Robert A. Taft, or a non-interventionist like Thomas E. Dewey, and turned to Willkie, who was nominated on the sixth ballot. Willkie's support for aid to Britain removed it as a major factor in his race against Roosevelt, and Willkie also backed the president on a peacetime draft. Both men took more isolationist positions towards the end of the race. Roosevelt won an unprecedented third term, taking 38 of the 48 states.
After the election, Willkie made two wartime foreign trips as Roosevelt's informal envoy, and as nominal leader of the Republican Party gave the president his full support. This angered many conservatives, especially as Willkie increasingly advocated liberal or
Youth, education and World War I service
Lewis Wendell Willkie was born in Elwood, Indiana, on February 18, 1892, the son of Henrietta (Trisch) and Herman Francis Willkie.[1] Both of his parents were lawyers, his mother being one of the first women admitted to the Indiana bar.[2] Willkie was the fourth of six children, all intelligent, and learned skills during the nightly debates around the dinner table that would later serve him well.[3]
Although given the first name Lewis, Willkie was known from childhood by his middle name.
By the time Willkie reached age 14 and enrolled in Elwood High School, his parents were concerned about a lack of discipline and a slight stoop, and they sent him to
During Willkie's summer vacations from high school, he worked, often far from home. In 1909, aged 17, his journey took him from Aberdeen, South Dakota, where he rose from dishwasher to co-owner of a flophouse, to Yellowstone National Park, where he was fired after losing control of the horses drawing a tourist stagecoach. Back in Elwood, Herman Willkie was representing striking workers at the local tin plate factory, and in August journeyed with Wendell to Chicago in an attempt to get liberal attorney Clarence Darrow to take over the representation. They found Darrow willing, but at too high a price for the union to meet; Darrow told Wendell Willkie, "there is nothing unethical in being adequately compensated for advocating a cause in which you deeply believe."[7]
After graduation from Elwood High in January 1910, Willkie enrolled at
Willkie enrolled at
Lawyer and executive (1919–1939)
Akron attorney and activist
Discharged from the army, Willkie returned to Elwood. He considered a run for Congress as a Democrat, but was advised that the district was so Republican he would be unlikely to keep the seat even if he could win it, and his chances might be better in a more urban area. Herman Willkie wanted Wendell and Robert to rejoin the family law firm, but Henrietta was opposed, feeling that opportunities in Elwood were too limited for her sons. She got her way, and in May 1919 Wendell Willkie successfully applied for a job with the
Willkie became active in the Akron Democratic Party, becoming prominent enough while still with Firestone to introduce the Democratic presidential nominee, Ohio Governor James M. Cox, when he came to town during the 1920 campaign. He was a delegate to the 1924 Democratic National Convention, and supported New York Governor Al Smith through the record 103 ballots, when the nomination fell to former West Virginia congressman John W. Davis. More important to Willkie, though, was a fight against the Ku Klux Klan, which had become powerful in much of the nation and in the Democratic Party, but he and other delegates were unsuccessful in their attempt to include a plank in the party platform condemning the Klan. He also backed a proposed plank in support of the League of Nations that ultimately failed. In 1925, Willkie led a successful effort to oust Klan members on the Akron school board.[14]
After leaving Firestone in 1920, Willkie joined leading Akron law firm Mather & Nesbitt, which represented several local
Commonwealth & Southern executive
Wendell and Edith Willkie moved to New York in October 1929, only weeks before the
At C&S, Willkie rose rapidly under the eye of Cobb, impressing his superiors. Much of his work was outside New York City; Willkie was brought in to help try important cases or aid in the preparation of major
Willkie maintained his interest in politics, and was a delegate to the
TVA battle
Soon after taking office, President Roosevelt proposed legislation creating the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a government agency with far-reaching influence that promised to bring flood control and cheap electricity to the impoverished Tennessee Valley. However, the TVA would compete with existing private power companies in the area, including C&S subsidiaries. Willkie appeared before the House Military Affairs Committee on April 14, 1933. He approved of the ideas for development of the Tennessee Valley, but felt that the government role should be limited to selling power generated by dams. Although the House of Representatives passed a bill limiting the TVA's powers, the Senate took the opposite stance, and the latter position prevailed.[21][22]
Negotiations took place through the remainder of 1933 for C&S to sell assets, including a transmission line, to allow the TVA to distribute energy to retail customers, leading to an agreement on January 4, 1934.
Amid this tension, Willkie and Roosevelt met for the first time, at the White House on December 13, 1934. The meeting was outwardly cordial, but each man told his own version of what occurred: the president boasted of having outtalked Willkie, while the executive sent a soon-to-be-famous telegram to his wife: "CHARM OVERRATED ... I DIDNT TELL HIM WHAT YOU THINK OF HIM"
Through 1935, as the breakup legislation wound through Congress, and litigation through the courts, Willkie was the industry's chief spokesman and lobbyist. When the Senate narrowly passed a bill for the breakup, Willkie made a series of speeches asking the public to oppose the legislation, and a storm of letters to congressmen followed. After the House of Representatives defeated the breakup clause, investigation proved that many of these communications were funded by the electric companies, signed with names taken from the telephone book, though Willkie was not implicated. Amid public anger, Roosevelt pressured Congress to pass a bill requiring the breakup to take place within three years.[27]
In September 1936, Roosevelt and Willkie met again at the White House, and a truce followed as both sides waited to see if Roosevelt would be re-elected over the Republican, Kansas Governor Alf Landon. Willkie, who voted for Landon, expected a narrow victory for the Republican, but Roosevelt won an overwhelming landslide as Landon won only Maine and Vermont.[28] In December, a federal district court judge granted the C&S companies an injunction against the TVA, and negotiations broke off by Roosevelt's order as the litigation continued. Willkie took his case to the people, writing columns for major publications, and proposing terms for an agreement that The New York Times described as "sensible and realistic".[29] He received favorable press, and many invitations to speak.[30]
The January 1938 Supreme Court ruling in Alabama Power Co. v. Ickes, resolving the 1934 case, and the lifting of the injunction by an appeals court, sent the parties back to the negotiating table.[31] Willkie kept the public pressure on: like most corporate executives, he had not spoken out against Roosevelt's New Deal policies, but in January stated in a radio debate that anti-utility policies were depressing share prices, making it hard to attract investment that would help America to recover. "For several years now, we have been listening to a bedtime story, telling us that the men who hold office in Washington are, by their very positions, endowed with a special virtue."[32] The Saturday Evening Post dubbed Willkie "the man who talked back".[32]
Willkie and Lilienthal negotiated for a year, with Willkie wanting $88 million for C&S's properties in and around the Tennessee Valley, and the TVA offering $55 million. After a final, January 1939, legal defeat for C&S in the Supreme Court, the pace of the talks quickened, and on February 1, 1939, C&S sold the assets to the TVA for $78.6 million.
1940 presidential election
Dark horse candidate
The
On the assumption Roosevelt would not seek a third term, Willkie had been spoken of as a possible Democratic presidential candidate as early as 1937. He raised his stock considerably when on January 3, 1938, he debated Assistant Attorney General Robert H. Jackson on the radio show Town Meeting of the Air. With the topic of the debate being the cooperation between the public and private sectors, Willkie came across as a businessman with a heart, while Jackson appeared dull. A stream of positive press mentions for Willkie continued through 1938 and into 1939, culminating with a favorable cover story in Time magazine in July 1939.[35] Willkie was initially dismissive of the many letters he received urging him to run for president, but soon changed his mind. Van Doren thought Willkie could be president, and worked to persuade her contacts. After hosting the Willkies for a weekend, Fortune magazine managing editor Russell Davenport became convinced Wendell Willkie had presidential timber; he devoted the magazine's April 1940 issue to Willkie, and later served as his campaign manager. In that issue, Willkie wrote an article, "We The People: A Foundation for a Political Platform for Recovery," urging both major parties to omit anti-business policies from their party platforms, protect individual rights, and oppose foreign aggression while supporting world trade. This piece won him applause and supporters from the press.[36]
Willkie never had any doubt that Roosevelt would run for a third term, and that his route to the White House would have to be through the Republican Party.[37] In late 1939 he changed his registration from Democratic to Republican, and early in 1940 announced that he would accept the Republican nomination if it were offered to him.[38] He blamed his allegiance shift on the Roosevelt policies that he deemed anti-business.[39] He had voted for Landon in 1936, he said, and he felt that the Democrats no longer represented the values he advocated. As he later characterized it, "I did not leave my party. My party left me."[40]
The start of the war in September 1939 alarmed Americans, but the majority thought the U.S. should not get involved. Willkie spoke often about the threat to America and the need to aid Britain and other Allies. Willkie biographer Steve Neal wrote that the war "transformed Willkie from a big-business critic of the New Deal into a champion of freedom. And it gave his candidacy new purpose."
Willkie did not enter the Republican primaries, placing his hope in a deadlocked convention. His campaign was composed mostly of political amateurs. New York lawyer
His failure to enter primaries did not greatly disadvantage Willkie because most were "beauty contests" serving only to show voter preferences and not to elect delegates. The primaries were governed by a complex set of unwritten rules about who would enter which primary and Taft ran only in his native Ohio, where Dewey did not enter his name. Even those delegates who were pledged to support a candidate were not strongly committed: what was important to most Republicans was to field a nominee who could beat Roosevelt. The run-up to the June convention in Philadelphia coincided with Hitler's advance in Western Europe, and delegates had second thoughts about running an isolationist, let alone a young one without national experience such as Dewey. Willkie, who had spoken out against isolationism, and who was a successful executive, was an attractive possibility. Willkie made speeches widely, including in a tour of New England that paid off with promises of support, though delegates might first support a favorite son candidate for a ballot or two. Important converts to Willkie's cause included Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen and Massachusetts Governor Leverett Saltonstall.[45] The move to Willkie was reflected in polls; he went from 3 to 29 percent in the seven weeks before the convention, while Dewey, the frontrunner, fell from 67 to 47 percent.[46]
Convention
The 1940 Republican National Convention opened at the Philadelphia Civic Center[a] on June 24, 1940. As the delegates assembled, they discussed the war, the candidates, and Roosevelt's appointment of two Republican interventionists to his cabinet four days before the convention. Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War under President Taft and Secretary of State under Hoover, was restored to the War position, and Landon's 1936 running mate, Frank Knox, was appointed Navy Secretary. The cabinet appointments divided the Republicans, who accused Roosevelt of dirty politics.[47]
Willkie arrived by train in
The opening night of the convention saw the
Indiana Congressman
Dewey had predicted he would have 400 of the 501 votes needed to be nominated on the first ballot[55] and he kept nothing in reserve so that he might show momentum in future ballots. When delegates first balloted on the afternoon of June 27, he had only 360 to 189 for Taft, 105 for Willkie, and 76 for Vandenberg. On the second ballot, Dewey began to slip, falling to 338 to Taft's 203 and 171 for Willkie.[56] The losses greatly damaged Dewey's campaign, because other than the trivial losses suffered in the early rounds of balloting by Warren G. Harding in 1920, no Republican candidate had ever lost support from the previous ballot and won the nomination.[57] Dewey came under pressure from his advisors to withdraw during the dinner break that followed the second ballot, and when the convention resumed to chants of "We want Willkie!" from the packed galleries, Dewey continued to slip as the convention became a two-horse race between Taft and Willkie. Listening by radio from his hotel room, Willkie refused to make a deal to get support from Taft delegates in exchange for making the Ohioan his running mate, and became convinced he would lose on the fifth ballot. Dewey had planned to go to the convention and withdraw, hoping to stop Willkie by endorsing Taft, but by the time he decided this, the fifth ballot was about to begin and he could not get to the Civic Center in time. Willkie led with 429 delegates after the fifth ballot, while Taft held 377 and Dewey only 57. The large states whose votes still were not committed to one of the two leaders were Pennsylvania (Governor Arthur James was the favorite son) and Michigan, most of whose delegates stayed with Senator Vandenberg. Although Willkie had thus far refrained from making deals, to get Michigan he agreed to allow the Republican organization there to pick that state's federal judges. The sixth ballot, held at 12:20 am on June 28, saw Taft, then Willkie take the lead. As those in the gallery continued to call for Willkie, Vandenberg released his delegates, most of whom went to Willkie. Pennsylvania also broke for him, making Willkie the Republican nominee for president on a vote that was made unanimous.[58]
Willkie had offered the vice presidential nomination to Connecticut Governor
Democracy and our way of life is facing the most crucial test it has ever faced in all its long history; and we here are not Republicans, alone, but Americans, to dedicate ourselves to the democratic way of life in the United States because here stands the last firm, untouched foothold of freedom in all the world.[60]
General election campaign
After the convention, Willkie returned to New York. When he went to the movies or play, he received a standing ovation. He resigned from C&S on July 8, 1940, confident that even if he lost his presidential bid, he would not lack for work.[61] He had Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman John Hamilton dismissed on the advice of some of his advisors, who felt Hamilton was too conservative and isolationist, though the former chairman was given the post of executive director with partial responsibility for the Willkie campaign. Congressman Martin became RNC chair. At a time when little campaigning was done until after Labor Day, Willkie left on a five-week working vacation to The Broadmoor, a resort in Colorado Springs, but found neither peace nor privacy.[62]
Roosevelt had been surprised by the outcome of the Republican convention, having expected to oppose a conservative isolationist. The polls showed Willkie behind by only six points, and the president expected this to be a more difficult race than he had faced in his defeats of Hoover and Landon. Roosevelt felt that Willkie's nomination would remove the war issue from the campaign.[63] Roosevelt was nominated by the Democratic convention in Chicago in July, though he stated that because of the world crisis, he would not actively campaign, leaving that to surrogates.[64] The fact that both major-party presidential candidates favored intervention frustrated isolationists, who considered wooing Charles Lindbergh as a third-party candidate.[65]
Willkie formally accepted the nomination at Elwood on August 17 before a crowd of at least 150,000, the largest political gathering in U.S. history to that point. It was an extremely hot day, and Willkie, who tried to read his speech from a typed manuscript without enlargement, failed to ignite the crowd. He remained in Rushville, where he owned farmland, over the next month, trying to become more associated with his native state than with
Conservatives and isolationists had little enthusiasm for the Willkie campaign, and the moderates wanted to see stronger positions on progressive issues and foreign policy. Publisher Henry Luce decried both Roosevelt and Willkie for failing to be honest with the American people, "America will never be ready for any war until she makes her mind up there is going to be a war."[67] (italics in original) Despite his pledge not to campaign, Roosevelt made inspection tours to military installations, well covered by the press. The president did not mention Willkie by name, seeking to avoid giving him publicity. According to Susan Dunn in her book in the 1940 campaign, this forced Willkie "to box against a phantom opponent and carry on a one-sided partisan debate ... Even in Willkie's speeches, Roosevelt occupied center stage".[68] Willkie promised to keep New Deal social welfare programs intact, expand Social Security, and provide full employment, a job for everyone: "I pledge a new world".[69]
On September 12, Willkie began a
With polls released on October 6 showing Roosevelt well ahead, Willkie began to sound an isolationist theme, accusing Roosevelt of being a warmonger. Many of Willkie's speeches to that point had been on domestic issues, but he had been advised by Martin, Hamilton, and other advisors that the war was the issue the voters really cared about. Willkie began to argue that Roosevelt would not keep the U.S. out of war, but that he would. He was given room to make this argument by the United Kingdom's increasing success in the Battle of Britain, as it was clear a German invasion was not imminent. The polls showed voters responding positively to this new tack, and Willkie kept on this course for the remainder of the campaign. Roosevelt reacted by scheduling five speeches for the final days, in which he proposed to rebut Willkie's "falsifications".[73] The president stated, "I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again. Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign war."[74] Willkie was prone to ad lib remarks, which sometimes led to gaffes: addressing steelworkers, he pledged to appoint a new Secretary of Labor, "and it will not be a woman either".[75] This allusion to Secretary Frances Perkins, the only woman to hold a cabinet position in American history to that point, did not aid him among female voters.[75]
Willkie concluded his campaign on November 2 with a large rally at New York's
The endorsement of CIO head John L. Lewis probably gave Willkie Michigan, and he gained ground in the suburbs and rural areas, but Roosevelt consolidated his 1936 coalition of working-class Americans, ethnics, and white Southerners to take the election.[79] On the evening of November 11, Willkie gave a nationwide radio address, urging those who had voted for him not to oppose Roosevelt on all issues, but to give support where it was called for.[80] In late November, Willkie interrupted a Florida vacation for a speech he concluded by offering a toast "to the health and happiness of the President of the United States"; Roosevelt confided to his son James: "I'm happy I've won, but I'm sorry Wendell lost".[81]
Activist and statesman (1940–1943)
Visit to the United Kingdom
Although defeated in the election, Willkie had become a major figure on the public scene, and at age 48, was deemed likely to remain one for years to come. Landon had received some 6,000 letters commiserating with him in his defeat; Willkie received over 100,000. Financially independent, he was in no hurry to decide among the many offers of employment from top law firms and major corporations.[82] He resumed his affair with Van Doren.[83]
While on vacation, Willkie decided his next cause should be military aid to embattled
Roosevelt, both appreciating Willkie's talents, and seeking to divide and conquer his opposition, had been mulling over ways his former opponent might be of use. The president's onetime advisor, Justice Felix Frankfurter, had suggested that Willkie should travel across the Atlantic to demonstrate bipartisan support of Britain.[85] Willkie had already been planning a visit in support for Britain. Roosevelt believed that the visit of the nominal head of the opposition party would be far more effective in demonstrating American support than sending one of his advisors.[87]
Willkie visited the president at the White House for the first time as an ally on January 19, 1941, the evening before Roosevelt's third swearing-in. The president asked Willkie to be his informal personal representative to Britain, and Willkie accepted.[87] Eleanor Roosevelt recorded that family members and White House staff found excuses to observe Willkie, and she would have done so herself had she been aware of the visit as it was happening. Roosevelt urged Willkie to see W. Averell Harriman and Harry Hopkins, both in London on missions from Roosevelt, and gave his former rival a letter to be hand-delivered to the British prime minister, Winston Churchill. At this time it was not routine for politicians to travel abroad; McNary, with considerable influence in foreign affairs, had never left North America. Thus, there was much public attention to Willkie's mission. He departed from New York Municipal Field for London on January 22.[88]
Upon arrival, Willkie told the press, "I want to do all I can to get the United States to give England the utmost aid possible in her struggle".[89] Willkie saw the damage Nazi bombing had inflicted on Britain, visiting bombed-out sites in London, Birmingham, Coventry, Manchester and Liverpool.[89] In London during the Blitz, he walked the streets at night without helmet or gas mask (until Churchill gave him some), visiting bomb shelters. Churchill hosted Willkie at an official luncheon at 10 Downing Street and had him as a guest at Chequers. In his writings, Churchill recalled "a long talk with this most able and forceful man".[90]
Although it was cut short by Roosevelt's desire to have him testify before Congress on Lend-Lease, Willkie's visit to Britain was deemed a triumph. Willkie also went to Ireland, hoping to persuade
Willkie's Senate testimony made him the leading interventionist outside the government, with Lindbergh (who had testified against Lend-Lease) the leading isolationist, and they debated in the pages of magazines.[92] Roosevelt weighed in, backing his former opponent in a radio address on March 29. "The leader of the Republican Party himself—Mr. Wendell Willkie—in word and in action is showing what patriotic Americans mean by rising above partisanship and rallying to the common cause."[93] That same month, a Gallup poll showed that 60 percent of Americans believed Willkie would have made a good president.[93]
In April 1941, Willkie joined the New York law firm of Miller, Boston, and Owen as a senior partner, with the firm changing its name to Willkie, Owen, Otis, Farr, and Gallagher.[94] Two months later, he agreed to represent motion picture producers before a Senate subcommittee which was investigating claims that Hollywood was producing pro-war propaganda. Willkie defended the rights of the studios to make films that reflected their views, and warned, "the rights of the individuals mean nothing if freedom of speech and freedom of the press are destroyed."[95] Congress took no further action.[96]
In late 1941, Willkie fought for the repeal of the
Wartime advocate
After the Japanese
According to Dunn, Willkie's mission was to be Roosevelt's personal representative, "demonstrating American unity, gathering information, and discussing with key heads of state plans for the postwar future".
We both came in amity,
Wartime allies of the KMT
While you were feted at the seat of honor
I was fettered in this penal horror.
Diplomatic affections may run hot and cold,
Such is the way of the world,
Or as the French say, C'est la vie,
All waters flow down to the sea.
—Ho Chi Minh, "On Reading of Wendell Willkie's Reception in China"
While in the USSR, Willkie urged the opening of a second front against the Germans; when reporters asked Roosevelt about those comments, the president responded flippantly by saying that he had read the headlines but had not considered the speculative comments worth the reading. This angered Willkie, and on his return from his 49-day trip, he confronted Roosevelt about it when making his report at the White House.[104]
The Willkie moment
On October 26, 1942, Willkie made a "Report to the People", telling Americans about his trip in a radio speech heard by about 36 million people. The following April, he published One World, a book Van Doren edited, in which he recounted his travels and urged America to join a supernational global organization after the war was successfully concluded.[105] The book was an immediate bestseller, selling a million copies in its first month.[106] It was especially influential because Willkie was seen by many as having transcended partisan politics.[107] According to The Idealist, Willkie was interested in creating 'a body of public opinion' to force policymakers and politicians of both parties to embrace the robust multilateralism he envisioned.[108]
This period of time, between Willkie's trip in 1942 and his abrupt death in 1944, was coined the "Willkie moment" by historian Samuel Zipp and represented the "high point for American visions of war time internationalism."[109] According to Zipp, Willkie's moment revived the earlier "Wilsonian moment," a period marked by European support for President Wilson's idealist foreign policy in the aftermath of WW1, and expanded its terms by emphasizing the vast networks of connectivity between different nations. Zipp argues that this "Willkie moment" was characterized by Willkie's three imagined geographies of the world. The first was "titular universalism," or the idea that the new modes of travel and communication were rapidly shrinking borders and encouraging international collaboration and decolonization. The second geography reframed the true global conflict as not about freedom versus fascism but racism versus empire, thus challenging the morality of both European colonialism and American segregation. Willkie's call to put an end to "our imperialisms at home" in One World was the first time that many Americans had heard such a public figure cast doubt on US domestic policy around race. Despite his optimistic outlook on a future defined by international collaboration and racial equality, Zipp contends that Willkie's third geography was one of "empire obscured."
Civil rights activism
During his 1940 campaign, Willkie had pledged to integrate the civil service and armed forces, and proudly pointed to what he deemed the strongest civil rights plank in history in the Republican platform. He also promised to end racial segregation in Washington, D.C. He gained the endorsements of the two largest African American newspapers, the Pittsburgh Courier and the Baltimore Afro-American. With Willkie running to the left of Roosevelt on civil rights, Roosevelt feared that blacks would return to their traditional home in the Republican Party, and he secured several prominent promotions or hirings of African Americans. Roosevelt was successful in keeping the majority of the black vote. After the election, Willkie promised to keep fighting for civil rights.[110]
Willkie warned Republicans that only a full commitment to equal rights for minorities would woo African Americans back to the party, and he criticized Roosevelt for yielding to Southern racists among the Democrats.
On November 9, 1942, soon after making his reports to Roosevelt and the American people, Willkie argued the case of Schneiderman v. United States before the Supreme Court. William Schneiderman, secretary of the California Communist Party, was a naturalized American until the government revoked his citizenship, stating that he had concealed his membership on his application for naturalization in 1927. Two lower federal courts upheld the denaturalization. Representing a communist, even in wartime, did nothing to shore up Willkie's diminishing support in the Republican Party, but he wrote to a friend saying, "I am sure I am right in representing Schneiderman. Of all the times when civil liberties should be defended, it is now."[114] In his argument Willkie quoted Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson by saying that the people could, if they deemed it necessary, remake the government, and he stated that Marx's view of revolution was mild by comparison. In 1943, the Supreme Court ruled for Schneiderman, 5–3, restoring his citizenship. Although Willkie refrained from criticizing Roosevelt's internment of Japanese Americans, he stated in a speech that war was no excuse for depriving groups of people of their rights.[115] He spoke out against those who blamed the Jews for the war, warning against "witch-hanging and mob-baiting".[116] For his activities, he received the American Hebrew Medal for 1942.[117]
1944 presidential campaign
Willkie spent much of 1943 preparing for a second presidential run, addressing Republican and nonpartisan groups.[118] He did not meet with Roosevelt; with the presidential election approaching and with both men likely to run in it as candidates, their continued association would have been awkward.[119] Although they differed with him on many issues, Republican leaders recognized Willkie's appeal and they had wanted him to campaign for the party in the 1942 midterm elections, but he went around the world instead.[120] The huge publicity received by the titular head of the Republican Party as an emissary for a Democratic president frustrated leading Republicans.[121] In 1942, the Republicans gained seats in both the House and the Senate. Though they still remained in the minority, they formed a Conservative coalition with Southern Democrats that took control of domestic issues in Congress. Few Republican members of Congress were by then willing to support Willkie, and he dropped to second place behind General Douglas MacArthur in polls of likely voters in the party's 1944 presidential primaries.[122] By 1943, even liberal Democrats did not doubt Willkie's progressive credentials. He spoke of appointing an African American to either the cabinet or the Supreme Court, and he warned California's Republican committee that the New Deal was irreversible and he stated that all they would get by opposing it was oblivion.[123]
Willkie made his candidacy clear in an interview with
The
On March 16, his first day of campaigning in Wisconsin, Willkie made eight speeches, and the pace took a toll on his voice. The weather did not cooperate, and he travelled 200 miles (320 km) through a blizzard to reach a rally in the northern part of the state. Willkie attracted large crowds in most places, and he told them that the Republican party would fail unless it accepted the New Deal and recognized the need for the U.S. to remain active in the world after the war. The Democrats, he alleged, had been in office too long and they did not have the vision that was needed in the postwar world.[128] Willkie's speech in Milwaukee attracted 4,000 people to a hall that could hold 6,000, and he left the state on the 29th for Nebraska, where he had also entered the primary. Once he was gone, Dewey's backers, including most of the Wisconsin Republican leadership, flooded the state with billboard advertisements and radio commercials.[129] On April 4, Dewey gained 17 of Wisconsin's 24 delegates, Stassen 4, and MacArthur 3.[130] Willkie's delegates ran last in every district.[131] The following night, after giving his speech in Omaha, Willkie addressed the crowd:
I quite deliberately entered the Wisconsin primary to test whether the Republican voters of that state would support me ... It is obvious now that I cannot be nominated. I therefore am asking my friends to desist from any activity toward that end and not to present my name at the convention. I earnestly hope that the Republican convention will nominate a candidate and write a platform that really represents the views which I have advocated and which I believe are shared by millions of Americans. I shall continue to work for these principles and policies for which I have fought during the last five years.[132][133]
Final months and death
Defeated in his second bid for the White House, Willkie announced that he was returning to the practice of law, but his friends doubted that he would be content there. Roosevelt was anxious to dump Vice President Wallace from the ticket in his bid for a fourth term, and he had an intermediary sound out Willkie about running in Wallace's place. Willkie was reluctant even to respond, knowing that Roosevelt had made promises to potential running mates which he did not follow through on. There were further discussions between Willkie and the White House, of which third parties were aware though the details are not known; the vice presidential nomination went to Harry S. Truman. Willkie got Roosevelt interested in a new liberal party which would be formed once peace came that would combine the left of the two existing major parties, but Willkie broke off contact with the White House after there were leaks of this to the press, because he felt that Roosevelt had used him for political gain. Roosevelt sent a letter expressing his regret for the leak, but that too was printed in the papers, and Willkie stated, "I've been lied to for the last time."[134]
In spite of their breach, Roosevelt continued to try to conciliate Willkie. Roosevelt's son
Willkie had long been neglectful of his health and diet, smoking heavily and rarely exercising.[137] His heavy drinking had charmed the reporters in Philadelphia in 1940, but by 1944 it was becoming a problem.[2] In August 1944, Willkie felt weak while traveling by train to his Rushville home. There, he suffered a heart attack, but he had to be persuaded to see a doctor and he refused to be admitted to a hospital.[138]
Willkie's condition only worsened as the weeks went on. He went to New York by rail in mid-September, but on the trip he was stricken with another heart attack. Although his advisors told him to seek treatment and abandon the trip, Willkie pressed on. When he arrived in New York, Willkie was in great pain and his press secretary called an ambulance to take him to Lenox Hill Hospital. He recovered to some extent, enough so that his friends expected him to be discharged. He spent time working on the galleys of his second book, An American Program, and planned future projects. On October 4, Willkie caught a throat infection, which was treated with penicillin. As he was recovering, Willkie's now chronic heart attacks struck again and he suffered three more attacks on October 7. The hospital, which had been issuing reassuring bulletins to the public, was now forced to inform the public that Willkie's condition had worsened and that he was critically ill. The next morning, Willkie suffered one last attack, which proved fatal. He had suffered over a dozen heart attacks in Lenox Hill Hospital.[138]
Roosevelt released a statement applauding Willkie's "tremendous courage" which "prompted him more than once to stand alone ... In this hour of grave crisis the nation loses a great citizen."[139] War Secretary Stimson offered to have Willkie buried in Arlington National Cemetery, but Edith Willkie wanted her husband to be buried in his native Indiana, at Rushville.[140] His casket was placed in the center aisle of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church; 60,000 people filed by his casket, and 35,000 crowded around the church during the service, including many blacks—as, Eleanor Roosevelt noted in her column, was fitting. Wendell and Edith Willkie rest together in Rushville's East Hill Cemetery, the gravesite was marked by a cross, and a book was carved in stone, designed by sculptor Malvina Hoffman, and inscribed with quotations from One World.[140][141]: 11
Legacy and remembrance
Soon after the 1940 convention, Roosevelt described Willkie's nomination as a "Godsend to our country", because it ensured that the presidential race would not turn on the issue of aid to Britain.
Historian Hugh Ross argued that in gaining the nomination, Willkie "gave exceptional promise of being a winner. There were ample precedents from American political history in which a minority party, queasy over prospects for survival, bypassed professional leadership in order to entrust its political fortunes to a man without political experience. In most of the previous instances, the nomination had gone to a military man. In 1940, it went to a businessman."
Correspondent and author Warren Moscow wrote that after 1940, Willkie helped Roosevelt, who was always careful not to go too far in front of public opinion, "as a pace-setter with the President's blessing".[149] Willkie's global trip and the publication of One World increased public support for the idea that the United States should remain active internationally once the war was won, and should not withdraw into a new isolationism.[150] Indiana University president Herman B Wells noted that One World "has had such a profound influence on the thinking of Americans".[151] Historian Samuel Zipp noted, "He launched the most successful and unprecedented challenge to conventional nationalism in modern American history ... He urged [Americans] to imagine and feel a new form of reciprocity with the world, one that millions of Americans responded to with unprecedented urgency."[152]
His advocacy came at a cost to his standing in the Republican Party. According to Moscow, "his appeal for the party to be the party of the Loyal Opposition, supporting the President, was treason to the diehards; his trip around the world marked him as a Presidential agent seeking to infiltrate the Republican Party".[119] This decline was accelerated as it became apparent that Willkie was a liberal, standing to the left of Roosevelt and proposing even higher taxes than the president was willing to stomach.[153]
The World War II
In 1965, Indiana University completed Willkie Quadrangle, an 11-story undergraduate residence hall, on the Bloomington campus that was named after Willkie.[154][155]
In 1992, the United States Postal Service marked the centennial of Willkie's birth with a 75-cent stamp in the Great Americans series.[156] Dunn concluded that Willkie "died as he had lived, an idealist, a humanitarian—and a lone wolf".[139] Willkie's biographer, Neal, wrote of him,
Though he never became President, he had won something much more important, a lasting place in American history. Along with Henry Clay, William Jennings Bryan, and Hubert Humphrey, he was the also-ran who would be long remembered. "He was a born leader," wrote historian Allan Nevins, "and he stepped to leadership at just the moment when the world needed him." Shortly before his death, Willkie told a friend, "If I could write my own epitaph and if I had to choose between saying, 'Here lies an unimportant President', or, 'Here lies one who contributed to saving freedom at a moment of great peril', I would prefer the latter."[157]
Works
- One World (1943)
- An American Program, Simon and Schuster, 1944 (short essay collection)
See also
- State of the Union, play believed to be based on Willkie's presidential run.
Notes
Explanatory notes
- ^ At the time, more commonly known as Convention Hall
- ^ Stassen was then deemed the "Boy Wonder" of the Republican Party; at age 33, he was constitutionally too young to seek the presidency. Age would not in future restrain him from running for president; he would seek the Republican nomination so many times and with so little hope of winning that he became a national joke. See Peters, p. 75
References
- ISBN 0-87023-088-3.
- ^ . (subscription required)
- ^ Peters, p. 25.
- ^ Neal, p. 2.
- ^ Neal, p. 3.
- ^ a b Neal, pp. 4–5.
- ^ Neal, pp. 6–7.
- ^ Neal, p. 7.
- ^ Peters, pp. 26–27.
- ^ Neal, pp. 8–12.
- ^ Neal, p. 13.
- ^ Neal, pp. 17–19.
- ^ Neal, pp. 17–18.
- ^ Peters, p. 30.
- ^ a b Peters, pp. 30–31.
- ^ Neal, p. 25.
- ^ Neal, pp. 37–39.
- ^ Neal, pp. 39–44.
- ^ Neal, pp. 26–28.
- ^ Neal, p. 27.
- ^ a b Bennett, pp. 388–390.
- ^ Neal, pp. 28–29.
- ^ Neal, p. 29.
- ^ a b Bennett, pp. 390–391.
- ^ Neal, pp. 30–31.
- ^ Bennett, pp. 391–393.
- ^ Neal, pp. 31–32.
- ^ Neal, p. 33.
- ^ Neal, p. 34.
- ^ Moe, p. 154.
- ^ Bennett, p. 395.
- ^ a b c Shlaes, Amity (May 25, 2009). "The man who talked back". Forbes.
- ^ Neal, p. 36.
- ^ Peters, pp. 14–18, 123–124.
- ^ Peters, pp. 22–24.
- ^ Zipp, p. 34.
- ^ Moe, pp. 154–156.
- ^ Neal, pp. 52–56.
- S2CID 20300312.
- ^
Leff, Mark H. (1992). "Strange Bedfellows: The Utility Magnate as Politician". In Madison, James H. (ed.). Wendell Willkie: Hoosier Internationalist. Indiana University Press. p. 24. ISBN 0-253-20689-8.
- ^ Neal, pp. 51–52.
- ^ a b Neal, pp. 52–54.
- ^ Moe, pp. 155–157.
- ^ Neal, p. 99.
- ^ Ross, pp. 79–98.
- ^ Peters, p. 51.
- ^ Peters, pp. 158–162.
- ^ Moscow, pp. 65–70.
- ^ Peters, p. 60.
- ^ Peters, pp. 76–86.
- ^ Moscow, p. 93.
- ^ Peters, p. 94.
- ^ a b Neal, pp. 105–107.
- ^ Peters, pp. 96–97.
- ^ Neal, p. 109.
- ^ Dunn, pp. 112–113.
- ^ Neal, p. 110.
- ^ Neal, pp. 109–116.
- ^ Peters, pp. 110–111.
- ^ Neal, pp. 118–121.
- ^ Peters, pp. 119–121.
- ^ Neal, pp. 126–127.
- ^ Moe, pp. 170–171.
- ^ Dunn, pp. 142, 189.
- ^ Dunn, p. 150.
- ^ Neal, pp. 132–139.
- ^ Dunn, pp. 164–165.
- ^ Dunn, pp. 192–193.
- ^ Neal, pp. 153–154.
- ^ Dunn, pp. 193–196.
- ^ Neal, pp. 143–144.
- ^ Neal, pp. 144–145.
- ^ Moe, pp. 283–287.
- ^ Goodwin, p. 187.
- ^ a b Peters, p. 178.
- ^ Neal, pp. 172–175.
- ^ Neal, pp. 175.
- ^ Moe, p. 314.
- ^ Neal, p. 177.
- ^ Moscow, pp. 293–294.
- ^ Neal, pp. 179–180.
- ^ Neal, pp. 181–182.
- ^ Neal, pp. 192–193.
- ^ Neal, p. 186.
- ^ a b Moe, p. 322.
- ^ Neal, pp. 188–189.
- ^ a b Dunn, p. 278.
- ^ Neal, pp. 191–193.
- ^ a b Dunn, p. 279.
- ^ Neal, pp. 195–196.
- ^ Peters, pp. 191–192.
- ^ Neal, p. 211.
- ^ a b Dunn, p. 289.
- ^ Neal, pp. 210–211.
- ^ Dunn, pp. 297–298.
- ^ a b Sitkoff, p. 134.
- ^ Neal, pp. 212–213.
- ^ Neal, pp. 214–216.
- ^ Neal, pp. 217–230.
- ^ Dunn, p. 314.
- ^ Neal, pp. 231–241.
- ^ Zipp, p. 488.
- ^ Neal, pp. 242–257.
- ^ Neal, pp. 248, 253, 259–260.
- ^ Neal, pp. 260–263.
- ^ Zipp, pp. 488–489.
- ^ Zipp, p. 491.
- ^ Zipp 2020, p. 62.
- ProQuest 2210933282.
- ^ Sitkoff, p. 133.
- ^ Sitkoff, pp. 139–140.
- ^ a b Neal, pp. 274–276.
- ^ Sitkoff, p. 129.
- ^ Sitkoff, pp. 133–135.
- ^ Neal, pp. 267–273.
- ^ Sitkoff, pp. 136–137.
- ^ Sitkoff, p. 137.
- ^ Jordan, pp. 60–61.
- ^ a b Moscow, p. 208.
- ^ Snyder, p. 36.
- ^ Jordan, p. 41.
- ^ Snyder, pp. 35–36.
- ^ Neal, p. 288.
- ^ Snyder, pp. 36–37.
- ^ Jordan, p. 85.
- ^ Jordan, p. 82.
- ^ Neal, pp. 207–209.
- ^ Snyder, pp. 37–38.
- ^ Jordan, pp. 87–89.
- ^ Jordan, pp. 90–91.
- ^ Snyder, p. 39.
- ^ Snyder, pp. 39–40.
- ^ Jordan, p. 91.
- ^ Neal, pp. 308–318.
- ^ a b Neal, pp. 318–320.
- ^ Snyder, p. 40.
- ^ Neal, p. 321.
- ^ a b Neal, pp. 321–323.
- ^ a b Dunn, p. 317.
- ^ a b Neal, p. 323.
- ^ "Indiana State Historic Architectural and Archaeological Research Database (SHAARD)" (Searchable database). Department of Natural Resources, Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology. Retrieved June 1, 2016. Note: This includes Glory-June Greiff (September 2013). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form: East Hill Cemetery" (PDF). Retrieved June 1, 2016. and accompanying photographs.
- ^ Peters, p. 171.
- ^ Peters, p. 194.
- ^ Peters, p. 195.
- ^ "Excerpt from keynote speech". The New York Times. September 2, 2004.
- ^ Ross, p. 100.
- ^ Moe, p. 169.
- ^ Syers, pp. 127–130.
- ^ Moscow, pp. 206–207.
- ^ Zipp, pp. 484–485.
- ISBN 0-253-20689-8.
- ^ Zipp, pp. 504–505.
- ^ Peters, pp. 204–205.
- Newspapers.com.
The Indiana University Board of Trustees has announced the naming of buildings on the Bloomington campus for four distinguished alumni Paul V. McNutt, Dean William A. Rawles, Wendell L. Willkie and Prof. James A. Woodburn... Willkie Quadrangle will be the tallest residence group on campus with two 11-story buildings, with quarters for 589 men and 577 women. The women's unit will be ready for occupancy next fall and the men's unit in January, 1965.
- Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Wendell Willkie". Mystic Stamp Company. Retrieved December 13, 2015.
- ^ Neal, p. 324.
Bibliography
External videos | |
---|---|
After Words interview with Charles Peters on Five Days in Philadelphia, September 3, 2005, C-SPAN | |
Presentation by Peters on Five Days in Philadelphia, June 24, 2006, C-SPAN |
- Bennett, James D. (Winter 1969). "Roosevelt, Willkie, and the TVA". Tennessee Historical Quarterly. 28 (4): 388–396. JSTOR 42623111.
- Dunn, Susan (2013). 1940: FDR, Willkie, Lindbergh, Hitler – the Election Amid the Storm. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-20574-9.
- Evjen, Henry O. (1952). "The Willkie Campaign: An Unfortunate Chapter in Republican Leadership". The Journal of Politics. 14 (2): 241–256. S2CID 154802463.
- ISBN 0-671-64240-5.
- Jordan, David M. (2011). FDR, Dewey, and the Election of 1944. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-00562-5.
- Lewis, David Levering (2018). The Improbable Wendell Willkie: The Businessman Who Saved the Republican Party and His Country, and Conceived a New World Order. Liveright Publishing. ISBN 978-1-63149-374-4.
- Madison, James H., ed. Wendell Willkie: Hoosier Internationalist (Indiana University Press, 1992).
- Moe, Richard (2013). Roosevelt's Second Act. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-998191-5.
- Moscow, Warren (1968). Roosevelt & Willkie. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc. OCLC 441820.
- ISBN 0-385-18439-5.
- ISBN 1-58648-450-8.
- Ross, Hugh (June 1962). "Was the nomination of Wendell Willkie a political miracle?". JSTOR 27788982.
- Sitkoff, Harvard (2010). Toward Freedom Land: The Long Struggle for Racial Equality in America. University Press of Kentucky. JSTOR j.ctt2jcgvk.10.(subscription required)
- Snyder, Roland H. (Autumn 2004). "Wisconsin ends the political career of Wendell Willkie". The Wisconsin Magazine of History. 88 (1): 30–41. JSTOR 4637111.
- Stengrim, Laura A. (Summer 2018). "One World: Wendell Willkie's Rhetoric of Globalism in the World War II Era". Rhetoric and Public Affairs. 21 (2): 201–234. Project MUSE 699052.
- Syers, William A. (Winter 1990). "The political beginnings of Gerald R. Ford: Anti-bossism, internationalism, and the congressional campaign of 1948". Presidential Studies Quarterly. 20 (1): 127–142. JSTOR 20700119.
- Zipp, S. (Fall 2014). "When Wendell Willkie Went Visiting: Between Interdependency and Exceptionalism in the Public Feeling for One World". American Literary History. 26 (3): 484–510. Project MUSE 553327.
- Zipp, Samuel (November 2018). "Dilemmas of World-Wide Thinking: Popular Geographies and the Problem of Empire in Wendell Willkie's Search for One World". Modern American History. 1 (3): 295–319. ProQuest 2210933282.
- Zipp, Samuel (2020). The Idealist: Wendell Willkie's Wartime Quest to Build One World. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-73751-8.
External videos | |
---|---|
Q&A interview with Lewis on The Improbable Wendell Willkie, November 4, 2018, C-SPAN |
External videos | |
---|---|
Chicago Council on Global Affairs Daniel Immerwahr interviews Zipp on The Idealist, August 21, 2020, Chicago Council on Global Affairs |
External links
- Wendell Lewis Willkie presidential campaign papers (MS 556). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library. [1]
- Biography from the Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site
- Willkie Farr & Gallagher website
- Wendell Lewis Willkie at Find a Grave
- "Wendell Willkie, Presidential Contender" from C-SPAN's The Contenders
- An Exhibit: Wendell Lewis Willkie The Lilly Library Bloomington, IN
- "Wendell Willkie: The Dark Horse," Indiana Historical Bureau