FDR, Dewey, and the Election of 1944

8: The Bandwagon Rolling

92 There were all the expected reactions to Willkie’s withdrawal. Robert Taft exulted that “Mr. Willkie has apparently recognized the inevitable .” His fellow Ohioan, John Bricker, was a bit more gracious, calling the withdrawal “an unselfish and patriotic act.” Senator Warren Austin of Vermont, an internationalist, said, “I hope there will be someone who will come into the field to take up the torch and carry it forward.” Allen DrurydescribedWillkieas“amanwho,scorningtheuseof theairplane, tried to fly by flapping his arms and when that didn’t work gave up in disgust.” Willkie’s favorite antagonist, Bertie McCormick, scoffed in the Tribune, “from today on Mr. Willkie can be dismissed as a minor nuisance.”1 Thomas E. Dewey, in Albany, said he had no comment on “political questions,” and Roosevelt, asked at his weekly press conference if he could comment on Willkie’s withdrawal, responded, “I don’t think so.”2 With Willkie out of the race—the race, such as it was—there still remained, with Dewey, four men: John Bricker, Douglas MacArthur, Harold Stassen, and, somewhere between a favorite son and a serious contender, Everett McKinley Dirksen, the Illinois congressman. The Stassen people hoped that Willkie’s followers might now fall into their camp;Stassen’sstandonmostissueswasclosertoWillkie’sthanwasthat of any other candidate, and the two men had once been close. Willkie, however, had resented as a sort of personal betrayal Stassen’s entry into 8 The Bandwagon Rolling The Bandwagon Rolling 93 the 1944 race as a contender against the 1940 standard-bearer. And Stassen seemed to be, at best, a quasi-candidate, off there with the navy in the South Pacific. Even though he finished second in total votes in Wisconsin, MacArthur too came out of it a loser. His backers had long felt that the general’s only real chance lay in a deadlock at the convention between Dewey and Willkie. Only with such a development could MacArthur’s great popularity as a soldier conceivably be converted into strength as an office-seeker. Now there would be no such deadlock. There had been an effort to enter a slate of MacArthur delegates in the California primary. As unwise as this would have been to challenge Earl Warren on his home grounds, the effort fell flat; it turned out that the nominating petitions contained far fewer signatures than required. MacArthur was entered in the Illinois primary on April 11, and he received 550,000 votes. Unfortunately, his only opponent was a political nobody, so the victory, with 76 percent of the vote, meant little. A couple of days after the Illinois voting, there was a startling development that doomed MacArthur’s phantom candidacy. A freshman Republican congressman from Nebraska, Arthur L. Miller, made public a couple of letters he had taken upon himself to write to MacArthur as well as the general’s replies to him. All Washington was soon atwitter over these literary gems.3 Miller’s first letter to MacArthur, dated September 18, 1943, described “a tremendous ground swell in this country against the New Deal” and the fear that Roosevelt and his party had of MacArthur’s candidacy . “You above all men,” he told the general, “can bring the greatest defeat to the present administration.” Miller then went on, “I am certain that unless this New Deal can be stopped this time our American way of life is forever doomed. You owe it to civilization and the children yet unborn to accept the nomination.” MacArthurresponded,onOctober2,1943:“Ithankyousosincerely for your fine letter of Sept. 18 with its cordial expressions of real friendship . I do not anticipate in any way your flattering predictions, but I unreservedly agree with the complete wisdom and statesmanship of your comments.” 94 FDR, Dewey, and the Election of 1944 Congressman Miller wrote again, on January 27, 1944: “If this system of left wingers and New Dealers is continued another four years, I am certain that this monarchy which is being established in America will destroy the rights of the common people.” He predicted: “The next President might well be a one-termer. It is going to take an individual who is fearless and willing to make political sacrifices in order to cut out the underbrush and help destroy this monstrosity in the form of a bureaucracywhichisengulfingthenationanddestroyingfreeenterprise and every right of the individual.” General MacArthur wrote again to Congressman Miller on February 11, saying, “I appreciate very much your scholarly letter...