FDR, Dewey, and the Election of 1944

4: The Democrats

42 For the Democrats, the problems for 1944 were of a different magnitude than were those of the Republicans. They knew who their presidential candidate would be—who it had to be—but he was taking his time agreeing to run. The Republicans gave next to no thought to a vice presidential candidate—the second spot on their ticket would most likely be filled, in a manner all too common, by a last-minute decision, as their convention was winding down and the delegates were preparing to go home. For the Democrats, on the other hand, the vice presidency was an all-consuming issue. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was serving his twelfth year as president of the United States in 1944, longer than any man before him. The clamor, the noise, the arguments over the third-term precedent were far behind him by now. Vice President John Nance Garner, Postmaster GeneralJamesFarley,andothergoodDemocratshadopposedRoosevelt on the third-term question and lost. The Republicans had flooded the country with their pins and buttons—“No Third Term,” “No Man Is Good Three Times,” “Fight the Third Term-ites,” and so on—and they had lost, even with a candidate as appealing as Wendell Willkie. The international crisis had been added to normal Democratic strength and FDR’s great popularity, and he was elected handily to a third term. The fourth-term question promised to be an issue only among those who were inveterate Roosevelt-haters already. 4 The Democrats The Democrats 43 The war against the Axis had changed all the equations as well as the political and governmental responsibilities of Franklin Roosevelt. Henry Stimson, the former Republican secretary of state who sat in FDR’s cabinet as his secretary of war, assessed Roosevelt’s performance, saying, “On the whole he has been a superb war President—far more so than any other President of our history.” Other Republicans would dispute that judgment, but none of them had the perspective that Stimson enjoyed.1 The big question was whether Roosevelt would run again. The leaders of the Democratic Party knew that he would—or thought that he would—but they were frustrated that he would not give them a green light. To their knowledge that he was their strongest candidate was added the appalling thought of trying to find a proper candidate if Roosevelt didn’t run. The names that came into the party leaders’ minds at that point were not very comforting—names like Paul McNutt, Harry Hopkins, Walter George, Guy Gillette, Cordell Hull, Alben Barkley— names that made the Republican confidence look very well placed indeed . In November 1943, there was even talk of drafting General George C. Marshall; Senator Edwin C. Johnson, an anti-Roosevelt Democrat from Colorado, proclaimed that “in this grave crisis the Democratic party owes it to the people to draft General Marshall for President.” But nothing much came of the Marshall boom, sponsored as it was mainly by the administration’s foes, and with no indication from Marshall that he would even consider such a thing.2 Of course Roosevelt would run, the Democrats felt. But in 1944, he seemed much more than twelve years older than the man who had taken thereinsfromHerbertHooverinthedreadfulconditionsof March1933, he was not happy with the never-ending contumely directed at himself and members of his family, and he longed to retire to his beautiful estate on the Hudson River. Political maneuvering seemed much less interesting to Franklin Roosevelt by now than running the great war machine he had had so much to do with creating. His secretary Grace Tully said “he spoke many times to me of his anticipation of retiring to Hyde Park where he could live the life of a country squire and an elder statesman,takingpleasureinhisland,hisfamilyandhismanyhobbies.”3 44 FDR, Dewey, and the Election of 1944 Drawing him back to Washington were the war—progressing well now but without an end yet in sight—and the problems and promise of thepostwar.Thepresidentof theUnitedStateswouldhavetheopportunity to redress the mistakes of Woodrow Wilson and his opponents after World War I, the opportunity to create an organization to keep the peace. How could he entrust such a task to a Republican successor ? FDR was aware that Willkie shared many of his ideas regarding a postwar international organization, but he knew that Willkie did not represent the majority view in his party and was very unlikely to be the Republican candidate. Dewey, Bricker...