The Republican Party in the Age of Roosevelt: Sources of Anti-Government Conservatism in the United States

6: The Interloper

6 | The inTeRlopeR T he Republican Party divided sharply in anticipation of Roosevelt ’s pursuit of an unprecedented third term in 1940. a coalition of gop internationalists favored a candidate who backed a policy of material assistance to the allies despite the possibility that it might well lead to direct involvement in the conflict. isolationists, who also anticipated possible involvement of the united states in a second great War, aspired to limit the president’s authority in foreign affairs. herbert hoover, first out of the gate in another quest for redemption , pursuing the party’s presidential nomination described himself as engaged in “a battle against the forces of evil,” translated as Roosevelt’s interventionist foreign policy. following landon’s 1936 defeat, hoover designed a strategy to induce the party to adopt a platform suited to his outlook: opposition to interventionism overseas; defense of his presidency as having resolved the economic and banking crises of the early 1930s only to be reversed by the Roosevelt policies; return to the gold standard as a mechanism for restraining government intervention in the economy; economic self-sufficiency sustained by a high-tariff regime; budget balance; and reliance on the states for management of social programs in the economic crisis. preparation for a return bout between hoover and fDR was undertaken by the Republican circles, an informal group with a membership estimated by hoover at some eighty-five thousand. substantial funding was provided by sewell avery, the anti-union president of Montgomery Ward and a supporter of the crusaders, an antistatist business group; W. K. Kellogg of battle creek; and henry Robinson, a california financier and hoover adviser. The circles also consisted of a hodgepodge of old political associates, former politicians such as new Jersey’s h. alexander smith and Walter edge, participants in belgian relief, informal advisers associated with his presidential administration, and lawyers and 96 the republican party in the age of roosevelt businessmen of substance who opposed Roosevelt’s monetary and fiscal policies. included as well, at least informally, were journalist-supporters such as boake carter; David lawrence; ashmun brown; paul block, proprietor of several newspapers; and agnes and eugene Meyer, owners of the Washington Post. constitutional publications, funded by wealthy supporters, financed the distribution of the hoover message though the publication of his speeches and his writings. William starr Myers assembled for this undertaking The True Republican Effort, 1929–1933, a defense of the hoover presidency. The Republican program committee, chaired by glenn frank, former chancellor of the university of Wisconsin and a hoover supporter, drafted the guiding principles for foreign and domestic policy with the intention that they would be adopted by the national committee. The frank committee proposed that the united states should stay out of the war in europe on the grounds that the “economic system of free enterprise [and] . . . our political system of representative self-government ” would not survive participation. on the domestic front, the frank committee condemned excessive government expenditure and taxation, growth of the national debt, the social security reserve fund, and provision for social welfare at the national level. it challenged alvin hansen’s stagnation theory and the argument that the nation’s industrial plant was built. business recovery and reemployment, it also predicted, would be based on emergence of new industries emanating from technological advances. These and other recommendations served as a platform for a hoover run at the presidency. The Rocky Mountain and pacific coast states served as the geographical bedrock of hoover’s venture, with california’s substantial convention delegation critical to his early plans. influential supporters of Thomas e. Dewey, especially William Knowland, publisher of the Oakland Tribune, checkmated hoover’s effort to capture the california delegation and turned to the youthful new yorker when it became apparent that he also had wide appeal in the Mountain states. as a result, the ex-president’s strategy shifted to engineering a convention stalemate based on uninstructed delegations.1 according to polling by princeton’s opinion Research corporation in May 1940, shortly before the gop convention, Roosevelt was calculated to win a third term in contests with Dewey (52 to 48 percent), vandenberg (53 to 47 percent), and Taft (58 to 42 percent). When Republicans the interloper 97 were canvassed to name their preferred candidate, 62 percent opted for Dewey, 14 percent for vandenberg, and 13 percent for Taft. Wendell Willkie , favored by 5 percent of those polled, drew his...