The Most Important Vice Presidency Selection Ever
By: Ryan Fan
Tags: Society, Equality, Politcs, History, Election 2020

The 1944 running mate for FDR

Photo by Louis Velazquez on Unsplash

But, with the help of Greenfield, let’s take a look back at history to see a time when being the vice presidential candidate mattered most. And we can argue that the VP of the winner of the 2020 presidential election will have drastic implications because of the age of the two candidates — Donald Trump is 74, and Joe Biden is 77. Either one will be the oldest President in American history to be inaugurated by at least four years — so whoever is Vice President has a better shot than previous ones to assume office in the case of death.

Some have said that the strength of the Vice President is that he or she helps deliver the home state for the President in an election — but the running mate almost never actually delivers their home state. Vice Presidents tend, then, to usually be non-factors in Presidential races — but one choice of VP candidate changed the course of history — the running mate for Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the 1944 Democratic convention.

At the time, no one doubted that FDR would be the President in 1944. Despite facing serious opposition in 1940 when he ran for a third term, there was little desire for ousting the commander in chief in a time of global war. The GOP had a formidable ticket with Thomas Dewey, a liberal reformer, and Ohio Governor John Bricker as his running mate.

FDR was the only Democratic candidate who stood a chance at beating them.

However, there was deep division over who Roosevelt would choose as his running mate. Every person who saw Roosevelt in person knew a very sad truth, one that put all political arguments aside — FDR was dying. Even though the public never knew about Roosevelt’s health because no one talked about it with the press, medical professionals and politicians alike knew that he was dying.

Leaders of the Democratic Party knew that FDR’s running mate would likely become President

In March of 1944, Dr. Howard Bruenn described that FDR was “a drawn, gray, and exhausted individual, who became short of breath on the very slightest exertion,” who suffered from a heart attack and high blood pressure. Other doctors agreed with Bruenn, and a couple of weeks before the Democratic National Convention, Dr. Frank Lahey wrote a memo to FDR’s primary physician saying the following:

“I did not believe that if Mr. Roosevelt were elected president again, he had the physical capacity to complete a term. … It was my opinion that over the four years of another term with its burdens, he would again have heart failure and be unable to complete it.”

Established members of the Democratic Party shared the view of the medical professionals. Robert Hannegan, the DNC Chairman at the time, was so appalled by FDR’s health that he and his wife spend hours crying and talking about it. Democratic insiders knew that, in Greenfield’s words, “in selecting Roosevelt’s running mate, they were almost certainly choosing the next president of the United States.”

However, many would argue that it shouldn’t have been a choice — Henry Wallace was pursued aggressively by FDR himself to be the running mate in 1940. Adamant opposition arose when Wallace was selected for the running mate, since he was too committed to civil rights and too liberal for southern and conservative Democrats. He was a hero to organized labor and African-American communities in American cities.

When opposition arose, FDR squashed it by publicly threatening that he’d decline the nomination if Wallace wasn’t selected. But opposition to Wallace was much stronger in 1944 than in 1940. He was incredibly unpopular in the South for his vociferous opposition to segregation. His progressive stances and very radical speeches made him seen as too unstable, undisciplined, and unreliable for DNC insiders like Hannegan, Treasurer Ed Pauley, and Chicago Mayor, Ed Kelly. He was someone too unpredictable and too unable to influence and control in a time of instability.

Another consideration for VP was a staunch segregationist

At some point, the best alternative to Wallace was James Byrnes, who was picked by Roosevelt to head the Office of War Stabilization, giving him much power. Roosevelt would call Byrnes an “assistant president,” but Byrnes did not sit right with the DNC leadership either — he was not popular with labor for his opposition to labor and anti-lynching legislation.

As a legislator and judge from South Carolina, he once said, horrifically, that lynching was necessary “in order to hold in check the Negro in the South.” Byrd was also a Catholic who changed his faith when he married an Episcopalian, and Democratic insiders worried that his conversion to Episcopalianism would anger many Catholics in the North.

James Byrd — From the Library of Congress

Even by 1944 standards, Byrnes was a figure too controversial and bigoted to be Roosevelt’s running mate and possibly the next President of the United States.

Unfortunately, Roosevelt and Democratic insiders would not be very clear to the candidates either. They assured Byrnes that he was surely the choice for a running mate, despite his views, and FDR told Wallace that he was the favored running mate for 1944. However, his endorsement of Wallace in a letter was written so unenthusiastically that it would be called Wallace’s “kiss of death”.

Roosevelt and the Democratic leadership would consider Byrnes more than Wallace, but a visit from Sidney Hillman, a labor leader, who fiercely opposed Byrnes, would make sure that Byrnes was not the candidate. Hillman was so influential a leader in American politics that Republicans would say that to push a policy measure through, they had to “clear it with Sidney” first.

At a loss, FDR and Democratic leadership decided on a compromise choice: Harry Truman, a senator from Missouri.

Despite Roosevelt’s preference for Truman, Wallace still had the support of 65 percent of Democrats, while Truman only earned 2 percent support in a Gallup poll. On the second night of the Democratic National Convention, liberal members of Congress overwhelmingly supported and demonstrated in favor of Wallace, and one senator tried to fight his way to the podium to put Wallace’s name to the nomination. However, the chair of the convention would adjourn the vote for the next day to avoid the senator from getting to the microphone.

Although Wallace led the first ballot with 429.5 votes to Truman’s 319.5, Democratic insiders worked all night to convince delegates that Truman was the best candidate, and Truman won on the second ballot overwhelmingly.

The outcome

Photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash

Harry Truman would become the running mate, and the Roosevelt-Truman ticket would win the election.

In April 1945, three months after FDR began his fourth term, he died. Harry Truman became the President. Truman would pick Byrnes to become the Secretary of State, while Wallace would become the Secretary of Commerce.

However, Wallace disagreed so vociferously with Truman’s Cold War policies that Truman fired him. The bad beef between Truman and Wallace, as well as the Democratic leadership and Wallace, would lead to Wallace forming a third party in 1948 in the Progressive Party, which came under more and more control of the Communist Party. Wallace would receive 2.5 percent of the vote in 1948, and would later write an essay in 1952 titled Where I Went Wrong, where he acknowledged being naive about the crimes of Stalin and the Soviet Union.

What if Wallace was President? What if the senator got to the convention microphone? Would the atomic bombs have dropped on Japan? Would we have gotten into the Cold War? Would Stalin and the Soviet Union have grown uncontrollably powerful because Wallace decided to appease them?

No one knows, but Greenfield himself is more cynical to the historical “what if” of a Wallace Presidency — that we would have faced “a continent dominated by Moscow all the way to the English Channel.” In another vein, what if Byrnes was President? What would it have meant for a segregationist who was still favorable to lynching laws be the President? What would that have meant for the future of civil rights and the tension between the liberal North and the segregationist South?

In 1948, Truman decided to desegregate the Armed Forces — and history shows that Byrnes would not have. In fact, Truman’s strong stance on civil rates and desegregation alienated many southern Democrats already, to the extent that four southern states didn’t even vote Democrat and voted for Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond, a South Carolina segregationist that broke away from the party.

What if either Wallace or Byrnes was selected?

In terms of party politics, the 1944 Democratic National Convention and the selection for the VP candidate between Wallace, Byrnes, and Truman had drastic implications. The South would break away from the Democratic Party when Richard Nixon pursued his Southern strategy in 1968, but Wallace would not have garnered the support of the South in the 1948 election. Byrnes would have alienated not only minority voters, but organized labor, and made Republicans emerge as the party for minority and organized labor voters.

Neither of these candidates would have united a party that saw winning based on its unorthodox coalition of different groups. Today, Joe Biden’s choice of a running mate also has big implications — we know what we’re getting with a Trump/Pence ticket, but given Biden’s age, his choice of running mate is more than just symbolic. His choice could very well be the next President.

But even at 77, Biden’s health is robust in comparison to FDR in 1944. The 1944 Democratic selection for a running mate will remain, to this day, the most impactful and important Vice President candidate ever.