Henry Wallace: The Forgotten VP of FDR

I stumbled upon an excellent excerpt from relatively unknown individual with integrity and powerful faith.

They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.

That is Henry A. Wallace, vice president under Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his editorial piece for the New York Times in 1944, The Danger of American Fascism.  When reading this quote, I can't help but see the parallels to the modern right-wings rhetoric.  It is an excellent speech given in San Francisco in 1944.  I urge you to read the whole speech not only to put it in context, but because it is an excellent work.

Wallace was a deeply religious Christian, and speaks of his faith and how it shaped his political views in several of his speeches, radio addresses, and writings.  In his younger years he learned about many religions, and finally settled on Episcopalianism.  In plain language, he extols how his Christian faith informs his views, speaks of the social justice present in the Old Testament, and stresses the importance of society pitching in even after the war is over in The Price of Free World Victory.

The prophets of the Old Testament were the first to preach social justice. But that which was sensed by the prophets many centuries before Christ was not given complete and powerful political expression until our nation was formed as a Federal Union a century and a half ago. 

Quite a stark contrast to conservative Christians, that seem to speak of a cold individualism.  When reading this work, I couldn't help but wonder why modern politicians seem to lack this power and vision.  Another quote:

The little man, bursting with initiative, has certain fears concerning war, peace, government, monopoly, debt and taxes. He looks at the war debt and sees it moving at a daily rate of $200,000,000 toward a total of $200,000,000,000 in 1944. Somebody will have to pay for this, and he fears the taxation will be so heavy that he dare not take a risk.

It is remarkable how much commonality can between drawn between modern times and words uttered in 1943.  This particular excerpt is from his article in the Saturday Evening Post (where much of Norman Rockwell's works are featured,) We Must Save Free Enterprise.  While it is true that FDR also increased the debt with the New Deal, I have pointed out how important it was to this country at the time.  War spending doesn't really add to capital velocity (and by extension create jobs,) since the money goes straight to war operations that consume the productive output that occur outside of the country.  The capital doesn't get turned over multiple times as is true for money spent on things like infrastructure and social welfare.

It is truly a shame that this man was ousted by the Democratic party leadership in what I perceive to be a disgusting party conspiracy that makes Nixon's Watergate scandal look like small potatoes.  FDR threw Wallace under the bus.  The world would be a different place if Wallace had ever had the opportunity to campaign to a broader audience and had become President.