NATION OVER PARTY
(National Portrait Gallery)
STATESMANSHIP
Unlike Wendell Willkie, the 1940 Republican presidential candidate, many modern politicians and media appear institutionally incapable of objective reasoning. However, Willkie’s story proves that there was a time when bipartisan statesmanship was possible in Washington. Furthermore, we misunderstand the isolationist opposition to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s foreign policy before and during World War II. Firstly, we assume that the entire Republican Party was isolationist and opposed to FDR. Likewise, we assume that a unified Democratic Party favored national defense and support for the United Kingdom. Revisionists today paint all Republicans as pro-fascist and all Democrats as anti-fascist. Consequently, we assume that all the Democrats favored Lend-Lease and a peacetime draft. But the truth is quite different.
AMERICA FIRST
Isolationist America, including the influential America First movement, was bipartisan and not pacifist. Moreover, leading isolationists in the U. S. Senate included Democrats Burton Wheeler of Montana and David Ignatius Walsh of Massachusetts. The leading Republican isolationist was Gerald P. Nye of North Dakota. The America First movement leaders included powerful publisher Robert McCormick of the Chicago Tribune, Gen. Robert E. Wood of Sears, Roebuck & Co., architect Frank Lloyd Wright, industrialist Henry Ford and, famously, aviator Col. Charles E. Lindbergh.
ONE WORLD
Therefore, a fierce debate ranged in the national media about intervention, aid to Britain and the draft. Remarkably, the candidates did not debate foreign policy during the pivotal 1940 presidential election. This was when FDR sought an unprecedented third term. Why? Because the Republican Party nominated dark horse Wall Street investment banker and Washington outsider Wendell Willkie of Elmwood, Indiana. Willkie was one of the most courageous and exceptional presidential candidates in American history. He persuasively argued that America was no longer able to isolate itself, and he would later write the best-selling book One World. He refused to debate FDR’s foreign policy because he agreed with it. This gave the president considerable breathing space and assured his re-election. However, the exuberant and outspoken Willkie won 45% of the popular vote.
ROVING AMBASSADOR
Following the election, FDR shrewdly enlisted his former opponent as a roving ambassador. Willkie’s first assignment was to carry a letter of introduction to Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Consequently, Willkie launched the wartime special relationship between Washington and London. Meanwhile, Willkie was a member of the 20th Century-Fox board of directors. He represented Hollywood in Washington before Senate investigations. These committee hearings resembled today’s grandstanding sessions. The rooms were packed with rancorous Democrat and Republican isolationists. All were media divas and they were strongly opposed to Lend-Lease aid to Britain. The politicians characterized anti-fascist motion pictures as pro-war propaganda. Willkie was the most effective representative FDR or Hollywood could have wished for. He publicly ended committee harassment with dramatic testimony and adroit humor.
GENUINE EXCEPTIONALISM
Likewise, Willkie offered a vivid contrast to the speeches of America First activist Col. Charles Lindbergh. This all happened within months of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that changed America forever. Wendell Willkie put the security and future of his nation above his political party and ambition, Therefore, he embodies genuine American exceptionalism. Likewise, you can learn much more about One World vs. the America First movement in my book America Ascendant, The Rise of American Exceptionalism. In conclusion, our leaders today would do well to understand what America First meant in 1940 and still represents today vs. genuine American exceptionalism. This is the topic of my forthcoming article, America First, so stay tuned.