And the promised second chapter!
May, 1940 - October, 1940
"SINCLAIR TO SEEK THIRD TERM, PUBLIC DIVIDED"
- Headline of the Washington Post, 5/11/1948
"Yes, he got a lot more... talkative after Sinclair said he was going to run for another term. He'd been gone from the bar-- out of town or something -- for most of that desegregation stuff, to everyone's relief, but when he slouched back in to spend his days slumped in a booth by himself, he was even angrier than ever. At God, at the government, at us... we were all worried about what he might do. Used to be he was just a run-of-the-mill drunk. Now it was different, somehow. He seemed more alert, more on edge. It scared me."
- Testimony of Julie Vanderbilt, former waitress at 'Big Jim's' bar, Kansas City, 1948
Any hope that Sinclair, Roosevelt et al had of facing a token Republican opponent as they had in 1936 quickly disappears when the congenial, if somewhat unknown, Senator from Maine, Frederick Hale announces his intention to run for his party's nomination. He won't win the White House, of course, but he's as good a sacrificial lamb as any, and might take the votes of moderates who would have otherwise opted for Sinclair instead of that other candidate...
Because the real problem for Sinclair - and the only person with a genuine chance of defeating him, despite his political weaknesses - is the self-proclaimed 'Share Our Wealth' candidate.
Yes, that old fraud and fascist, Louisiana Governor Huey Long has been a perpetual, if, until now, irrelevant, thorn in the side of the Sinclair administration since he successfully bribed and cheated his way out of the Attorney General's investigation into his not inconsiderable, ahem, financial impropriety. Long has been hitting at Sinclair from all conceivable, and often contradictory, angles. He has become a darling of Southern Democrats for his vitriolic attacks on the 'so-called Civil Rights bill' and similarly earned the admiration of many Socialists-- who quietly overlook his bile at the Civil Rights bill -- with his slamming of the New Deal as a sell out to vested interests, bankers and the other shadowy forces conspiring against the 'little man'. With his fire-and-brimstone, apocalyptic sermons against the dangers of electing 'this failed President' to another four years in office, Long has captured the public imagination.
An unabashed, and conniving, populist he announced for President earlier than any other candidate, once it became apparent that Sinclair would run again, and has been travelling the nation- if focusing largely on his areas of strength in the South, a region which he should handily sweep- vowing to rage against the banks, against the corporations, against the 'establishment', against the 'elitists'. In response to withering editorials in such august publications as the New York Times, he denounces the 'establishment, business-owned media'. His rallies draw thousands of devoted followers, whom he whips into a frenzy of anger at the establishment, at the 'liars and cheats' in Congress, at, well, almost everything. Sure, Long bellows from the political pulpit at his rallies - termed 'Tea Parties' [1] by his campaign - the economy may be recovering - but not fast enough, and to the benefit of fat cat bankers and Wall Street tycoons, not ordinary workers. "I'll tell y'all what we need," Long will shout, a picture of moral fury, "we need a new American revolution, that's what we need! We need to throw those liars and cheats out! Ever last one of 'em!"
"A New American Revolution" becomes the slogan of Long's steamroller of a campaign, which is quickly tapping into the same populist, nationalist and isolationist veins the defunct America First party did - because those elements have never gone away, and have mainly voted for the Breckinridge Democrats- albeit with a much more left-wing slant and without the taint of Ford and Bilbo, although some sharp pundits note that the late President Bilbo would have found the Long campaign a perfect political home...
To the horror of the Socialist and Democratic parties, who, despite the threat of delegate rebellion, nonetheless seem likely to nominate President and Vice-President Sinclair and Breckinridge for a third term in office in August, what opinion polling there is shows Long trailing Sinclair by the narrowest of margins, with the forgotten Republican nominee, Fred Hale, left in the dust (the Maine Senator, never really with much of a chance, is pinning his hopes on the 'left' destroying itself with the internal Sinclair-Long battle, or, failing that, at least a dignified defeat).
The danger for Sinclair, of course, is that Hale's support will not, as the campaign fervently hope, drift toward Sinclair as the lesser of two evils, but will stay home on Election Day instead of bothering to vote, allowing the archetypal demagogue that is Huey Long to ride a wave of somewhat contrived voter anger into the Oval Office...
Yes, it's an interesting election indeed, and one watched on tenterhooks throughout the world. Most Western governments, are, as one would expect, hoping that Sinclair can fend off Long - stuck in a position he sincerely hopes will be only temporary as Neville Chamberlain's Chancellor, Winston Churchill, waiting somewhat impatiently for the increasingly besieged Chamberlain to retire so he can, he hopes, muscle his way into No. 10, describes Long in his diaries as "arguably the most dangerous man in the Western world". Churchill, never one to shy away from hyperbole, may be exaggerating somewhat, but it's not a million miles away from the prevailing opinion in Whitehall, and, indeed, throughout most of Europe.
August is nerve-wracking for the 'liars and cheats' in the administration. While Sinclair is nominated by both the Socialist and Democratic conventions, it is not, as was hoped, unanimous. Although a last-minute whispered nomination challenge from Senator Doan at the Socialist convention - an idea which almost gives the Sinclair campaign an en masse heart attack - fails to materialize, large numbers of protest votes are cast, and considerable numbers of delegates walk out of the Madison, Wisconsin convention in protest of what they see as Sinclair's insufficiently left-wing administration. Most worryingly, the candidate whom receives the highest number of protest votes is none other than Huey Long.
But the dramatics at the Socialist convention pale to those that take place at the Democratic convention in Houston, Texas. Since it was reduced to something of a regional, Southern and, well, exclusively white, party, the Democrats have gotten increasingly bitter at their supposed allies in the Socialist Party, and, predictably, most of this anger is vented at President Sinclair. It takes a long, almost supplicant speech from Henry Breckinridge, to calm the riotous convention down enough for a delegate vote.
On the first round of voting, amid shouts of treachery and talk of surprise candidacies, Breckinridge, not even running and avowedly not seeking the nomination, leads Sinclair by a considerable margin. Pandemonium erupts in the convention hall - rumours swirl that Breckinridge will accept the nomination after all - but Breckinridge is acutely aware that his candidacy would only elect Long, a man he detests, to the Presidency. He makes a quick statement thanking the delegates for the support but reiterating he will not accept a nomination and urging a vote for Sinclair.
In the second round, Franklin Roosevelt can wipe the sweat off his brow at last - Sinclair is nominated. But the margin is disturbingly close - Sinclair beats, who else, Huey Long by just a handful of votes. In protest at Sinclair's nomination, several delegations march out of the convention hall in protest, pledging their support to Long's firebrand campaign.
A Gallup poll puts Long ahead of Sinclair, by one point, on September 1st, 1940.
The Sinclair campaign is in full-fledged panic - Wisconsin's junior Senator, Hugh Doan, icon of the, well, 'left' of the party, is dispatched regularly to shore up flaking Socialist support. Thousands of leaflets are distributed to would-be Long voters on the Governor's track record on racial issues. A young, idealistic state Senator named Woody Guthrie personally goes door to door in rural Oklahoma urging people not to vote for Huey Long. As October dawns, some newspapers - even though virtually all endorse either Hale or Sinclair - are predicting a President Long come next year. It doesn't hurt Long's heroic image that he narrowly escapes an assassination attempt by a troubled man in Baton Rouge.
President Sinclair is aghast at the idea that Huey Long - Huey Long - could spell the end of his administration. Wanting to make a speech on relatively friendly turf, it is arranged that the President will deliver an address to the students of William Jewell College, obstinately non-political, on the virtues of an open society. The kind of society, the implication goes, that Huey Long doesn't want.
October 11th, 1940 is a beautiful day in Liberty, Missouri. It's cold, but crisp, and the slight breeze is more invigorating than uncomfortable. Not cold enough to move the event indoors - it will be held as planned, on the college green, where a stage and podium, and plenty of chairs, have been set up. The announcement of the President's visit has been in the local newspapers for weeks, so by noon - shortly before Sinclair arrives - the seats are already all taken, and much of the crowd has to stand in the October afternoon for the speech.
Sinclair arrives with the usual fanfare that accompanies the President of the United States - Hail To The Chief blares, the large, pleasant, crowd applaud and cheer. A few people murmur of how old the President is looking, but, really, he looks better than he has done in months - he practically bounces onto the stage, and, grinning broadly, he exchanges the obligatory pleasantries with the assorted senior members of the faculty. It's a relief for Sinclair to be in friendly territory - a welcome respite from the bitterness of the close campaign, and the crowd, mostly young students, are mostly Sinclair supports, to the extent that they're political at all, and whoop and holler appropriately when the college president formally introduces him - "ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States!".
The university bell tower tolls noon, the audience burst into applause, Sinclair strides toward the podium, and, cloistered in the window of a vacant room overlooking the green, William Dudley Pelley shoulders his rifle and squeezes off a single shot.
***
"I, Henry Skillman Breckinridge, do solemnly swear..."
[1] Excuse me the 2010 reference, but it struck me as I was writing that some of Long's rhetoric, about the 'establishment'-- uh, 'lamestream' media seemed positively Palinesque...