United States presidential election, 1940

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President Franklin Roosevelt was not as popular as he was four years ago. During his term he had tried to amend the Constitution so that he could actually appoint judges in the US Supreme Court that agreed with him. However, Congress rejected his plan and the number remained nine. Also, his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, was very outspoken and didn't fit the usual first lady role. Conservatives tended to disapprove of her actions.

In the 1940 campaign, Republican opponent Wendell Willkie charged that Roosevelt had boasted of his part in the appeasement of German Chancellor Adolf Hitler in the Treaty of Munich. Secretary of State Cordell Hull denied this at the time however Hull later admitted [1] that Roosevelt did indeed send a "message to Mussolini" [2] and one to Hitler [3] encouraging negotiation over confrontation.

candidates popular vote electoral vote
Franklin Roosevelt 27, 307, 819 449
Wendell L. Wilkie 22, 321, 018 82
Norman Thomas 99, 557 0
Roger W. Babson 57, 812 0
Earl Browder 46, 251 0
John W. Aiken 14, 892 0

Nominations

Republican

On June 21, while French officials were meeting with Hitler in the Compiegne Forest in the same dining car which Marshal Foch signed the Armistice with Germany in 1918, Republicans were gathering for their nominating convention in Philadelphia. The war was the looming issue. The government had appropriated billions for defense and unemployment from the 1937 Crash was beginning to move down. The Gallup poll showed an 83 percent overwhelming opposition to war. Former President Herbert Hoover addressed the Convention:

In every single case before the rise of totalitarian governments there has been a period dominated by economic planners. Each of these nations had an era under starry-eyed men who believed that they could plan and force the economic life of the people. They believed that was the way to correct abuse or to meet emergencies in systems of free enterprise. They exalted the State as the solvent of all economic problems.

"These men are not Communists or Fascists. But they mixed these ideas into free systems. It is true that Communists and Fascists were round about. They formed popular fronts and gave the applause. These men shifted the relation of government to free enterprise from that of umpire to controller. Directly or indirectly they politically controlled credit, prices, production or industry, farmer and laborer. They devalued, pump-primed and deflated. They controlled private business by government competition, by regulation and by taxes. They met every failure with demands for more and more power and control ... When it was too late they discovered that every time they stretched the arm of government into private enterprise, except to correct abuse, then somehow, somewhere, men's minds became confused. At once men became fearful and hesitant. Initiative slackened, industry slowed down production. [4]

Democratic

Roosevelt adviser Harry Hopkins had been selected to take charge of Roosevelt's campaign because he was well acquainted with Democratic leaders while administering relief. [5] The leaders thought Roosevelt’s ambition for a third term was being supported largely by the political machines. [6] Hopkins was in constant communication with the President on every move that was made and with were political bosses Ed Kelly of Chicago, Frank Hague of Jersey City, and and White House assistant and KGB agent David K. Niles. [7]

Roosevelt won the Democratic nomination for a third term and the general election. [8]

General election

There were 531 electoral votes. All FDR needed was a majority - 266. He could count on 157 from the Solid South (including Oklahoma and Arizona). He would need only 109 more from the North. The North had 374 electoral votes. He would need only a little over one third of the northern votes and four states could supply this - New York, New Jersey, Illinois and Massachusetts. Roosevelt decided that with the support of the Southern states which were congenitally Democratic, the city bosses in the big industrial centers who had been induced to New Dealism by government spending, the labor union vote which had been mobilized under unions that were predominantly political, the votes of the racial and religious groups affected by the World War II, and that immense, new, vital and active army of government bureaucrat payrollees.

References

  1. Cordell Hull, Memoirs, New York Times, January 26 to March 6, 1948.
  2. President Roosevelt to the Ambassador in Italy (Phillips) with a Message to Mussolini, Telegram, September 27 1938, U.S., Department of State, Publication 1983, Peace and War: United States Foreign Policy, 1931-1941 (Washington, D.C.: U.S., Government Printing Office, 1943, pp. 427).
  3. President Roosevelt to the Chancellor of Germany (Hitler), Telegram, September 27 1938, U.S., Department of State, Publication 1983, Peace and War: United States Foreign Policy, 1931-1941 (Washington, D.C.: U.S., Government Printing Office, 1943, pp. 427-428).
  4. http://www.threeworldwars.com/world-war-2/ww2-background.htm
  5. Frances Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew, New York, Viking Press, 1946. p. 130.
  6. Edward J. Flynn, "You're The Boss,", New York, Viking pps. 156, 157.
  7. Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel, The Venona Secrets, Exposing Soviet Espionage and America’s Traitors, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1997).
  8. Encyclopedia of Presidents, Franklin D. Roosevelt, by Alice Osinski, Children's Press, 1987, pp. 58-61.