 Henry A. Wallace as Presidential Candidate: “Am I in America?â€Per Magnus Wijkman The American Economist, 2022, vol. 67, issue 1, 64-84 Abstract: Henry A. Wallace challenged the bipartisan foreign policy of President Truman in 1948. The Progressive Citizens of America opposed Truman’s “get-tough policy†(the Truman Doctrine, loyalty investigations, Universal Military Training, and the Marshall Plan) and founded the Progressive Party. Other “liberals†formed Americans for Democratic Action and supported Truman, who claimed that the Progressive Party was a Soviet construction. Wallace refused to participate in segregated meetings during his campaign in the South and was violently attacked. He advocated the need for federal measures to prohibit segregation, discrimination, the poll tax, and lynching. Wallace was resoundingly defeated but proved right in the long run: military means could not solve social problems. Instead, it spread hatred of the United States in many countries. The 1948 election determined U.S. foreign policy for over 50 years, resulting in missed opportunities to improve housing, education, and social security at home, which still has repercussions today. JEL Classifications : N42, F50 Keywords: cold war; containment of communism; Economic Bill Of rights; Civil Rights Bill; communist smear; Truman Doctrine; Marshall Plan; Henry A. Wallace (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:amerec:v:67:y:2022:i:1:p:64-84 DOI: 10.1177/05694345211019712 Access Statistics for this article More articles in The American Economist from Sage Publications |
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