1944 Democratic Party vice presidential candidate selection

The Democratic Party's 1944 nomination for Vice President of the United States was determined at the 1944 Democratic National Convention, on July 21, 1944. U.S. Senator Harry S. Truman from Missouri was nominated to be President Franklin D. Roosevelt's running-mate in his bid to be re-elected for a fourth term.

How the nomination went to Truman, who did not actively seek it, is, in the words of his biographer Robert H. Ferrell, "one of the great political stories of our century". The fundamental issue was that Roosevelt's health was seriously declining, and everyone who saw Roosevelt, including the leaders of the Democratic Party, realized it. If he died during his next term, the vice president would become president, making the vice presidential nomination very important. Truman's predecessor as vice president, the incumbent Henry A. Wallace, was unpopular with some of the leaders of the Democratic Party, who disliked his liberal politics and considered him unreliable and eccentric in general. Wallace was the popular candidate and favored by the Convention delegates.

Anti-Wallace movement

A powerful group of party leaders tried to persuade Roosevelt to not keep Wallace as vice president. Ferrell calls this process "a veritable conspiracy". The group consisted of Edwin W. Pauley, treasurer of the Democratic National Committee (DNC); Robert E. Hannegan, Democratic national chairman; Frank C. Walker, Postmaster General; George E. Allen, the Democratic party secretary; and Edward J. Flynn, political boss of New York. They considered several people to replace Wallace. Among the possible candidates were James F. Byrnes, Roosevelt's "assisting president", who initially was the prominent alternative, Associate Justice William O. Douglas, U.S. Senators Alben W. Barkley and Harry S. Truman as well as the industrialist Henry J. Kaiser and Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn. Finally the group decided on Truman, but this decision was secondary to the goal of not nominating Wallace. By late spring 1944, the group had succeeded in turning Roosevelt against Wallace, but the president did not tell Wallace directly and still refused to endorse anybody other than him. In May, the president sent Wallace on a trip to China and the Soviet Union, probably with the intention to get him out of the country at an inconvenient time and to obstruct his campaign.

Roosevelt preferred Byrnes as the best alternative and decided to push him as the party's nominee for the vice presidency if the party delegates refused to renominate Wallace at the 1944 Democratic National Convention. On July 11, the leaders met with Roosevelt in the White House. They recommended Truman. The names of Rayburn, Barkley, Byrnes, and John G. Winant were also raised, but they were dismissed, Byrnes because of his unpopularity among blacks and in the labor movement. Furthermore, Byrnes, who had been born a Roman Catholic, had left the church to become an Episcopalian, which would have alienated many Catholic voters who were a central part of the New Deal coalition. Truman was an ideal compromise candidate. He supported the administration on most issues, was acceptable to the unions, and he had opposed Roosevelt's reelection to a third term, which pleased conservative anti-Roosevelt Democrats. He had supported Roosevelt's foreign policy but was close to Senate isolationists like Burton K. Wheeler. Roosevelt did not know Truman well, but he knew of the senator's leadership of the Truman Committee, and that he was a loyal supporter of the New Deal. Roosevelt suggested William O. Douglas but party officials countered by suggesting Truman.

After much debate, the president said, "Bob [Hannegan], I think you and everyone else here want Truman." There are, however, other accounts of Roosevelt's exact statement. Pauley, for example, claimed that he said, "If that's the case, it's Truman."[13] Just before the meeting ended, Roosevelt instructed Hannegan and Walker to notify Wallace and Byrnes, respectively, that they were out. After the group left the meeting, Hannegan asked Roosevelt to put his decision down in writing. Roosevelt wrote a note on a piece of scratch paper and gave it to Hannegan.

The next day Hannegan and Walker thus tried to convince Wallace and Byrnes to withdraw, but they refused unless the president himself asked them. Roosevelt did not want to disappoint any candidate. He told Wallace, "I hope it will be the same old team." But Wallace nevertheless understood the president's real intentions, and he wrote in his diary, "He wanted to ditch me as noiselessly as possible." Roosevelt also promised to write a letter, saying that if he, Roosevelt, were a delegate to the convention he would vote for Wallace. To Byrnes Roosevelt said, "You are the best qualified man in the whole outfit and you must not get out of the race. If you stay in the race you are certain to win." He also explained to Byrnes that he was having trouble with Wallace, who refused to withdraw unless the president told him so, and that he would write Wallace a lukewarm letter.

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