{"id":2154894,"date":"2024-01-21T05:04:02","date_gmt":"2024-01-21T10:04:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/midwest-mystic-or-manchurian-candidate\/"},"modified":"2024-01-21T05:10:46","modified_gmt":"2024-01-21T10:10:46","slug":"midwest-mystic-or-manchurian-candidate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/midwest-mystic-or-manchurian-candidate\/","title":{"rendered":"Midwest Mystic or Manchurian Candidate: Which one"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fmidwest-mystic-or-manchurian-candidate%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2154894&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><h2>The World That Wasn&#8217;t: Henry Wallace and the Fate of the American Century<\/h2>\n<h3>A Visionary Hybrid \u2063of Feeling and\u200b Fact<\/h3>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Henry Agard Wallace (1888-1965) left his\u2064 mark on what he memorably proclaimed the \u2064Century of the Common Man\u2014as\u2062 plant geneticist, entrepreneur, spiritualist, \u200bauthor, magazine editor, transformative secretary of \u200bagriculture under Franklin Roosevelt, and Roosevelt&#8217;s second vice \u2064president. To his admirers Wallace was a conviction politician who denounced segregation in front of Southern audiences\u200c and criticized Cold War profiteers long before\u2064 Dwight Eisenhower alerted us to\u200d the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/joe-hoft-from-tgp-presents-at-transform-washington-on-january-6-web-conference-video\/\" title=\"Joe Hoft from TGP Presents at \u201cTransform Washington on January 6\u201d Web conference (VIDEO)\">military-industrial complex<\/a>. Detractors mocked Wallace as a religious crank, bureaucratic\u200c bungler, \u200cand apologist \u200cfor Joseph Stalin.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>His\u200d narrow loss to Harry Truman\u200c at the 1944 Democratic National Convention forever stamped Wallace \u2062as the \u2064Man Who Might Have Been. One doesn&#8217;t have to be \u200dOliver Stone to imagine\u200d a radically\u200d different world \u200chad party bosses failed in their campaign to keep Wallace off the Democratic ticket \u2062that\u200b fall, or from \u2063succeeding to \u200cthe presidency on FDR&#8217;s death in \u200bApril 1945. It is this counterfactual history that underpins Benn Steil&#8217;s groundbreaking biography. Steil, a\u2064 senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, is\u2063 the author of well-regarded books on the Marshall Plan\u2063 and the Bretton Woods conference that incubated the post-World War II international monetary system. Here he taps an impressive\u2064 array of primary sources, including FBI reports and Soviet-era archives not available to earlier Wallace biographers, \u2062to give us the fullest picture to\u200d date \u2062of this self-professed\u200b &#8220;practical mystic.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Wallace \u200bwas defined by the \u200bIowa \u2062prairie. Yet he drew\u200d his loudest cheers in the Bronx \u200b(running for president on\u200d the Progressive \u2063Party ticket in 1948, Wallace polled over\u2063 a third of his national vote \u200ctotal in New York City). A humanitarian whose lunchtime tips never exceeded 5 percent, Wallace embraced better living \u2064through genetic engineering. Out of his\u2062 restless imagination came meatier chickens and hens more prolific with their eggs. Unfortunately \u2064for his reputation, this same disregard\u200b for the obvious betrayed\u2062 him on a 1944\u2062 tour of\u2063 Siberia, the gulag Wallace insisted was \u2063a Utopia in the making.<\/p>\n<p>Self-awareness\u200d would never be his strong suit. Born into the Midwest&#8217;s leading farm family, publisher of the nationally influential <i>Wallace&#8217;s Farmer,<\/i> as a boy Henry was introduced to George Washington Carver. The\u200d brilliant agricultural scientist inspired in his young admirer a lifelong fascination with plant science. By \u20621926 this led him to\u2064 found the Hi-Bred Corn Company (first year profits: $30). In 1997 Pioneer Hi-Bred was sold\u200d to DuPont for\u200d $9.4 billion.<\/p>\n<p>Wallace \u2063taught himself statistical analysis in college. But he also fell\u200d under the spell of Emerson and William \u200bJames. A spiritual nomad who identified with mainstream Protestant\u2063 creeds (Presbyterian, Episcopal) until \u2062he joined a\u2062 tiny sect calling\u2063 itself the Liberal Catholic Church, Wallace eventually gravitated toward the occultist hodgepodge of theosophy, with its elite Masters \u200dpreaching universal brotherhood and &#8220;planetary chains&#8221; \u2063evolving unevenly toward the Absolute. &#8220;I\u2063 am\u200b neither a corn \u2063breeder nor an editor,&#8221;\u200d he insisted, but\u200d &#8220;a searcher for methods of bringing the &#8216;inner light&#8217; to outward manifestations and raising outward manifestation to the inner light.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Devoid of small talk\u2014conversing with \u200ba small group,\u200b the introverted Wallace said he \u2064felt \u200blike &#8220;he had a \u2064cold snake curled \u2062up inside him&#8221;\u2014he lived on faddish diets of\u2063 strawberries and cornmeal. On his wedding day, May 20, 1914, \u200bthe 25-year-old groom was mesmerized by the gift of a new Ford motor car. \u200dAbandoning \u2064his bride, Ilo, daughter \u200bof \u2063a local businessman, Henry jumped in\u200d the \u2064driver&#8217;s seat and sped \u2064off for\u200c a test run. Fully an hour went by before he returned.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Get in Ilo,&#8221; he bellowed\u2064 at the dumbstruck young woman standing on the curb. &#8220;I&#8217;d forgotten \u200babout you.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In 1933 \u200dWallace accepted\u2063 Franklin Roosevelt&#8217;s invitation to become the nation&#8217;s 11th secretary of agriculture, the same\u2064 job his father had filled, unhappily, under\u2064 Harding and\u200b Coolidge. At the time, one-fourth of all Americans\u2064 lived or\u200c worked on a \u2063farm. Long before Wall Street crashed, farmers struggled under debts and low prices brought\u200b on by World War I-era overinvestment and their own abundant harvests. Wallace&#8217;s solution, the Agricultural Adjustment Act, turned laws \u2064of supply\u2064 and demand on their head. The\u2063 Triple A paid\u2064 farmers to grow nothing on 10 million acres of the American bread basket. The same legislation authorized Wallace to slaughter \u2064six \u200bmillion hogs at taxpayer expense.<\/p>\n<p>Cue\u2062 the unintended consequences: Since Washington rewarded landowners who kept their fields fallow,\u200b no \u200bone suffered more than Southern tenant\u2064 farmers, a third of \u2064them descended from African \u200cslaves. When Eleanor Roosevelt protested \u2063the \u200dplight\u2064 of the sharecropper, Wallace the numbers cruncher alluded to &#8220;basic population facts&#8221; showing there were simply too many farmers. This\u200d was &#8220;most interesting,&#8221; said the first lady.\u2064 &#8220;Should we practice birth control \u200dor drown the surplus population?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It all became moot in January 1936, when\u200b the Supreme Court declared the Triple A \u2062unconstitutional. Wallace&#8217;s tenure at the Agriculture Department, \u200cwhich included \u2063soil conservation and reciprocal trade agreements to breech\u200b high tariff walls, marks him as \u2063a game-changing figure. But in Steil&#8217;s inverted pyramid of a narrative, Wallace&#8217;s contributions to the New Deal are\u2063 overshadowed\u200d by his devotion to and subsequent break \u2063with a Russian mystic, artist, and con man named Nicholas Roerich. Wallace&#8217;s embarrassing letters to Roerich, with their freakish\u2062 references to\u2063 FDR (&#8220;The Flaming One&#8221;)\u2064 and his federally funded pursuit of the fabled Central Asian\u2062 Eden\u200d of Shambhala, \u200cnearly got him booted from the 1940 Democratic ticket.<\/p>\n<p>Only Wallace&#8217;s\u200b willingness to lie about the so-called\u2064 guru \u2063letters (and Roosevelt&#8217;s threat to \u2062go public with the extramarital affair of his Republican opponent, Wendell Willkie) secured Wallace a \u200dspot on the inaugural platform in January 1941. The new vice\u2064 president, a confirmed teetotaler, shut down \u200dhis predecessor&#8217;s \u2064well-stocked bar and adjacent urinal.\u200b He fought a\u200d losing battle with Commerce Secretary Jesse &#8220;Jesus H&#8221; Jones for \u200ccontrol of\u2062 wartime economic policy. Wallace\u200c enjoyed \u2063greater success on the road, drawing rapturous crowds in Mexico and several Latin American nations \u2062where \u2062he championed FDR&#8217;s &#8220;Good Neighbor&#8221; policies.<\/p>\n<p>These travels scarcely \u2063prepared him for a month in Siberia, during which he was \u200bshepherded by NKVD security agents who stole his diary and persuaded him that prisoners playing the part of miners were so many Johnny Appleseeds in a snowy re-creation of America&#8217;s Western frontier.<\/p>\n<p>In Steil&#8217;s telling, Siberia becomes a metaphor for Wallace&#8217;s\u200b World That Wasn&#8217;t, a Potemkin Village blithely accepted by this idealist <i>with<\/i> illusions. Roosevelt, hoping\u2064 his controversial\u200b vice president might\u200c step aside voluntarily, confronted him with the\u2064 popular view of Wallace as a starry-eyed visionary &#8220;who wants\u200d to give a quart of milk to every Hottentot.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Wallace refused to take the hint. His reward was public humiliation at the\u2063 July\u2062 1944 convention that removed him from the \u200bline of succession. As a\u200b consolation prize Wallace received the \u2062Commerce \u2063Department formerly led by his archenemy Jesse Jones. The gut fighter Jones had his revenge, however, when the Senate, as the price of \u2063Wallace&#8217;s confirmation, removed \u2063the pivotal Reconstruction \u200cFinance Corporation\u200c from his oversight.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile there was a new president\u200c to contend with. &#8220;You never\u200c saw such pig-headed people as are the Russians,&#8221; Harry Truman wrote his mother in July 1945 following the conference at Potsdam that \u2062introduced him to &#8220;Uncle\u200d Joe&#8221;\u200b Stalin. \u2062Soon after, with Soviet troops on Iranian\u2064 soil, and Stalin demanding joint control of \u200cthe Turkish Straits \u200dand the Dardanelles, Truman dispatched an armada to the Mediterranean\u2062 and prepared to challenge the Soviets <i>nyet<\/i> \u2063 for <i>nyet<\/i> in\u2062 the\u2062 infant United Nations.<\/p>\n<p>Wallace was\u2064 indignant. Believing Soviet behavior\u200b driven by fears of &#8220;capitalist encirclement,&#8221; he thought Washington was obliged, in Steil&#8217;s words, to &#8220;demonstrate its peaceable intentions by offering generous\u2063 reconstruction aid and financing \u200dto cover\u200d imports.&#8221; In the \u200devent, the Russians stonewalled a Commerce Department trade mission. \u2063Influenced by his deputy Harry Magdoff, one of \u2064several \u2064Soviet operatives at Commerce under \u200bFBI surveillance, \u2064Wallace signed a 4,000-word Magdoff-drafted\u200d letter to the president in which he blamed the United States, its atomic stranglehold, and\u2063 robust military budget, for the breakdown in relations\u2063 with Moscow.<\/p>\n<p>Coming on top \u2063of a contentious\u200d Wallace speech at Madison Square Garden in September 1946, the letter left Truman little choice but \u2063to fire &#8220;the most peculiar \u2064fellow I ever came in contact with.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I intend to \u2064carry on the\u200b fight for peace,&#8221; said a defiant Wallace.<\/p>\n<p>His 1948\u200d campaign, initially fueled \u2062by opposition to the Truman Doctrine \u2062pledging\u2062 American support to \u200danti-Communist elements resisting Soviet expansionism, included denunciations of the Marshall Plan (&#8220;naked imperialism&#8221;) and praise for his Communist supporters as &#8220;the closest things to the early Christian martyrs.&#8221; Wallace rationalized Stalin&#8217;s brutal intervention in Czechoslovakia,\u2062 and\u200d the suspicious death\u200c of that country&#8217;s foreign minister Jan Masaryk, as a\u200b self-defensive response to rumors \u200cof a right-wing coup.<\/p>\n<p>Eager \u2064to meet with Stalin \u2062before the November election, Wallace had four secret meetings\u200c with\u2063 Andrey Gromyko, the Soviet U.N. ambassador, who duly \u2062cabled\u200d their conversations \u200dto Moscow. &#8220;I&#8217;d\u2063 sit down with the Russians,&#8221; Wallace explained in another\u2063 context, &#8220;and ask them what they mean \u200bby <i>free<\/i> elections. They would \u200bfind \u2064out what <i>we<\/i> mean. \u2026 And then we&#8217;d simply write \u2062down our agreement.&#8221; Stalin listed six questions he would be \u200bwilling to\u2062 discuss with Wallace. These \u200dincluded the withdrawal of U.S.\u200d forces from Europe and Asia, \u200can end\u200b to the Marshall Plan, and acceptance of a unified \u2063&#8221;Soviet-friendly&#8221; Germany.<\/p>\n<p>There would be no meeting\u2014only Wallace&#8217;s \u200bOpen\u200b Letter addressed to the Soviet leader and the blandly encouraging\u200b reply \u200dit elicited from the Kremlin. Credulous as \u2064he appeared, Wallace did not\u2062 lack\u200b for courage. His campaign forays into the segregated South \u200cunleashed a volley of\u200d eggs hurled\u200b at\u200d the candidate by crowds chanting &#8220;nigger lover&#8221; and &#8220;kill Wallace.&#8221; Wallace&#8217;s poll numbers followed him south, even as his candidacy insulated Truman\u200b against any soft-on-Communism charges from the Republican opposition.<\/p>\n<p>Nearing the end of\u200c his \u2062campaign, Wallace appeared increasingly detached\u2063 from reality.\u2063 The Progressive Party, he told cheering supporters, had \u2064&#8221;stopped\u200b the\u2063 cold war in\u200b its tracks.&#8221; On election night, as a weeping Ilo Wallace moaned, &#8220;He should never have \u2062done it!&#8221; her husband was handed a draft telegram of \u200cconcession to be sent to Truman, the upset victor. When it was pointed out that nowhere in this graceless document did he \u200cactually congratulate the winner, an unrepentant Wallace snapped, &#8220;Under no circumstances will I congratulate that son of a bitch.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Polling slightly over \u2062a million \u2064votes, Wallace&#8217;s\u200d Progressives finished fourth behind Strom Thurmond&#8217;s race-baiting Dixiecrats. \u200bThe former\u200c vice president withdrew from politics, preferring, \u2062he said, \u2062the company of &#8220;gladioli, \u200cstrawberries and chickens.&#8221; The Korean War caused the scales \u2064to fall from his eyes. \u200dSix weeks after Soviet-backed\u2062 North\u2064 Korean forces \u200binvaded the South in June 1950, Wallace \u200bresigned from the \u2064Progressive Party. He confessed to having misjudged Stalin&#8217;s desire for peace, and to being taken in on his ill-fated Siberian tour.<\/p>\n<p>In 1956 Wallace voted for Eisenhower&#8217;s reelection. Four \u2062years later, \u200beven as JFK lifted the title\u2062 of Wallace&#8217;s \u20631934 book <i>New Frontiers<\/i> for his \u2063campaign mantra, its author had another secret meeting\u2014with \u200dRichard Nixon. The <i>New York Times<\/i> \u200ddescribed\u2062 Wallace \u200cas &#8220;the most forgotten of forgotten men.&#8221; He certainly is no longer. \u200cAs recently as \u200c2020 John\u200c Nichols \u2062drew a line from Wallace to such latter-day \u200cProgressives\u200c as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Clearly the last\u2063 words have yet to be written on\u200c Henry Wallace. But Benn Steil \u200bcomes closer than anyone before him to unraveling the enigma of this visionary \u2064hybrid of feeling \u200cand fact, who would always be \u200cbetter with plants than people.<\/p>\n<p><i>Richard Norton\u200b Smith is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and author, most recently, of \u200d <\/i>An\u200b Ordinary Man: The Surprising Life and Historic\u2064 Presidency of Gerald R. Ford <i>(Harper).<\/i><\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n<h2> How did Henry Wallace&#8217;s radical views, such as nationalization of industries and the establishment of a socialist society, impact the course of American history?<\/h2>\n<p><span>  Y. His speeches became \u2063more radical,\u200d calling for the nationalization of key industries, the abolition of the capitalist system, and\u2064 the establishment of a socialist society. He continued\u2062 to defend Stalin and the \u2063Soviet Union, despite \u2064mounting evidence of their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/netanyahu-looms-over-israeli-presidents-speech-to-congress-amid-democratic-split\/\" title=\"Netanyahu overshadows Israeli president's Congress speech amidst Democratic divide.\">human rights\u2062 abuses<\/a> and \u200dexpansionist agenda.<\/p>\n<p>The American people\u2064 rejected Wallace&#8217;s extreme views and his \u2063campaign ended in defeat. He faded into\u200b obscurity, leaving behind a legacy of unfulfilled promises and misguided idealism. But Steil reminds us that Wallace&#8217;s \u2063ideas and visions, however flawed, had a profound impact on the course of American history.<\/p>\n<p>Wallace&#8217;s advocacy for the common man, his embrace of progressive policies,\u200b and his willingness to challenge the\u200b status quo set the stage for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/question-for-leftists-why-do-you-want-to-rob-black-slaves-of-their-rich-history\/\" title=\"Question to Leftists: Why do you seek to erase the rich history of black slaves?\">civil \u200brights movement<\/a>, the\u2063 feminist movement, and the fight against income inequality. His belief in international cooperation\u2063 and his rejection of militarism laid the groundwork for the United Nations and the postwar peace movement.<\/p>\n<p>While his\u2063 vision of a\u200c utopian world may have been unrealistic, \u2064Henry Wallace&#8217;s passion and commitment to social justice continue to \u2063inspire generations\u200d of activists and politicians. Steil&#8217;s biography is a\u2062 reminder that even in the face of opposition and ridicule, visionary leaders like\u200d Wallace can shape the course of history. It also serves as a cautionary\u200c tale, reminding us of the dangers of idealism without practicality \u2064and the need \u200dfor sound judgment in our leaders.<\/p>\n<p>As we navigate the challenges of the 21st century, the lessons of\u2063 Henry Wallace and \u2062the fate of the American century are more relevant than ever. We must strive for a balance between idealism and realism, between\u200b progress and practicality. Only then can we create a world that embodies the values of justice, equality, and peace that Wallace held dear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Henry Agard Wallace (1888-1965) made a lasting impact on the &#8220;Century of the Common Man.&#8221; He excelled as a plant geneticist, entrepreneur, spiritualist, author, magazine editor, and influential secretary of agriculture under Franklin Roosevelt. As Roosevelt&#8217;s second vice president, Wallace fearlessly spoke out against segregation and voiced his criticisms openly. He was a dedicated politician of strong convictions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2726,"featured_media":2154895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[544],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2154894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-free-beacon"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2154894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2154894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2154894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2154895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2154894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2154894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2154894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}