John C. Culver and John Hyde, American Dreamer: The Life and Times of Henry A. Wallace (New York: W.W. Norton, 2000), 608 pp., $35
It was on the day of July 11, 1944 that FDR finally decided to accept the urging of his advisers and dump his vice president. Henry A. Wallace had turned out to be politically incorrect, caught up in his dreams of a better world for the "common man." Perhaps out of affection and respect, FDR would delay informing him of the decision. At the Democratic convention, held in Chicago less than two weeks later, party leaders were stunned when the stadium thundered with the deafening chant, "We want Wallace!" The convention was veering out of control, and party officials feared that if a vote were taken immediately Wallace would be nominated and the plan to replace him with Senator Harry S Truman frustrated. With much jockeying the following day, Truman picked up winning votes on the third ballot and made a short, humble acceptance speech, while behind the scenes Wallace graciously bowed out of the administration.
A month later Wallace met with the President and was asked not to leave Washington since his services would still be needed. Wallace wrote in his diary that Roosevelt told him that he was "four or six" years ahead of his time and that the causes he advocated would "inevitably come." Four years later, the ideals Wallace embraced did indeed stir the nation's imagination when he ran for president as the leader of the new Progressive Citizens of America. The far-reaching Progressive platform of 1948 reads like a harbinger of Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society." It called for
