The Progressive Party Campaign of 1948

    On December 29, 1947, Henry A. Wallace announced his presidential bid as the candidate of the Progressive Party. 


   "Thousands of people all over the United States have asked me to engage in this great fight. The people are on the march. We have assembled a Gideon's Army, small in number, powerful in conviction, ready for action. We have said with Gideon, 'Let those who are fearful and trembling depart.' For every fearful one who leaves, there will be a thousand to take his place. A just cause is worth a hundred armies. We face the future unfettered, unfettered by any principle but the general welfare. We owe no allegiance to any group which doe not serve that welfare. By God's grace, the people's peace will usher in the century of the common man. 
   When the old parties rot, the people have a right to be heard through a new party. They asserted that when the Democratic party was founded under Jefferson in the struggle against the Federalist party of war and privilege of his day. They won it again when the 
Republican party was organized in Lincoln's time.  The people must again have an opportunity to speak out with their vote in 1948. 
   The lukewarm liberals sitting on two chairs say,'Why throw away your vote?' I say a vote for a new party in 1948 will be the most valuable vote you have ever cast or ever will cast.
  The bigger the peace vote in 1948, the more definitely the world will know that the United States is not behind the bipartisan reactionary war policy which is dividing the world into two armed camp and making inevitable the day when American soldiers will be lying in their arctic suits in the Russian snow. 
 Let us stop saying, 'I don't like it, but I am going to vote for the lesser of two evils.'
   Rather than accept either evil, come out boldly, stand upright like men and say loudly so all the world can hear ---- 'We are voting peace, and security for ourselves and our children's children. We are fighting to end racial discrimination. We are fighting for lower prices. We are fighting for free labor unions, for jobs, and for homes in which we can decently live."

   Wallace next addressed the Marshall Plan, then the ideological dividing line for liberals. Noting his steadfast support for humanitarian assistance to Europe, he added, "I have fought and shall continue to fight programs which give guns to people when they want plows." By acting outside the purview of the UN, the United States resembled "France and England after the last war and the end result will be the same ---confusion, depression and war." 
   To those who called Wallace a pawn of "the communist line," he responded, "I am utterly against any kind of imperialism or expansionism whether sponsored by Britain, Russia, or the United States, and I call upon Russia as well as the United States to look at all our differences objectively and free from that prejudice which hatemongers have engendered on both sides."