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I think we need to understand that largely in the context of the shift overall in American politics in the 1930s. The most important force of course was the Labor movement. You've got the AFL moving to the left and you've got the rise of the CIO, which was now organizing industrial America. That undergirds, that's the backbone of the Democratic party in the 1930s.
We see that influence of the Labor movement, especially in the 1936 election in which the Democrats sweep the election across the country. The New York Times declares that the Republican right is dead and they never rise again. Unfortunately, they were wrong in that one. It was a clear victory for liberal, left, progressive forces.
We see that same kind of change occurring with the African-American movement, with American intellectuals. I wrote a book, for example, about the shift in American scientists in the 1930s, how the scientists begin the decade as perhaps the most conservative force in American politics and they end up the decade as the most left wing force in American politics.
In the December 1938 election for president of the triple AS, the largest scientific body in the United States, all five leading vote getters were proponents of the Science and Society movement and the president of the triple AS, Walter Cannon was not only a socialist but he was very pro-Soviet in the 1930, Harvard physiologist. That kind of shift is taking place across the country in the 1930s. Roosevelt rode that wave and Henry Wallace was his secretary of agriculture in the first two terms of the New Deal.
PAUL JAY: Peter, before we continue with the story, let me suggest the framing at least the way I look at this. I don't know if you agree. The Democratic party and the Republican party as well, but the Democratic party more so, it's an alliance of different classes. It's not just a dispute or fight over ideology, that some people believe in progressive values and some people believe in conservative values.
There's a class alliance here between sections of the elites, which include sections of the oligarchy at the time in the '20s or '30s and going forward, sections of the working class, especially starting in the '30s, represented by the trade unions. There's a convergence of interest and also a battle that takes place within the party between these class forces that gets represented through progressive ideas or conservative ideas.
The elites have always, with perhaps a few exceptional moments, really been dominant even if there's been some breakthroughs. Even during Roosevelt's time while he proposes a progressive policies he clearly does it to save capitalism. I'm not suggesting that it would have been better to have some other kind of onerous policy. The New Deal was better for people. He wasn't a left winger looking to be anti-capitalist. Still represented the section of the elites.
PETER KUZNICK: Yes, I agree with you. Roosevelt was a pragmatic politician. The Democratic party was a coalition of progressive forces and reactionary forces. You have to remember that the Democratic party's strength during that time was in the south. The southern Democrats had the most seniority and they controlled the key positions in the legislature. Roosevelt was always walking this tightrope w here he had to placate and try to slowly bring along the southern Democrats, by '68, they move to become Republicans but between '32 and '68 they're very much part of the Democratic coalition.
PAUL JAY: And they're thoroughly racist, yes?
PETER KUZNICK: Strongly racist. Support aspects of the New Deal but they even tweak the New Deal in ways to make sure that Blacks are not going to get equal benefits with whites in the south. It's always a struggle for the soul of the Democratic party.
Roosevelt was more pragmatic than he was ideological and progressive. His wife, Eleanor was much more progressive and always pushing him to the left on these policies, much more sympathetic to the civil rights movement and was a big supporter of course of Henry Wallace's. Wallace, as representing a wing of the party that was the opposite of the southern reactionary Democrats.
We also have during this time the rise of fascism. Roosevelt supported the neutrality during the late 1930s, which stopped the United States from supporting the Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War. Roosevelt later said it was a terrible mistake but if we had intervened to support the progressives in the Spanish Civil War against Franco and Mussolini and backed by Hitler, we could have perhaps preempted a lot of the terrible things that are going to happen in the 1930s and 1940s. The Soviets would not have been the only force supporting the left in Spain perhaps in the 1930s. You had Churchill, for example, supporting Franco and the fascists. Roosevelt had maintained this neutrality.
When he was looking to run again in 1940 he knew the United States was inching toward war with Nazi Germany and perhaps Japan. He wanted a leading progressive on the ticket. The most outspoken anti-fascist in the New Deal coalition in the '30s was Henry Wallace. Wallace was a real internationalist. He caused a rebound in the agricultural economy. Farmers were quite progressive during the 1930s to go along with labor.
Wallace had a strong constituency but the party bosses who had enormous influence in the party during this period, the party bosses opposed Wallace. Why did they oppose him? Partly because he was much too progressive for the party bosses who came out of the big urban machines in large part and partly because he had never been a Democrat. His father had been Secretary of Agriculture under Harding and Coolidge.
PAUL JAY: Wallace himself was a Republican to begin with, wasn't he?
PETER KUZNICK: He didn't change his party affiliation until the mid '30s. The party bosses didn't trust him for that but they also thought he was potentially much too radical, much too outspoken and the party bosses, the Walkers and the Haigs and Kelly and these people, were much more conservative.
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