Quotes
“To you, the delegates of this convention, I express my gratitude for the selection of Henry Wallace for the high office of Vice President of the United States. His first-hand knowledge of the problems of Government in every sphere of life and in every single part of the nation and indeed in the whole world, qualifies him without reservation. His practical idealism will be of great service to me individually and to the nation as a whole.”
– Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1940 Democratic National Convention
“The fact is that the directing of this country does not at present belong to the people, but to a relative handful of wealthy men. The foundation of the government, as presently constituted, is not the general welfare, but the special privilege of industrial and financial giants.”
— Henry A. Wallace, “Stand Up and Be Counted,” New Republic, 1948
“[A]n American fascist … puts money and power ahead of human beings … With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.
The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity … They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.”
— Henry A. Wallace, “The Danger of American Fascism,” New York Times, 1944
“[An] emphasis on unfettered individualism results in exploitation of natural resources in a manner to destroy the physical foundations of national longevity.”
— Henry A. Wallace, “Whose Constitution: An Inquiry into the General Welfare,” 1936
“[N]o private industry should have the right to bid unfairly for private profit against government and public necessity.”
–– Henry A. Wallace, speech delivered before a meeting sponsored by the Independent Voters Committee of the Arts and Sciences for Roosevelt in New York City, 1944
“Our greatest weaknesses as a progressive democracy are racial segregation, racial discrimination, racial prejudice and racial fear… The real purpose of maintaining Jim Crow … is not hatred of the Negro so much as it is the desire to prevent the expression of progressive sentiment by the underprivileged.”
— Henry A. Wallace, “Violence and Hope in the South,” New Republic, 1947
“One cannot abolish the ideas of terror and secret police by the use of terror and secret police.”
— Henry A. Wallace, “A Bad Case of Fever,” New Republic, 1947
“I see America as a vigilant watcher and perpetual guardian of the ramparts of the future. This future has one essential — the continuous rebirth of liberalism … The more potential voters who register and vote, the more democracy. And I am firm in the belief that the more voters we have the more liberalism we shall enjoy, and therefore the greater hope for America and for the world.”
— Henry A. Wallace, Madison Square Garden, 1944
“Four years and four days ago, as Vice President of the United States and head of the Iowa delegation to the Democratic convention, I rose to second the nomination of Franklin Roosevelt, and said: ‘The future belongs to those who go down the line unswervingly for the liberal principles of both political democracy and economic democracy regardless of race, color or religion…
I am committed to the policy of placing human rights above property rights.
I am committed to using the power of our democracy to control rigorously and, wherever necessary, to remove from private to public hands, the power of huge corporate monopolies and international big business.
I am committed to using the power and prestige of the United States to help the peoples of the world, not their exploiters and rulers;
I am committed and do renounce the support of those who practice hate and preach prejudice; of those who would limit the civil rights of others; of those who would restrict the use of the Ballot.”
— Henry A. Wallace, Progressive Party Candidate for President of the United States Acceptance Speech, 1948
“The march of freedom over the past 150 years has been a long, drawn-out people’s revolution … The people’s revolution is on the march … We who fight in the people’s cause will not stop until that cause is won!”
— Henry A. Wallace, “Century of the Common Man” speech, 1942