ELECTION #39, 1940. The NASTY-METER is 6.

QUOTE from FDR on January 4, 1939 in a message to Congress: "Once I prophesied that this generation of Americans had a rendezvous with destiny. That prophecy now comes true. To us much is given; more is expected. This generation will nobly save or mainly lose the last best hope of earth. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just."

The CANDIDATES in 1940: FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT.

Would he or wouldn't he? That was the question about FDR running for a third term which no other president had ever done. In 1940, with Hitler running over Europe and the Japanese threatening in the Pacific Roosevelt began to think that perhaps his country still needed him. He had indicated that he didn't want to run for a third term but deep down he knew he wanted to. So in July, 1940, he sent his top aide to the Democratic Convention in Chicago with a private message to the Democratic bosses that he would accept the nomination, but only if he won on the first ballot and only if he won by more than 150 votes. The next night, the convention chairman read the message to the delegates, and they reacted with an uproarious, deafening demonstration in favor of Roosevelt. The next night FDR was renominated on the first ballot and won by more than 150 votes. He chose Henry Wallace, an Iowan and former Secretary of Agriculture as his VP.
Roosevelt is probably the only president who could get away with running for a third term, short of George Washington. He was still very popular - a dazzling human figure whose "fireside chats" reached more than sixty million listeners and whose New deal programs had begun to revive the economy.

REPUBLICAN: WENDELL WILLKIE.

Willkie was a forty-eight-year-old utilities executive who, until 1939, had been a Democrat and even a delegate to the 1932 Democratic Convention. He was a maverick politician and had many supporters who loved his aggressive style. He was tall, folksy, and charismatic. Taking his grass-roots organization to the Republican Convention in June of 1940 he beat out the experienced Republicans like Thomas Dewey, N.Y. District Attorney, and Senator Robert Taft of Ohio, the son of the twenty-seventh president.

The CAMPAIGN in 1940.

Willkie took off on a 19,000 mile campaign tour and gave more than 500 speeches in fifty-one days. He attacked Roosevelt for being a "third-term" candidate. He spread the word that a vote for FDR meant a vote for war and an FDR victory meant "wooden crosses for sons and brothers and sweethearts." He said "Bring on the Champ" when demanding FDR debate him - but it was to no avail as Roosevelt knew better than to do that.

Roosevelt and the Democratic Machine retaliated by calling Willkie "the simple, barefoot, Wall Street lawyer" whose utility company had used spies to bust up labor unions. FDR also attacked Willkie's isolationist stand and told reporters that "anyone who is pro-Hitler in this country is also pro-Willkie."

Willkie campaigned so hard that he was losing his voice and had to be accompanied by a doctor. With his hard campaigning the race tightened up in the last couple of weeks and a couple of polls indicated that Willkie was actually ahead. FDR, sensing the danger, gave five fiery speeches in the last week, telling aides that Willie "didn't know he was up against a buzzsaw."

The WINNER: FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT.

Roosevelt got 27,307,819 popular and 449 electoral.

Willkie got 22,321,018 popular and 82 electoral.

It was a substantial win for Roosevelt but not quite as good as his other two victories.

Below are two untold secrets of this 1940 campaign - they are very interesting:

First, the Republicans had evidence that Rossevelt's VP candidate Henry Wallace was writing weird and coded letters to a Russian mystic named Nicholas Roerich. I read a couple of these and they were coded and weird. Wallace had a dreamy, spiritual side and these letters proved it. The Republican bigwigs told the Democratic bigwigs that they had copies of these letters and they threatened to release them so the American people could see that Wallace was a real lunatic. They were never released because Willkie said "no - we will not release them."

Second was the Democratic secret about Willkie. There was a good reason that Willkie did not release the weird letters of Wallace. Willkie knew the Democrats had evidence that he had a "mistress" in New York City. Her name was Irita Van Doren, a writer and editor. Roosevelt suggested that maybe the voters might be interested to learn about Willkie's girlfriend.

But the voters never heard about Wallace's weird letters to the Russian mystic nor did they hear about Willkie's girlfriend. There is no knowledge of direct communications between Roosevelt and Willkie, but it's only natural to suspect that some agreement was worked out. (I can assure you that if this happened in recent elections it would be front page news. The media isn't very forgiving these days.)