The 1940 presidential election was a remarkable chapter in American political history. To challenge formidable President Franklin Roosevelt, the Republican Party nominated dark horse, Wendell L. Wilkie, a lawyer and corporate president with no experience in government and next to none in campaigns and elections. Though largely forgotten, the candidate measured up when it counted—in an era of growing crises.
A lifelong Democrat, Wilkie registered as a Republican only weeks before the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. The convention was the first to be televised and President Roosevelt was the first and only U.S. president elected to a third term. Wilkie, himself, was the first inexperienced candidate until the election of Donald Trump in 2016.
The candidate was a unique public figure. The native of Elwood, Indiana was a precocious student who graduated with highest honors from both Elwood High School and Indiana University Law School. Wilkie became a voracious reader and a deep thinker. His biographer, Steve Neal, described him as “...a man of compelling energy and driving force.”
From private law practice and from Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., Wilkie joined and later became President of Commonwealth and Southern Corporation (C&S), in New York. Commonwealth was a huge holding company of private corporations engaged in the generation and distribution of electric power.
Roosevelt’s New Deal included the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a federal agency intent upon transmitting electric power to rural America. For example, only 1 in 35 Georgia farms was electrified. Wilkie and C&S became adamantly opposed to TVA.
Moreover, with war erupting in Europe, Wilkie had become convinced that America’s involvement in the defense of England was inevitable. His multiple articles in leading magazines and his numerous public speeches caught the attention of moderate Republicans looking for a presidential candidate.
Drawing upon his spreading publicity, the Wilkie bandwagon gained steam. A cooperative effort of businessmen, organized politicians, advertising executives— even amateurs— catapulted their man to fame. They portrayed Wilkie as a dynamic freeenterpriser who helped reduce the depression’s impact; as a friendly hard-working, smalltown boy of the Horatio Alger type.
Going into the Republican National Convention Wilkie was a long shot at best. However, his handlers proved skillful in working their candidate on the convention floor. Also, the fall of France that summer is believed to have severely weakened Wilkie’s isolationist opponents. Wilkie won on the sixth ballot.
He delivered his acceptance speech on August 17, 1940, before a hometown crowd estimated at 250,000 people. The event marked a high point in the campaign.
The difficult campaign that followed still focused heavily upon the issue of America’s involvement in the war in Europe. Of equal gravity was widespread resistance to Roosevelt’s unprecedented third term. Wilkie’s inexperience soon surfaced. He lost his voice at one point, and he had trouble coordinating a national campaign. Though a dauntless campaigner, he lost the election by 5 million votes.
Wilkie was no sore loser. Instead, he grew in stature. He became an international personage as President Roosevelt’s special envoy to England, Russia and the Far East. After traveling 31,000 miles he returned to the United States and in 1943 published the book, One World. It became an immediate best seller. Critics maintained it was the most important book published during World War II.
Wendell L. Wilkie suffered an untimely death October 8, 1944 at the age of 52. The New York Times devoted its entire front page to his obituary.
Sources: The Improbable Wendell Wilkie, David L. Lewis, 2018, W.W. Norton, New York, NY10110; Dark Horse, A Biography of Wendell Wilkie, Steve Neal, 1984, Doubleday & Company, Garden City,New York; “Wendell Lewis Wilkie,”https://www.repository. law.indiana.ed u/notablealumni/9/ (2016).
