Interestingly, McGovern was a supporter of Henry Walace and a delegate to the 1948 Progressive Party convention,
>From the LA Review of Books review of Thomas Knock's biography of McGovern: After receiving his degree from Dakota Wesleyan College after the war, McGovern tried his hand at his father’s work as a student pastor in Illinois. But he soon decided it was not for him. Instead he entered the graduate history program at Northwestern University, where he wrote a 470-page dissertation on the “Colorado Coal Strike,” the 1913–1914 struggle between the United Mine Workers and John D. Rockefeller’s Colorado Fuel and Iron company — ever after remembered for the “Ludlow Massacre,” in which wives and children of miners died in tents set afire by the Colorado state militia. Knock writes that this publication, was (for many years) the definitive work on the single most deadly labor conflict in the history of the United States, and a pioneering contribution to the field of labor history, which then was in its adolescence. But academia, too, lost its hold on McGovern with the presidential campaign of Henry Wallace, a man who, Knock writes, “bounded almost literally out of the cornfields of Iowa to become the greatest secretary of agriculture in American history.” The historical resuscitation of Wallace’s career is one of the great virtues in this book. [snip] McGovern became an enthusiastic Wallace supporter due to what he considered Truman’s “aggressive anti-Soviet policy, which seemed very dangerous, threatening war.” He was also no fan of Truman’s proto-McCarthyite federal loyalty program. Equally important was Wallace’s ground-breaking work in the Agriculture Department and McGovern’s developing belief in the crucial role the American farmer might play in a foreign policy that built American prestige by feeding poor nations around the world. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/reclaiming-mcgovern-legacy-left/ from McGovern's wikipedia entry: Nominally a Republican growing up, McGovern began to admire Democratic president Franklin Delano Roosevelt ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Delano_Roosevelt ) during World War II, even though he supported Roosevelt's opponent Thomas Dewey ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Dewey ) in the 1944 presidential election ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_U.S._presidential_election ). [73] ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_McGovern#cite_note-white-1972-40-77 ) [74] ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_McGovern#cite_note-Knock,_p._122-78 ) [nb 5] ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_McGovern#cite_note-80 ) At Northwestern, his exposure to the work of China scholars John King Fairbank ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_King_Fairbank ) and Owen Lattimore ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Lattimore ) had convinced him that unrest in Southeast Asia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeast_Asia ) was homegrown and that U.S. foreign policy toward Asia was counterproductive. [16] ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_McGovern#cite_note-mann-292-18 ) Discouraged by the onset of the Cold War ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_the_Cold_War ) , and never thinking well of incumbent president Harry S. Truman ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman ) , in the 1948 presidential election ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_U.S._presidential_election ) McGovern was attracted to the campaign of former vice president and secretary of agriculture Henry A. Wallace ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_A._Wallace ). [76] ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_McGovern#cite_note-anson-58-81 ) [77] ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_McGovern#cite_note-82 ) He wrote columns supporting Wallace in the Mitchell Daily Republic ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Daily_Republic ) and attended the Wallace Progressive Party ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Party_(United_States,_1948) ) 's first national convention as a delegate ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegate_(American_politics) ). [78] ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_McGovern#cite_note-83 ) There he became disturbed by aspects of the convention atmosphere, decades later referring to "a certain rigidity and fanaticism on the part of a few of the strategists." [79] ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_McGovern#cite_note-84 ) But he remained a public supporter of Wallace and the Progressive Party afterward. [74] ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_McGovern#cite_note-Knock,_p._122-78 ) As Wallace was kept off the ballot in Illinois where McGovern was now registered, McGovern did not vote in the general election. [80] ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_McGovern#cite_note-85 ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_McGovern -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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