Childhood | Youth | WW I | Law | New Deal | Convention | Campaign | Loyal Opposition | World Tour | One World | Legacy
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Childhood | Youth | WW I | Law | New Deal | Convention | Campaign | Loyal Opposition | World Tour | One World | Legacy |
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Wendell L. Willkie's rapid rise to national and international prominence in the 1930s and early 1940s was truly phenomenal, and his impact on American politics and international relations can still be felt today. Yet this remarkable man is usually only remembered as the 1940 Republican presidential candidate who lost to Franklin D. Roosevelt by nearly 5 million votes. But it is an injustice to reduce Willkie's fascinating life to a mere historical footnote forever associated with FDR. Indeed, many of Willkie's most enduring accomplishments took place after the 1940 election, in the four years before his untimely death in 1944 at the relatively young age of 52.
Use this website to explore Willkie's life by first reading the brief biography on this page. Use the blue frame on the left to view pages describing the life of this political dark horse who captured the deadlocked 1940 GOP convention. (No frame? Click here.) For further information on Wendell Willkie, please consult the sources listed in this bibliography. Other pages of interest on this site include a brief chronology of Willkie's life, selected photographs relating to Willkie's life and political career, and selected sound clips from Willkie's speeches. Little-known or otherwise interesting facts about Willkie not mentioned elsewhere on this site are on a trivia page.
| Wendell Lewis Willkie | TOP |
Wendell Lewis Willkie was born in 1892 into a prominent, but not prosperous, family in the central Indiana town of Elwood. Both his parents were attorneys; his mother was one of the first women to practice law in Indiana. After graduating from Indiana University, Willkie briefly practiced law in his parents' law firm until 1917, when he joined the U.S. Army to fight in World War I.
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Following the war, Willkie moved to Akron, Ohio, where he briefly worked for the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company before joining a private law practice. Willkie's considerable courtroom skills enhanced his reputation in the Akron legal community, and this precipitated his rise in the city's social ranks and in the local Democratic Party. It was in Akron that Willkie became aware that he had a gift for public speaking, a skill he would use later to achieve national prominence.
New Deal CriticWillkie moved to New York City in 1929, where was legal counsel to the Commonwealth & Southern Corporation, the nation's largest electric utility holding company. Holding companies such as the C & S were essentially parent companies of several smaller subsidiaries. This arrangement, new at the time, allowed a small number of shareholders to control a large number of companies, and in the utility business, this meant unprecedented control over energy sources. FDR thought the government should control the energy business, and so he established the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), his most ambitious New Deal project. Certainly, the TVA was a flood-control program, but equally important to FDR, it was also a way to reduce the control that private companies had over the electrification of the Tennessee River Valley. Willkie gained national attention in the mid to late 1930s when, as president of C & S, he battled the TVA in highly public forums, most notably when testifying before congressional committees.
Willkie's opposition to the TVA endeared him to the many Americans who were uncomfortable with the revolutionary reforms contained in FDR's New Deal legislation. In 1939, Willkie switched parties and registered as a Republican when it became obvious that he might ride anti-New Deal sentiment into the White House. In 1940, volunteers established hundreds of Willkie Clubs around the country in an unprecedented grass-roots effort to raise the profile of their choice for president. Willkie was also favored by many editors and writers at national magazines and newspapers. However, as a newly declared Republican who had never before held public office, Willkie faced strong opposition within the GOP for that party's presidential nomination.
| Dark Horse Candidate | TOP |
When delegates and party leaders gathered in June for their convention in Philadelphia, however, they found themselves deadlocked: None of the leading candidates could win enough delegates to win the nomination. Although Willkie arrived at the convention with the fewest number of delegates (he hadn't entered any primaries), his supporters slowly and steadily won the nomination for him by convincing enough delegates that he was the best compromise candidate. Willkie's victory on the sixth ballot was dubbed "The Miracle at Philadelphia." Willkie's running mate was Sen. Charles L. McNary of Oregon, who was chosen to give the ticket more appeal to voters in the western states.
Soon after the convention, however, it became clear that Republican leaders and rank and file party workers were not going to work very hard for Willkie, who they distrusted in large part because he was so recently a Democrat. Although Willkie waged a vigorous campaign against FDR, he was distracted on numerous occasions by skirmishes with GOP leaders. This, combined with the reluctance of many voters to change leaders while America was on the verge of entering the war in Europe, were two major reasons for Willkie's defeat in November. Although Willkie received more votes than any previous GOP candidate had ever managed to get, he carried only ten states, including his home state of Indiana.
| Statesman | TOP |
Willkie's lasting service to the nation, however, came after his defeat, and after America's entry into World War II. Almost immediately after the election, Willkie made it clear to Roosevelt that he would support the administration's war efforts, and Willkie became an outspoken opponent of Democratic and Republican leaders who wanted to return America to its pre-World War II isolationism.
In August 1942, FDR asked Willkie to make an airplane flight around the world as his special envoy to show the world that although America was engaged in a vigorous political debate at home, she was united in her desire to combat fascism throughout the world. What better way to do so, Willkie and FDR reasoned, than to have the President's political opponent make a goodwill tour of America's allies. Willkie's 50-day trip included stops at battle zones in Africa, the Soviet Union and China, which he reported on in a radio speech to the nation soon after he returned and in a best-selling book, One World, published in 1943. This highly influential book made a convincing plea for post-war international cooperation and solidified Willkie's role as a major force in American politics.
Willkie also devoted much of his energy during this period promoting civil rights and civil liberties. A consistent theme of One World and Willkie's later writings was the idea that America wouldn't be able to oppose colonialism in the post-war period until she first ended her own colonial attitudes toward her racial minorities, and in particular black Americans. And in late 1942, Willkie went before the Supreme Court to defended a member of the Communist Party in a landmark case regarding civil liberties (Schneiderman v. United States). Willkie won the case, but lost much political support for having defended a communist. In this regard, Willkie said: "Those who rejoice in denying justice to one they hate, pave the way to a denial of justice for someone they love."
Wendell L. Willkie died in October 1944, just a year and a half after the publication of One World and shortly after a failed attempt to capture the 1944 GOP presidential nomination. A thought Willkie expressed in a letter to a friend shortly before he died captures much of what the man stood for. Willkie wrote, "If I could write my own epitaph and if I had to choose between saying, 'Here lies an unimportant President,' or 'Here lies one who contributed to saving freedom at a moment of great peril,' I would prefer the latter." An examination of Willkie's life reveals that he did indeed contribute greatly to saving freedom, both in the United States and around the world.
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Willkie campaign button courtesy of Stephen Cresswell  Not your average disclaimer |