Henry Schricker was born in North Judson, Indiana in 1883. After high school, he took some college classes in bookkeeping and worked at his parents grocery store for several years. At some point, he decided to become a lawyer, went to work at the Starke County clerk’s office, and studied law on the side (back when you could still do such things.) By 1908, he became the owner, publisher, and editor of the Starke County Democrat. He ran unsuccessfully for the state Senate in 1924 but ran again in 1932 and won. He successfully promoted a bill to create a circuit court in Starke County, helped create a state tenure system for teachers, and helped create a pension system for firefighters. In 1936, McNutt arranged to have Schricker nominated as the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor under Clifford Townsend. An upside to this change of position was that one of his duties as lieutenant governor was to be head of the state’s agricultural department. This meant he was able to absent himself from Indianapolis when the Democratic factions were fighting amongst themselves as FDR, McNutt, and Van Nuys worked out their disagreements. Meanwhile, he was traveling the state, meeting people, and gaining their support for his future run for governor.
Election of 1940
By the election of 1940, the era of Democratic dominance was coming to an end. Hoosiers were becoming dissatisfied with the welfare initiatives of the 1930s. Unemployment remained stubbornly high. War was breaking out in Europe. The mid-terms of 1938 had given Republicans hope after a long period in the political wilderness. The election of 1940 looked to be an opportunity for the GOP.
One major item that remained mysterious until relatively late in the game was FDR’s intentions with respect to the Presidency. He was completing his second term. At the time, there was no prohibition against running for a third, but there was 150 years of tradition against doing so. Locally, Paul McNutt was very interested in the question. He was an ambitious man and felt the Presidency was a possibility. Technically, McNutt wasn’t local at the time — he was commissioner in the Philippines, but his close ally, Frank McHale of Logansport was keeping an eye on the domestic situation while McNutt was overseas. (One thing that keeps coming up in the sources that I don’t think I’ve mentioned earlier is that McNutt was apparently very handsome. With round face, smooth skin that seemed perpetually tanned, silver hair that imparted wisdom more than age (he would be forty-eight in 1940), McNutt had striking good looks. Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes called him “one of the handsomest men I have ever seen … .”) On the other hand, he had his detractors — not least among those who also had their eye on the Presidency. His barely concealed ambition, his record of consolidating executive power in Indiana, and the naked greed of the “two percent club,” had some calling him the “Hoosier Hitler.” Roosevelt, for his part, supported everyone and no one and made his own intentions unclear until the day of his nomination — effectively neutralizing potential opponents while not letting anti-third term sentiment gain momentum until it was too late.
As McNutt faded, the fortunes of McNutt’s former classmate, Wendell Wilkie, rose. He was born and raised a Hoosier, but his adulthood and the logic of his candidacy were outside of Indiana.
One could question whether or not Wendell L. Willkie deserved to be classified as from Indiana. His roots were there: raised in Elwood, he married a girl from Rushville; education from bottom to top came from state schools, culminating with a bachelor’s degree and then a law degree from Indiana University. Then he left: to teach briefly in Kansas, to spend several years in Ohio, and finally to serve as a corporation attorney in New York. His appearance in politics had more to do with New York and big business than with farms in Rush County or anything commonly identified with Indiana. As president of Commonwealth and Southern, a large utilities firm, Willkie was engaged during the mid-1930s in a hard struggle with the Tennessee Valley Authority, which sought to absorb part of his company’s property. While he had to sell in the end, he extracted so large a price that some people proclaimed him a winner; and in the process he established himself as a vigorous fighter, an eloquent and perceptive defender of private enterprise, and a generally gracious contestant. By arousing the interest of “movers” within the Republican party and by sparking his own thoughts about changing careers, Willkie’s quarrel with TVA became the avenue for his entry into politics.
His background as a non-politician and his trademark unkempt appearance allowed him to present himself as a man of the people despite his professional background. Wilkie was a dark horse who was able to gain traction among Republicans because of the lack of strong leaders in the party. (FDR had been so dominant, he arguably prevented the rise of strong leaders in both parties). Thomas Dewey was young and somewhat inconsistent on major issues such as whether to be an isolationist or not with respect to the troubles in Europe. Robert Taft was cold, conservative, and isolationist. Wilkie came bursting forth out of the pack with some shrewd media appearances arranged by his eastern handlers and with the freshness born of someone outside the normal political circles and with nothing really to lose. He was able to be for New Deal problems and against its bureaucratic, centralizing tendencies. He was an enthusiastic internationalist, willing to do everything but go to war with Germany. One non-trivial problem he had with rank and file Republicans was that, until maybe a year or two earlier, he’d been a Democrat. Nevertheless, the soft support for establishment candidates combined with an enthusiasm for Wilkie from the galleries led to a “revolution” in the party with Wilkie’s nomination.
Not long after, FDR was nominated in Chicago. McNutt hoped to be chosen as the Vice-Presidential nominee, but FDR had other plans. He chose secretary of agriculture Henry Wallace in a manner that was perceived as rather heavy handed. Wallace was not a popular choice in part because he had been a Republican before entering the Roosevelt administration.
Wilkie made efforts to present himself as a Hoosier rather than a New Yorker. For example, he kicked off his campaign in Elwood, Indiana. (The town apparently had some trouble accommodating the crowds.) He campaigned mostly in the northeast and midwest. The South was almost entirely ignored by both candidates. Blacks were prevented from voting and whites overwhelmingly voted for the Democrats, allowing FDR to take the votes for granted and forcing Wilkie to give up on the area as a lost cause. FDR for his part mostly didn’t campaign and mostly ignored Wilkie, relying on the publicity from the office of the Presidency and maintaining at least the pretense of being above “mere politics” — being too busy dealing with the situation in Europe. Wilkie gave a good speech and was successful in drawing energized crowds to his campaign events, but this did not translate into broad support at the ballot box. In the end, Wilkie lost by a large margin in the electoral college. The dangers of war apparently blunted the criticisms of FDR’s third term and reduced voters’ willingness to take a chance on a fresh face and a political outsider.
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