The Pittsburgh Press (October 16, 1944)
Green light to Wall Street hit by Wallace
Urges federal funds for unemployment
Gary, Indiana (UP) –
Vice President Henry A. Wallace said last night that full post-war employment cannot be maintained by “giving the green light to Wall Street.”
“That’s Taftism,” he told a rally sponsored by the Lake County (Indiana) Democratic organization. “That reminds me of the bird who flies with his head backwards, sees where he’s been, but doesn’t know where he’s going, and I suggest that bird might serve as the new symbol for the Republican Party.”
He said that although 80 percent of the job must be done by private industry, government funds should be used “if there is any indication of unemployment.”
Industry ‘mindful of dollar’
Charging that the job of converting to war manufacture was done by labor, government and “certain enlightened leaders of industry,” despite those who wanted to hold it back, he said: “Industry was very patriotic, but it also was very mindful of the dollar.”
In Cleveland, Mr. Wallace said:
Given the green light, industry would have gone on making automobiles and washing machines. You had to take industry by the scuff of the neck and throw it into the war.
PAC contributions
Touching on the controversy over contributions to the CIO Political Action Committee, the Vice President said industrialists have assembled millions of dollars to exert pressure against the administration, but at the same time call it “sinful for workers to contribute dollars to the Democratic campaign.”
What a travesty to convict the man who gives a dollar of Communism. It just isn’t true to say he holds Russia first and America second.