Henry A. Wallace

Henry A. Wallace

Henry Agard Wallace was an agricultural innovator who served as the 33rd Vice President of the United States (1941–1945), the Secretary of Agriculture (1933–1940), and the Secretary of Commerce (1945–1946). He ran for President in 1948 as the nominee of the Progressive Party.

Early years

Wallace was born October 7, 1888 in Iowa. He, his father, and grandfather, all named Henry, shared a passion for improving agriculture in the United States. Henry Agard Wallace was particularly interested in how to maintain "hybrid vigor" in plant breeding. He was heavily influenced by George Washington Carver, the famous African-American agronomist, who lived in the Wallace home while attending Iowa State University. Henry earned a Bachelor's degree in animal husbandry from Iowa State in 1910. In addition to writing articles and editing an agricultural journal, Wallace worked as a statistician. In 1926 he founded the Hi-Bred Corn Company and became very prosperous.

Connection to the Theosophical Society

Wallace was raised as a Presbyterian, but explored other religious traditions. He was drawn to mysticism. He joined the Theosophical Society on June 6, 1925, and remained a member until November, 1935. He also helped to organize a Des Moines parish of the Liberal Catholic Church, but later became an Episcopalian. Wallace corresponded with Theosophist George William Russell, the poet known as Æ, and with mystical painter Nicholas Roerich.

Sidney A. Cook invited Wallace to give an address at the 1934 annual convention of the Theosophical Society in America. The program announcement in this way:

We expect to be honored by the presence of the Honorable Henry A. Wallace, Secretary of Agriculture in the President's Cabinet, who has indicated his desire to be present if he can so shape his program of other activities as to bring him to Chicago during our Convention. He has graciously stated his keen desire to so arrange that there may be an opportunity to participate in our program.

However, a followup article the next month stated, "The Honorable Henry A. Wallace finds that he will be detained in the East in connection with official activities just at the time when our Convention will be held.".

Political career

Wallace was a progressive Republican. In 1933 he was appointed to be Secretary of Agriculture in the cabinet of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and was very successful in that position, promoting research, soil conservation, scientific methods, and school lunch programs. In 1940, Roosevelt selected him as a running mate, and Wallace served as Vice President for four years. In 1944, Roosevelt decided to have Harry Truman join him as his running mate, but asked Wallace to stay on as Secretary of Commerce. Truman fired him from that position in 1946, and Wallace edited The New Republic for several years. In 1948 he made a run at the Presidency on a Progressive ticket, but his campaign was damaged by the "Guru Letters" and he lost the election.

Guru Letters

The New York Times printed an excellent summary of the Guru Letters episode:

On Wallace's orders in 1934, the Agriculture Department funded an expedition to Inner Mongolia led by Roerich. It proved more than a botanic quest as the seer plunged into Asian politics, roaming with a Cossack bodyguard, exhorting Buddhist masses to rise in revolt. Knowing nothing of this, Wallace took up another Roerich idea and, it is said, persuaded the Treasury to engrave the Great Seal's mystic pyramid on new dollar bills. He also persuaded Roosevelt to join with 21 Latin republics in signing a Roerich plan to protect art treasures with a "Banner of Peace."

Later, Wallace heard shocked accounts of the Mongolian debacle and broke with the guru. But Roerich already possessed injudicious letters from Wallace written in a silly code, as in this passage referring to Japan, Britain and Manchuria: The Monkeys are seeking friendship with the Rulers so as to divide the land of the Masters between them. The Wandering One thinks this, and is very suspicious of Monkeys.

F.D.R.'s aides were stunned in 1940 when they learned that a Pittsburgh newspaper had acquired the so-called guru letters. Roosevelt was seeking a third term and exposure would make Wallace, his running mate, look gullible, or worse. Wallace was all but ordered to brand them forgeries. To seal the secret, word went out that if Republicans brought up the letters, Democrats would bring up Wendell Willkie's adulterous affairs.

Nothing was heard about the letters until the Roosevelt-hating Hearst columnist, Westbrook Pegler, published excerpts that Wallace stonily refused to discuss in his third-party Presidential campaign in 1948. The old guru had died the year before in India, confident, one must assume, that the locks of the Fourth Gate would yet unbolt.

Later years

After retiring from politics, Mr. Wallace took up agricultural work again with great success. He died on November 18, 1965.