GR: Crystal Palace resonances

[Mark Kohut]

yeahp. Here is a relevant wikipedia summary: ..."conflict between the slave
states and the free world"..."
churchill....strongly committed to preserving Britain's colonial empire".
..."labor clauses to contracts with Latin American producers"....

On May 8, 1942, Wallace delivered what became his most famous speech, to
the Free World Association in New York City. The speech, delivered during
the darkest days of the war, was formally titled "The Price of Free World
Victory" but came to be identified by its phrase "the century of the common
man". This was Wallace's answer to Republican publisher Henry Luce
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Luce>'s call for an "American Century"
after the war. For Wallace the war was a conflict between the slave states
and the free world.

"The concept of freedom," Wallace explained, was rooted in the Bible, with
its "extraordinary emphasis on the dignity of the individual," but only
recently had it become a reality for large numbers of people. "Democracy is
the only true political expression of Christianity," he declared, adding
that with freedom must come abundance. "Men and women can never be really
free until they have plenty to eat, and time and ability to read and think
and talk things over."[29]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_A._Wallace#cite_note-29>

For Wallace the outcome of the war had to be more than a restoration of the
status quo. He wished to see the ideals of New Deal liberalism continuing
at home and spreading throughout a world in which colonialism had been
abolished and where labor would be represented by unions. "Most of all,"
write Culver and Hyde, "He wanted to end the deadly cycle of economic
warfare followed by military combat followed by isolationism and more
economic warfare and more conflict.”[30]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_A._Wallace#cite_note-30> For millions
Wallace's speech defined America's mission in the war and the vision of a
peaceful and more equitable world to follow.[31]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_A._Wallace#cite_note-31> Nevertheless,
it roused the ire of more conservative Democrats, business leaders and
conservatives, not to mention Winston Churchill
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill>, who was strongly
committed to preserving Britain's colonial empire.

Wallace also famously spoke out during the Detroit race riot of 1943
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_race_riot_of_1943>, declaring that
the nation could not "fight to crush Nazi brutality abroad and condone race
riots at home."
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Henry_A._Wallace.jpg>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Henry_A._Wallace.jpg>
Vice President Henry Wallace

In 1943, Wallace made a goodwill tour of Latin America
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_America>, shoring up support among
important allies. His trip proved a success, and helped persuade twelve
countries to declare war on Germany. Regarding trade relationships with
Latin America, he convinced the BEW to add labor clauses to contracts with
Latin American producers. These clauses required producers to pay fair
wages and provide safe working conditions for their employees, and
committed the United States to paying for up to half of the required
improvements. This met opposition from the Department of Commerce.

On Tue, Sep 26, 2017 at 4:02 PM, L E Bryan <lebryan at sonic.net> wrote:

>
> > On Sep 26, 2017, at 3:32 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > "The election campaign of 1874--or, to fix the date exactly, Disraeli's
> speech in the Crystal Palace in 1872--marked the birth of imperialism
> > as the catch phrase of domestic politics. [mostly re The Irish
> Question]---J. Schumpeter, "Imperialism as a Catch Phrase", 1955.
> >
> > There seems to be a consensus that the growth of the modern bureaucratic
> state of the West, such an almost unique historical focus  [in fiction at
> least] of Gravity's Rainbow,  happened because of the need to administer,
> 'manage', the colonies. England first then the US from around 1898.
> >
> > in that mid-war year 1943, a year before GR is set, the Vice President
> of the US gave a major-enough speech that declared that America would no
> longer maintain, try to build, an empire, sez Louis Fischer, later
> biographer of Gandhi, who was there, in a little book called Empire, 1944.
> > About that promise.........
>
> Of course that would have been the hated Henry Wallace, dumped by the
> Democratic Party in 1944 for the more influenceable (they thought) Harry
> Truman. The Democratic Party, like the Republican Party, still had visions
> of manifest destiny.
>
>
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