Roosevelt's third term victory in 1940 placed Wallace in elective office for the first and only time in his career. He was an active and highly visible vice-president. Roosevelt sent him on goodwill tours to Mexico in 1940 and to seven other Latin American nations in 1943. In 1944 he undertook a mission to Soviet Asia, where he was impressed with signs of economic progress, and to China, where he was appalled by Chiang Kai-shek's weakness and unwillingness to make necessary political and economic reforms.

For a time Wallace served as chairman of the Board of Economic Warfare, established shortly before American entry into WWII to initiate and coordinate economic defense programs. Its activities overlapped those of the State and Commerce departments, and quickly enmeshed Wallace in bureaucratic disputes. His differences with Secretary of Commerce Jesse H. Jones over policies and priorities in obtaining strategic materials became so divisive that in July 1943 Roosevelt reprimanded both men and abolished the Board of Economic Warfare.

Wallace's appeals for responsible American leadership to foster lasting peace and global prosperity in the postwar world commanded wide attention. In speeches and public statements, he urged Americans to help usher in a "century of the common man." He argued that the United States should provide economic and technical assistance to improve living standards, encourage education, and promote industrialization in underdeveloped areas of the world. Unless hunger, poverty, and ignorance were eradicated, he maintained, the world would continue to suffer upheaval, revolution, and war.

Wallace's vision reflected his belief in the economic and spiritual unity of the world. Modern technology provided ample resources, and the fruits of abundance could be widely distributed through international economic cooperation. The war made a spiritual reformation more essential than ever; a return to world competition, exploitation, and imperialism would generate a new round of depression and war. The century of the common man, Wallace reasoned, required the established of a strong, effective world organization and harmonious relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. He insisted that postwar cooperation between the two powers was both possible and necessary to ensure lasting peace.

His pronouncements about postwar policies made Wallace the leading spokesman for liberal opinion in the United States and a target for conservatives. Wallace did little to win the support of the elements in the Democratic party that had objected to his vice-presidential nomination in 1940. As the 1944 election approached, these party regulars urged Roosevelt to select another running mate. The president wavered; he assured Wallace that he was his personal choice for vice-president, but also told others that he would be happy to have either Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas or Senator Harry S. Truman on the ticket.

Roosevelt's tepid endorsement doomed Wallace's chances for renomination, and the Democratic National Convention selected Truman for vice-president.

Wallace was stunned and angered by Roosevelt's behavior, but he campaigned vigorously for the Democratic ticket. He believed that Roosevelt's reelection provided the best hope for implementing his own vision of the postwar world. The president rewarded Wallace's loyalty by naming him secretary of commerce after the election and he served 1945-1946.

Wallace undertook his new duties with customary zeal. He initiated a reorganization of the Commerce Department aimed at giving more assistance to small business. He called for extension of the 1934 Trade Agreements Act as one essential way to promote international economic cooperation and world peace. He remained committed to a "planned middle course" by supporting federal programs to provide full employment and higher standards of living in the United States.

Wallace focused his efforts on the growing tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. After Roosevelt's death he was deeply concerned that President Truman would repudiate Roosevelt's legacy of conciliation toward Russia. Wallace insisted that the Soviets' suspicion of the West could be dispelled if the United States worked to win their trust. The key to world peace and stability, he believed, was to achieve international control of atomic weapons. He urged Truman to offer to share with Russia and other nations basic scientific information about atomic energy, though not the technical secrets needed to build atomic bombs.

United States-Soviet relations deteriorated steadily throughout 1945-46. Truman and most Americans became committed to a firm posture toward Russia. Wallace thought a more accommodating stance was the key, and he became increasingly outspoken in calling for American policies to ease tensions with Russia including economic assistance as well as international control of atomic energy. A twelve-page letter to Truman urging Truman to recognize legitimate Soviet security needs was ignored by Truman. When the commerce secretary aired his views in a speech on September 12, 1946, it created a public uproar and prompted Truman to dismiss him from the cabinet.

Wallace vowed to "carry on the fight for peace." As editor of the New Republic, a position he accepted in October 1946, he sharply criticized Truman's foreign policies.

In 1948 Wallace ran for president as head of the Progressive Party, losing to Harry Truman. He carried less than two percent of the vote.

After leaving the government Wallace retired to his farm, Farvue, near South Salem, NY. His latter years were rewarding and productive. He developed gladiolias that would unfold after being cut and placed in a vase, greatly increasing its commercial viability. He searched endlessly for a strawberry combining the intense flavor of European varieties with the large American size so easy to pick and ship. His chickens came to dominate the world, at one point accounting for about three-quarters of all egg-laying poultry sold commercially worldwide. And corn, of course, remained his great passion. He established a small research station in Jamaica and helped start research programs in Cuba and Guatemala, striving to improve tropical corn.

He traveled widely but without fanfare, usually on agricultural matters. His callused hands attested to the time he spent in the fields, employing only four men to help with the experimental work. He spent liberally on research any amount necessary, and he advised the men who ran Pioneer to do likewise. He never attempted to patent anything, believing in staying ahead of his time.

He supported Nixon de facto in the 1960 election, believing John F. Kennedy's farm plan unrealistic. However, Kennedy invited the Wallace's to the inauguration ceremony and luncheon in the Capitol. It was the first inaugural Wallace had attended since 1944, and he was touched by Kennedy's gesture. Wallace was especially pleased that Kennedy had invited his "old friend" Robert Frost to deliver a poem at the ceremony.

A victim of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease) beginning in 1964, the disease gradually progressed to his lungs. He died at a hospital in Danbury, Connecticut, on November 18, 1965, leaving his widow who died in 1981. His funeral service at St. Stephens Episcopal, in Ridgefield, Connecticut, was attended by three hundred people and was simple, only twenty minutes. At his request there was no eulogy, no sermon, no hymn. The only flowers were sprays of his white gladioli and a red-white-and-blue wreath from President Johnson. His body was cremated in Bridgeport and the ashes flown to Des Moines. There another memorial service was held on November 21, and a burial on the family plot at Glendale Cemetery.

He wrote no book of his experiences, and his diary and papers were sealed for ten years after his death. Many a verbal brick had been thrown at Henry A. Wallace during his life, but in death the words were kind.

The Des Moines Register included Henry A. Wallace in its list of 100 Most Influential Scientists of the Century released December 31, 1999.

The Wallaces of Iowa, Russell Lord, Houghton Mifflin & Company, Boston, 1947.

American Dreamer, John C. Culver and John Hyde, W. W. Norton & Company, 2000.

Photograph of Henry Agard Wallace is from Iowa State University Archives Special Collections Dept. Permission to use the picture must be secured by contacting them.

© 2000, Department of Animal Science, Iowa State University. All rights reserved.