Democrat-Republican Rivalry in WWII

Can anyone recommend a good book on the rivalry between the Democrats and the Republicans during World War II?

I'm not aware of anything that focuses on the subject of domestic politics exclusively, but there is some material on that subject in a book by David Brinkley called (IIRC) 'Washington at War,' and in Doris Kearns Goodwin's book about FDR during WW II, 'No Ordinary Time.'

Yea, I liked both of them and they do touch on the rivalry, but as far as I can tell there has never been anything written exclusively on it. I'm going after my Ph.D. and was thinking that 'Republic Democrat Rivalry During WWII' would be a good area of specialization, but wanted to see if anybody else had done it already.

Anyone have any thoughts on that, or any suggestions of things I should read or Professors / Writers to look up?

I can't recall any specific book on the subject but from memory I can tell you that things were then a lot different than they are today between the two parties when it came to playing politics with the conduct of the war. At that time there was an unwritten pledge between the two parties that 'politics stopped at the water's edge.'

Although FDR and his administration were roundly detested by Republicans for the Democrats' handling of domestic matters and there were numerous robust clashes in Congress and on the campaign trail with regard to the Democrats' 'New Deal' policies, there was nothing like the present-day Democratic sniping at the current administration for its conduct of the war in Iraq, even in the darkest days after Pearl Harbor. Then, the country was fully united in support of the troops and the war and any such open opposition would have been considered subversive.

In 1944, FDR's Republican opponent, Thomas E. Dewey, put principle over politics by voluntarily agreeing to refrain from using in the campaign any suggestion that the administration might have had advance knowledge of certain Japanese actions. That was after Midway when leaked classified information appeared in a story in the Chicago Tribune causing a security flap within the military which led General Marshall to secretly advise Dewey that the U.S. had been breaking Japanese coded messages before and during the war and that if any hint thereof got back to Japan it could result in changes in coding procedures by the Japanese which would have closed off a vital source of wartime intelligence.

The Republican party was of no significance during WWII. It was almost wholly in eclipse, with two Americans identifying themselves as Democrats for every one identifying himself as a Republican. When you speak of a rivalry between the parties, I have an image of a grown man with his hand on the head of a boy who is valiantly but futilely swinging away, unable to hit anything.

Not until 1948 was there a serious challenge from the Republicans, and that was only on the presidential level. Not until 1952 did they achieve (temporary) parity in the senate, and not for another generation would they achieve parity in the house of representatives.

all the best

This idea of a Golden Age of disinterested politicians working purely in the national interest - as opposed, presumably, to our present corrupted state - is a popular and enduring part of American political myth, but it doesn't stand up to much scrutiny.

It's true that there was little overt criticism of FDR's decisions as Commander-in-Chief during WWII. But that was in part because the issue of the war itself was far less controversial than later American conflicts would prove to be - the USA had, after all, been unambiguously attacked by an identifiable foreign nation-state. And, more importantly, it was because the opposition forces to the Roosevelt administration - a loose coalition of Congressional Republicans and anti-New Deal Democrats - were more interested in rolling back FDR's social and economic reforms than in influencing military strategy. FDR was essentially forced to give way on a number of domestic positions in order to buy support for his foreign policy; even so, battles over agricultural, labor and tax law dogged his third term. There was no selfless truce between the parties, only a calculated series of compromises and maneuvers. Some of these - such as the successful 1944 bid by the Dixiecrats to kill an absentee voting bill that would have enfranchised a large number of southern black GI's for the first time - were not very edifying.

Since I think the original poster was looking for a good book on these issues, I would suggest Chapman's _Contours of Public Policy, 1939-1945_.

I am currently reading Robert Caro's book 'Master of the Senate' which deals with the 1950's but he points out that after FDR's defeat in his attempt to pack the Supreme Court in 1937, the Southern Democrats made an alliance with the Republicans (who as you point out detested FDR and the New Deal) and FDR never succeeded in passing a major domestic bill through Congress again. The Southern Democrats did this because the first stirrings for black Civil Rights began during FDR's term (Eleanor Roosevelt was a major backer of this) and the Southerns felt more and more threatened by this. At the beginning of FDR's presidency, the economic crisis was so severe and poverty was so widespread in the South, that the Southern Democrats supported their party's 'New Deal' programs, but by 1937, the steam had run out on southern support for it, and the racial issues were able to get poor Southern whites to support more conservative positions. By November 1942 there was considerable public pressure for US troops to go into action against the Germans, and there were Congressional elections scheduled for that month, but FDR used no pressure to try to get Operation Torch started before those elections. The Republicans gained seats, and if Torch had started before the elections the Democrats would have probably lost fewer seats, but the National interest held, and the welfare of the troops in the field was viewed as more important than the President's political welfare. Nostalgia for the old days!

[Spacesnips]

The GOP may have been of no significance, but the wartime Roosevelt administraion certainly found some Republicans

Democrats may have had a lopsided edge in registrations and identification, but this did not carry over into election results.

In the 1940 Presidential election, the popular vote was only 5 to 4 in favor of Roosevelt, even though the Republican candidate was a political novice.

In 1942 Republicans gained 47 House seats, and came within 7 seats of taking control of the House.

The 1944 Presidential election was even closer than 1940 (7 to 6 in favor of Roosevelt).

And in 1946, Republicans won control of both Houses of Congress.

At the state level: as of mid-1943, Republicans held 24 governorships out of 48, including NY, PA, OH, IL, and CA. 13 of the Democrats' 24 were ex-Confederate states of the 'Solid South'.

Yes, the WW II years were an era of Democrat dominance. But one shouldn't exaggerate that dominance. If FDR had died before the 1944 elections, or been unable to run, it's quite likely that the Republican candidate would have won.

Some speculators have tried seriously to consider how President Dewey would have handled Yalta, the atomic bomb, and the Berlin

That's a considerable overstatement. The GOP did well in the Congressional elections of 1942, winning 44 seats in the House and 9 in the Senate. Its leadership also successfully built a de facto alliance with conservative Democrats who distrusted Roosevelt and who had long been sceptical of the benefits of the New Deal. On the whole, Congress was more assertive during the war that at any stage since the Hundred Days, and FDR had several close-fought battles with his opponents on a large range of (mostly domestic) issues.