President Giannini

[David Tenner]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/theymadeamerica/whomade/giannini_lo.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amadeo_Giannini

How about Amadeo Giannini, founder of Transamerica and the Bank of America,
as FDR's running mate in 1940? As I've said (in connection with Frank
Murphy) I think the obstacles to a Catholic getting the vice-presidential
nomination were serious, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be done. And
Giannini might be a particularly attractive choice for the following reasons:

(1) One of the few pro-New Deal businessmen, Giannini was something of a
national hero for being the kind of banker who would make loans to the
"little guy," not just the rich. Think of him as a much, much more
financially successful George Bailey--indeed, Frank Capra would later be
partly inspired by Giannini's career in making "It's a Wonderful Life."

(2) FDR had deeply offended many Italian-American voters with his speech
condemning Mussolini's joining the war: "On this tenth day of June, 1940,
the hand that held the dagger has struck it into the back of its neighbor."
http://history.acusd.edu/gen/text/us/fdr1940.html The negative reaction was
not necessarily pro-Mussolini; in many cases, it was simply resentment of the
perceived revival of the stereotype of the Italian as *banditto.* This is a
serious problem for FDR: if you look at
http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/data.php?year=1940&datatype=national&def=1
you'll note that he carried New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and Ohio quite
narrowly, and that his majorities in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and
Connecticut were also far from overwhelming. All these states had
substantial numbers of Italian-American votes, as did Michigan which FDR
narrowly lost. With all these states in doubt, having an Italian-American
running mate could be worth the risk.

Granted, Giannini was 70. Yet after all, Vice President Garner was 72 the
same year and sought the presidency, and might even have won if FDR had
decided not to run again. There is of course a question of whether Giannini
would be dumped from the ticket in 1944 as being too old--especially given
concerns for FDR's health. I'm not sure how good Giannini's own health was
at the time, though he lived until June 3, 1949. Anyway, there might be
concerns that dumping him from the ticket would alienate Italian-American
voters, so we might see him re-nominated and re-elected and then become
president in 1945...

[Stan Boleslawski]

Post by David Tenner
://www.pbs.org/wgbh/theymadeamerica/whomade/giannini_lo.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amadeo_Giannini
How about Amadeo Giannini, founder of Transamerica and the Bank of America,
as FDR's running mate in 1940? As I've said (in connection with Frank
Murphy) I think the obstacles to a Catholic getting the vice-presidential
nomination were serious, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be done. And
http
(1) One of the few pro-New Deal businessmen, Giannini was something of a
national hero for being the kind of banker who would make loans to the
"little guy," not just the rich. Think of him as a much, much more
financially successful George Bailey--indeed, Frank Capra would later be
partly inspired by Giannini's career in making "It's a Wonderful Life."

A reputation which originated from his being willing to make loans to
small San Francisco businessmen after the 1906 earthquake and fire.
Giannini was also the banker most accomodating to the early film
moguls once they moved to California - which might result in some
ordinarily Republican studio bosses being sympathetic to him.

To put Giannini on the ticket as VP, it would help if he had held some
office previously. How about if the California Democratic Party
recruits him to run for Governor in 1934 in an effort to stop Sinclair?
Or
if he runs for Senate in 1932 and defeats McAdoo in the primary?
Given Giannini's personal popularity, if he ran for Senate in '34
could he knock off Hiram Johnson? Or, alternately, could he
somehow get a Cabinet position? Perhaps getting Commerce
instead of Roper?

Stan B.

[Rob Harris]

Very interesting -

Where would FDR and the Democrats perceive risks from nominating a
Catholic-

As David points out, if anything, the Catholic vote was large in the
major electoral prize FDR was worried about losing, like New York &
Pennsylania. The solid south was not at risk - most of the old
Confederacy stuck with the Democrats even when Al Smith was nominated -
Would Democrats percieve an anti-Catholic backlash risk in the Midwest,
Mountain West or Pacific Coast?

Assuming Giannini gets to be veep and is retained in 1944, is there any
record of what his leanings were on foreign policy (in a Democratic
Party where they ranged from Jimmy Byrnes staunch anticommunism to
Henry Wallace and Claude Pepper's pro-detente views)? Any public
record of what he thought on civil rights matters?

[David Tenner]

Post by Rob Harris
Very interesting -
Where would FDR and the Democrats perceive risks from nominating a
Catholic-
As David points out, if anything, the Catholic vote was large in the
major electoral prize FDR was worried about losing, like New York &
Pennsylania. The solid south was not at risk - most of the old
Confederacy stuck with the Democrats even when Al Smith was nominated -
Would Democrats percieve an anti-Catholic backlash risk in the Midwest,
Mountain West or Pacific Coast?

You have to remember that even in the most heavily Catholic states,
Protestants still outnumbered Catholics, except in Massachusetts and Rhode
Island, which not coincidentally were the only two northern states Al
Smith carried in 1928. (I don't have the statistics for 1940 but for a
1990 estimate see "Top 10 U.S. States with Highest Proportion of
Catholics in the Population, 1990"
http://www.adherents.com/largecom/com_romcath.html I don't think the
figures were too radically different from 1940; there was an influx of
black Protestants in some industrial states, but that was countrbalanced
by Catholic immigration from Latin America and by the fact that until the
1970's white Catholics generally had more children than white Protestants.
[1]) In Illinois, a Catholic might help the ticket in Chicago, but would
hurt Downstate; in Ohio, he might help in Cleveland but hurt in the rest
of the state; and in Michigan he would be a mixed blessing even in Detroit
itself, which had many Catholics but also many white fundamentalist
Protestants, especially from Appalachia, and which had almost elected a
Klan-backed Mayor in the 1920s. There is also nativism, which is not
quite the same thing as anti-Catholicism; someone who might vote for a
Catholic candidate from an old "Anglo-Saxon" (or perhaps even Irish)
family might see "Gianinni" as too "foreign" a name. Indeed, there is the
question of whether an Irish Catholic will necessarily vote for an Italian
Catholic.

All these things might be offset in 1940 by the need to win Italian votes,
above all in New York--and of course the fact that we are talking about
the *second* spot in the ticket greatly reduces both the harm and the good
that a candidate could do--but they do help to explain why FDR might
hesitate in choosing a Catholic as his running mate.

[1] "For example, from the mid-1940s through the late 1960s, researchers
find Catholics desired, expected, and had more children than Protestants
in the U.S. (Freedman, Whelpton, and Campbell 1959; Ryder and Westoff
1971; Westoff, Potter, and Sagi 1964; Whelpton, Campbell, and Patterson
1966). Since the 1970s, Catholic-Protestant differences in fertility have
converged and now non-Hispanic white Catholics have fewer children than
non-Hispanic white Protestants (Mosher and Hendershot 1984a; Mosher,
Johnson, and Horn 1986; Mosher, Williams, and Johnson 1992; Westoff and
Jones 1979)."
http://paa2006.princeton.edu/download.aspx?submissionId=61408

[running dogg]

Post by David Tenner

Post by Rob Harris
Very interesting -
Where would FDR and the Democrats perceive risks from nominating a
Catholic-
As David points out, if anything, the Catholic vote was large in the
major electoral prize FDR was worried about losing, like New York &
Pennsylania. The solid south was not at risk - most of the old
Confederacy stuck with the Democrats even when Al Smith was nominated -
Would Democrats percieve an anti-Catholic backlash risk in the Midwest,
Mountain West or Pacific Coast?

You have to remember that even in the most heavily Catholic states,
Protestants still outnumbered Catholics, except in Massachusetts and Rhode
Island, which not coincidentally were the only two northern states Al
Smith carried in 1928. (I don't have the statistics for 1940 but for a
1990 estimate see "Top 10 U.S. States with Highest Proportion of
Catholics in the Population, 1990"
http://www.adherents.com/largecom/com_romcath.html I don't think the
figures were too radically different from 1940; there was an influx of
black Protestants in some industrial states, but that was countrbalanced
by Catholic immigration from Latin America and by the fact that until the
1970's white Catholics generally had more children than white Protestants.
[1]) In Illinois, a Catholic might help the ticket in Chicago, but would
hurt Downstate; in Ohio, he might help in Cleveland but hurt in the rest
of the state; and in Michigan he would be a mixed blessing even in Detroit
itself, which had many Catholics but also many white fundamentalist
Protestants, especially from Appalachia, and which had almost elected a
Klan-backed Mayor in the 1920s. There is also nativism, which is not
quite the same thing as anti-Catholicism; someone who might vote for a
Catholic candidate from an old "Anglo-Saxon" (or perhaps even Irish)
family might see "Gianinni" as too "foreign" a name. Indeed, there is the
question of whether an Irish Catholic will necessarily vote for an Italian
Catholic.
All these things might be offset in 1940 by the need to win Italian votes,
above all in New York--and of course the fact that we are talking about
the *second* spot in the ticket greatly reduces both the harm and the good
that a candidate could do--but they do help to explain why FDR might
hesitate in choosing a Catholic as his running mate.
[1] "For example, from the mid-1940s through the late 1960s, researchers
find Catholics desired, expected, and had more children than Protestants
in the U.S. (Freedman, Whelpton, and Campbell 1959; Ryder and Westoff
1971; Westoff, Potter, and Sagi 1964; Whelpton, Campbell, and Patterson
1966). Since the 1970s, Catholic-Protestant differences in fertility have
converged and now non-Hispanic white Catholics have fewer children than
non-Hispanic white Protestants (Mosher and Hendershot 1984a; Mosher,
Johnson, and Horn 1986; Mosher, Williams, and Johnson 1992; Westoff and
Jones 1979)."
http://paa2006.princeton.edu/download.aspx?submissionId=61408

Giannini's religion would be much less of a problem than his ethnicity.
Despite the negative reaction to FDR's condemnation of Mussolini,
actually putting an Italian American on the ticket would be something
else entirely. In 1960 Americans were asking if Kennedy was "too
Catholic" and would be more loyal to the Pope than to America, something
that indicates that people would think that Giannini might be "too
Italian" and wonder if he would place Mussolini and possibly Hitler
above loyalty to the US. Even if Giannini managed to get past it in
1940, it would be a BIG issue in 1944 what with the US at war with
Italy. That and his age would probably result in FDR looking for a
young, vitality oozing running mate. FDR himself was pretty old and
frail in 1944; if he was anybody else his age and fragility would have
been a big issue. But Americans practically viewed FDR as a god. But TWO
old men on the same ticket would have given everybody pause, no matter
how devoted they were to FDR.

[Rob Harris]

Post by running dogg
Giannini's religion would be much less of a problem than his ethnicity.
Despite the negative reaction to FDR's condemnation of Mussolini,
actually putting an Italian American on the ticket would be something
else entirely. In 1960 Americans were asking if Kennedy was "too
Catholic" and would be more loyal to the Pope than to America, something
that indicates that people would think that Giannini might be "too
Italian" and wonder if he would place Mussolini and possibly Hitler
above loyalty to the US. Even if Giannini managed to get past it in
1940, it would be a BIG issue in 1944 what with the US at war with
Italy. That and his age would probably result in FDR looking for a
young, vitality oozing running mate. FDR himself was pretty old and
frail in 1944; if he was anybody else his age and fragility would have
been a big issue. But Americans practically viewed FDR as a god. But TWO
old men on the same ticket would have given everybody pause, no matter
how devoted they were to FDR.

-------------------

The "too Italian" issue, if gotten over in 1940, would be a non-issue
by 1944, because of Italy's surrender and switch to our side by that
time. Age is another story, but incumbency sometimes just makes it
easy not to change.