VP Wallace’s warning has immediate relevance to civics education in Iowa

Controversy surrounds the Center for Intellectual Freedom at the University of Iowa. A key justification for the Center is to expand civics education beyond the high school curriculum. Given that rationale and the various ongoing threats to established American values, the words of Henry A. Wallace merit serious consideration.

Born on Oct. 7, 1888, in Orient, Iowa, Henry Wallace served as the 33rd Vice President of the United States, from 1941 to 1945, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. A year before the United States and its Allies defeated the Axis powers in WWII, The New York Times asked Wallace to define and assess the dangers of fascism in America. His commentary from April 9, 1944, still rings true.

The definition:

“A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends.”

The telltale signs:

“The symptoms of fascist thinking are colored by environment and adapted to immediate circumstances. But always and everywhere they can be identified by their appeal to prejudice and by the desire to play upon the fears and vanities of different groups in order to gain power. It is no coincidence that the growth of modern tyrants has in every case been heralded by the growth of prejudice.”

Their aspiration:

“The supreme god of a fascist, to which his ends are directed, may be money or power; may be a race or a class; may be a military, clique or an economic group; or may be a culture, religion, or a political party.”

Fascists “demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.”

Their ranks:

“Monopolists who fear competition and who distrust democracy because it stands for equal opportunity would like to secure their position against small and energetic enterprise. In an effort to eliminate the possibility of any rival growing up, some monopolists would sacrifice democracy itself.”

“Those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion.”

Their methodology:

“The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.”

Fascists’ “newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism. They use isolationism as a slogan to conceal their own selfish imperialism. They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution.”

“It has been claimed at times that our modern age of technology facilitates dictatorship. What we must understand is that the industries, processes, and inventions created by modern science can be used either to subjugate or liberate.”

The danger zone:

“American fascism will not be really dangerous until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information, and those who stand for the K.K.K. type of demagoguery.”

Our remedy:

“Democracy to crush fascism internally … must develop the ability to keep people fully employed and at the same time balance the budget. It must put human beings first and dollars second. It must appeal to reason and decency and not to violence and deceit. We must not tolerate oppressive government or industrial oligarchy in the form of monopolies and cartels.”

Fascism “is an infectious disease, and we must all be on our guard against intolerance, bigotry and the pretension of invidious distinction…. But if we put our trust in the common sense of common men and ‘with malice toward none and charity for all’ go forward on the great adventure of making political, economic and social democracy a practical reality, we shall not fail.”

Civics education today:

Although penned over 80 years ago, Wallace’s astute remarks remind us that democracy is a fragile institution. Then as now, a broadly educated citizenry constitutes our strongest bulwark against fascist threats to self-government from those who would pursue wealth and power at others’ expense. Iowans should take Wallace’s warnings seriously today.

Ed Wasserman is a professor of psychological and brain sciences at the University of Iowa.