Bennett Clark

Bennett Clark was a Missouri senator whose changing alliance with Harry S. Truman shaped two pivotal contests: Truman’s close 1940 reelection primary and his 1944 nomination for Vice President. Clark could be a valuable political ally, yet his own presidential and vice-presidential ambitions came to little, while his opposition to aid for Britain placed him increasingly at odds with Truman’s views on the gathering war.

Political standing and the 1940 campaign

In 1940, Franklin D. Roosevelt gave Truman no endorsement or practical assistance in his contest against Governor Lloyd C. Stark. Clark, by contrast, promised support, despite what Truman privately regarded as Clark’s limitations. Truman announced his Senate candidacy on February 3 and named Clark as his choice for President. The move served an immediate political purpose: Clark’s backing mattered in eastern Missouri. Truman’s stated willingness to support Roosevelt if he became the party’s nominee did not erase the appearance of expediency, and the book treats the endorsement as both a political calculation and a pointed expression of Truman’s displeasure with Roosevelt.

Clark’s own presidential prospects did not develop. His presidential boom came to nothing, and Roosevelt, having accepted the convention’s draft for a third term, selected Henry Wallace as his running mate. Clark nevertheless became useful to Truman’s Senate campaign as the primary approached. At the national convention in Chicago, Stark pursued the vice-presidential nomination as well as his Senate campaign. Clark publicly mocked the sweep of Stark’s ambitions, ridiculing his attempt to seek several offices at once. The episode brought Clark back into the contest at a moment when Truman needed allies against Stark’s attacks.

A decisive ally in Truman’s Senate victory

The 1940 campaign was short of money and reliable support. Truman’s first strategy meeting in St. Louis drew fewer than half of those invited, and some attendees warned that he was unlikely to win. Clark eventually became one of the people who worked for him. In the final week, he telephoned political contacts around the state from a St. Louis hotel room, continuing even after he ended up in a hospital. His sustained calls mattered especially through their effect on Robert Hannegan, who had been working for Stark. With only two days before the primary, Hannegan switched sides and worked feverishly for Truman. Truman later regarded the sudden change as the campaign’s biggest break.

The result was close: Truman won by fewer than 8,000 votes out of 665,000 cast. In St. Louis, his margin over Stark was 8,411 votes, the same city where Clark’s influence and Hannegan’s last-minute effort had proved important. Truman also carried Jackson County by 20,000 votes, despite the damage that association with the Pendergast organization was expected to cause. He did better with farmers than in 1934, and the Black vote went to him as well. Clark’s assistance was part of a broader coalition that also included Truman’s personal standing, Jim Pendergast and what remained of the organization. Stark privately blamed his defeat on the machine vote, Clark’s backing, federal appointees and a rural vote weakened, he said, by drought.

Clark’s support did not make him a permanent ally or erase the distance between their politics. The campaign’s immediate importance was practical: when Truman faced a difficult primary with Roosevelt neutral and the old political organization in disarray, Clark helped mobilize support that contributed to his narrow victory. In 1941, however, Clark’s position on American involvement in the war would become a conspicuous source of disagreement.

Isolationism and political decline

As a senator, Clark opposed Lend-Lease and further American involvement in support of Britain. He became a favorite of the America First movement, praised Charles A. Lindbergh and argued that the United States had nothing to gain from war. Truman, who listened to Roosevelt’s case for the Four Freedoms and considered the isolationists badly mistaken, repeatedly voted against amendments intended to restrict the administration’s execution of Lend-Lease. The contrast recast the political connection between the two men: the senator who had helped Truman in Missouri stood on the other side of a major foreign-policy dispute.

Clark’s political prospects also deteriorated. Truman was convinced Clark was destroying himself politically and observed that he was having increasing difficulty staying sober. In the weeks before the 1944 Democratic convention, Clark was supposed to nominate Truman for Vice President. His wife had died the previous year, and he had been drinking more than usual. When Truman searched for him, he found him at the Sherman, in a room where he was not supposed to be, too drunk to say much more than hello. Truman told Hannegan that he had found Clark and was unsure whether he could get him ready in time.

The 1944 convention and the end of his Senate career

Clark did appear on the convention platform after black coffee, a shower and food, with Hannegan’s help. His speech supporting Truman was short and lacked its customary flair; it failed to move the audience. The comparison with speeches for Henry Wallace made Clark’s weakness more apparent: Wallace’s supporters generated a noisy demonstration, while the case for Truman initially struggled to gain comparable force. The nomination eventually turned decisively toward Truman. After the roll call swung his way, Clark started a procession down the aisles, and police escorted Truman to the platform. The official tally was 1,031 votes for Truman, 105 for Wallace and four for William O. Douglas.

Clark’s brief role onstage did not restore his standing in Missouri. A few weeks later, he lost the Democratic primary there, ending a Senate career that Truman and others had once thought might lead to the White House. Across these episodes, Clark appears neither simply as Truman’s ally nor merely as his political opponent. His support helped Truman survive a vulnerable campaign; his isolationism later set them apart; and his impaired convention appearance linked his personal decline to the closing of his political career. His trajectory marks the limits of a political partnership built around particular contests rather than lasting agreement.