Roosevelt saw things differently. He had been involved in the ICCASP, had seen the power of leftist factions in Los Angeles politics in the late 1930s and during the war when he had worked his way up through the party hierarchy, and had also seen the impact of the dead hand of conservative bosses on the party's fortunes. He saw the year 1947 as a chance to attempt to unite the party's warring factions through a reorganization of the delegate selection system to the national convention to make it more representative of the membership, and the drawing up of a state manifesto that could serve to give energy and direction to the faithful in advance of the 1948 elections. Writing the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, J. Howard McGrath, in October 1947 about the proposed changes to the delegate selection system, he argued that his aim had been “to secure for President Truman the broadest and most representative backing of the liberals and progressives who joined the Democratic Party from 1932 through 1945. These people joined the Democratic Party because they knew it was not dominated by financial interests or by special interests such as oil, as the Republican Party has always been…. A majority of us…made a successful beginning to eliminate the influence of this small minority of conservative element and have devoted the intervening months in bringing our party as close as possible to the people.” He was careful to underline his opposition to those flocking to the third party candidacy of Henry Wallace that was developing steam in late 1947: “Regardless of how difficult the road may be we shall continue our efforts to make the Democratic Party in California a true home for all liberals and progressives who believe in the basic principles of the New Deal.”5
This delicate balancing act between placating potential Wallace supporters and the party's established leadership explained Roosevelt's decision to create a policy committee to draw up a manifesto for the party's meeting in Los Angeles at the end of July 1947. The message was clear: California did not need a third party as long as the Democratic Party reaffirmed its commitment to extending and expanding the New Deal. The statement of policy was unashamedly left-of-center, but there were repeated references to the need to achieve economic and social equality through “the American form of democracy,” a clear jibe at popular front elements who looked to the Soviet Union in an overly romantic fashion. In an attempt to keep such elements within the broad church of the Democratic Party, however, there was reference to the need to reserve the use of armed force only against a “proven aggressor” and the principles of atomic power sharing, an idea already abandoned in Washington, were restated. The overall message was a wakeup call for those worried that the Democrats were losing their radical edge: “We frankly state that, in our increasingly complex economic and social system, we believe that it will become more and more necessary for us to plan as a people. We contend that it is only through intelligent and far-sighted planning on the part of our state and national governments that we can cope with the problems facing us, that we can bring a greater share of prosperity to more people, indeed that in the long term we can survive as a people.” There were commitments to a large public housing program “for that section of our population which private enterprise cannot reach,” to racial equality in employment, to a state agency “to assist in the providing of work in the event that such individuals are unable to obtain jobs in the private enterprise system,” to “a fair and adequate health program in cooperation with the forward-looking members of the medical profession in California.” The list of Democratic goals also included a commitment to a minimum income for the elderly of $65 a month, to a rapid transit system in major cities, and concluded with the robust statement that the party would “go forward in its traditional liberal and progressive spirit.”6 Liberals like Roosevelt knew that the party did not have the upper hand in California politics, but argued that an enthusiastic statement of principles would send Democrats into the crucial 1948 elections with enthusiasm and present a united front against the Republicans.
In some respects the strategy seemed to work. Patrick McDonough claimed to be delighted by the July convention, arguing that “the opposition to our President was practically eliminated, particularly the Kenny forces.” The statement of policy had been overwhelmingly endorsed by a vote of 179 to 19, and the anti-Truman forces had been brought to heel by a platform that had been impossible to oppose. “I think from now on the true Democratic Party in California knows where it stands and will work harmoniously to-gether.”7 Such optimism was to be short-lived, and McDonough himself had predicted the reasons before the convention when he objected to the idea of a policy statement. In a strongly worded letter to Roosevelt's policy chairman George Outland, a recently defeated representative from Santa Barbara, he argued that nothing could unite the party except the purging of the far left and the establishment of better campaign organization in the run-up to Truman's reelection effort. “There is only one thing of importance to Democrats today,” he wrote. “That is the election of President Truman in 1948. With him will go the failure of the Democratic Party for 50 years.”8 McDonough had already asked Roosevelt to concentrate on organizing the party along the lines the Republicans had done with the Republican Assembly, using a proxy group to endorse candidates, purge extremists from the ranks, and energize the party's base. “Such an organization would help us in getting votes, acquiring practical workers, and would bring political brains into our party that are now not able to find a place in the Democratic organization,” he wrote in February. “This Democratic Assembly would be in a position to endorse candidates to the end that most of our imbroglio would be eliminated.”9
Outland and Roosevelt took a different view, arguing that a strong ideological statement of policy would help convince Californians to back the party, and that a debate within party ranks over policy would revitalize a demoralized organization. Outland asserted that voters had “every right to ask that the Democratic leadership in this state develop a clear-cut statement of its stand on the problems that face the state and nation. Unless such a position is taken how can any intelligent person be in a position to align himself in the ranks of any political party?”10 Underlying Outland's argument was the tacit assertion that it was better to use policy statements to try to maintain harmony in the ranks than to use organizational structures to carry out a putsch of problematic factions.
As it would turn out in the following decade both Outland and McDonough were right: left-of-center politics would emerge out of the shadows due to a new combination of tighter organization and greater ideological unity. A rethinking of the party's political role and its organizational structure in the particular context of the late 1940s and early 1950s would provide the party in California with a unique springboard to political power with a new, postwar political agenda. This was not immediately clear in 1948. Henry Wallace announced his presidential candidacy in the pages of the New Republic in January, and the divisions within the Democratic Party over what to do about the deep unpopularity of President Truman in the party and the country affected the California party with particular force because of its internal divisions concerning foreign policy and the popular front.11 One Berkeley Democrat informed Roosevelt that she was “deeply concerned about the breach in our party ranks over Foreign Policy which appears to be widening each day…. Never have we so needed to be united to combat anti-American activities which are threatening to disrupt our party and our real democracy.”12 Patrick McDonough, having initially welcomed the Wallace candidacy because to McDonough his supporters had been “like lye in our drinking water and their leaving has left the water purified,” was by March despairing that the Roosevelt leadership were refusing to make