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INDIVIDUALISTS OF THE WORLD, UNITE! 53
It was at this juncture that Rand became smitten with Wendell
Willkie. The last of the dark horse presidential candidates in
American politics, Willkie swept to the 1940 Republican presidential
nomination on a feverish surge of support at the Party’s National
Convention. 37 He had fi rst come into the public eye as the chairman
of Commonwealth and Southern (C&S), a utility company fi ghting
Roosevelt’s proposed Tennessee Valley Authority. The TVA was
intended to bring electricity to the blighted towns of Tennessee,
northern Alabama, and Mississippi, a region bypassed by the forces
of modernization. Roosevelt’s solution was the creation of publicly
owned utilities that would provide affordable electricity for the conveniences
of modern life, such as refrigerators and radios, to customers
otherwise overlooked by private industry. As part of the plan the utility
companies would have to sell their holdings to TVA-backed public
utilities. It was the kind of government assault on private industry that
made Rand’s blood boil.
As chairman and former general counsel for C&S, one of the major
companies targeted by Roosevelt’s reform, Willkie had fought the government’s
plan. His efforts were ultimately unsuccessful, and when the
courts upheld Roosevelt’s legislation TVA proceeded to purchase private
holdings and lower electricity costs for homeowners. Willkie himself
helped negotiate some of the agreements. In the meantime, though, he
had made a name for himself as a Roosevelt foe. He had certainly caught
Rand’s attention, for she thought he had delivered an honest and effective
defense of the utility company’s rights. Willkie also claimed to be
representing a constituency larger than his company. During congressional
hearings on the TVA a fl ood of telegrams expressed support for
the company’s suit. 38
Now, in the summer of 1940, Willkie claimed to be arousing similar
support in his last-minute bid for the Republican presidential nomination.
His claim to a groundswell of genuine popular enthusiasm was
questionable; as Alice Roosevelt Longsworth quipped, Willkie’s support
came “from the grass roots of a thousand country clubs.” 39 Allegations
of fraud dogged both his nomination and his earlier work for the utility
companies. The telegrams touted as spontaneous manifestations of his
popularity turned out to be part of a carefully orchestrated corporate
campaign.
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