Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy - Ludwig von Mises ...

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24.
1944: A Political Year
In politics, as in war, crisis is the normal state of aff airs. In 1944,
with the nation at war, the Germans and the Japanese were
doing their utmost to create crises for the United States forces
overseas. Th e people of this country, united in the war eff ort, were
working hard. Our factories were booming; weapons, ships, and
planes were coming off assembly lines at unprecedented rates.
Yet politics doesn’t take time off for war. Although the people
were patriotic and united in the national war eff ort, they were
divided politically—between pro-administration Democrats and
anti-administration Republicans. And in politics one can be sure
of one thing; both parties will try to create crises for the other.
The Presidential Nominations
On June 26, the Republican National Convention, meeting
in Chicago, nominated as its presidential candidate the vigorous
42-year-old Th omas E. Dewey, a lawyer and former district
attorney for New York County, who had won acclaim as a crimebuster,
had put mob leaders Legs Diamond and Lucky Luciano