Wendell Wilkie – 1892-1944

Wilkie left the Democratic Party because he believed President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal brought too many government restraints on business. In 1940, as a Republican, he ran unsuccessfully against FDR, who was bidding for his third term. During World War II, he saw himself in the role of the “loyal opposition” and did much to promote the early war effort. In 1943, he wrote One World, a book advocating postwar international cooperation. Wilkie’s view helped prevent the kind of Republican isolationism that had swept the country after World War I.