An American Rhetoric of Globalism: Peace Through International Economic Cooperation in the World War Ii Era

AN AMERICAN RHETORIC OF GLOBALISM: PEACE THROUGH INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC COOPERATION IN THE WORLD WAR II ERA BY LAURA ANN STENGRIM DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Communication in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2016 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor Cara Finnegan, Co-Chair Associate Professor John Murphy, Co-Chair Associate Professor Peter Mortensen Associate Professor Ned O’Gorman ABSTRACT A rhetoric of globalism compelled Americans during the World War II era to imagine a postwar peace that would depend on individual economic security and global economic interdependence. In a time of radical contingency, globalism emerged as an inventive alternative both to the predominant isolationism that preceded the war and to the Cold War logic that would soon replace it. The project has discursive resonances in our current era of economic globalization, perpetual warfare, and domestic and global income inequality; by contextualizing globalism within America’s recent and founding history, and by focusing on the economic aspects of American identity within a globalizing world in a liminal moment, it also offers to the field of rhetorical studies an alternative account of popular, presidential, and institutional discourses in the World War II era. The study takes as its sites of analysis three rhetorical landmarks in the American history of globalization: Wendell Willkie’s One World (1943), President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s State of the Union address, which concluded with an “Economic Bill of Rights” (1944), and the U.S. Congressional debates about the Bretton Woods institutions (1945). Willkie, the failed 1940 Republican presidential candidate, traveled the globe and sometimes served as the President’s proxy, using ethos and presence to encourage Americans to imagine a postwar world that was small and familiar. Roosevelt, via the Economic Bill of Rights, managed Americans’ fears by inscribing economic security as a constitutional and universal right, drawing on the language of the nation’s founding and thus positioning the historical moment as one of kairos of the highest order. Congressional supporters and opponents of the Bretton Woods institutions, too, drew on the nation’s history to understand the present moment as radically contingent, using a ii constitutive rhetoric of economics to institutionalize globalism. Although globalism was quickly overshadowed by the events of the early Cold War, it remains a rhetorical resource in discussions about American identity as it intersects with the global implications of late capitalism. iii In loving memory of my Grandpa Frank iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project was long in the making. To sufficiently thank each and every colleague, friend, mentor, and professor who supported me at each stage would require writing another dissertation in and of itself—which is the last thing I want to do right now. In this limited space, then, I can only attempt to convey my unlimited gratitude. The first time I taught college writing was as an undergraduate peer tutor for my work-study job at St. Ben’s and St. John’s in Minnesota. Over fifteen years later, having taught composition and communication classes in a variety of contexts and at a variety of institutions, ranging from the University of Illinois to the Colorado School of Mines, and from the Maricopa County Community College District in Arizona and back again, I am consistently challenged and inspired by my students. They have given me purpose and brought clarity to what I most value as an educator and human being. Both in and outside of academia, I’ve had the great fortune of meeting and spending time with some incredible teachers and mentors who have shown me what it means to live with authenticity and courage. The deep personal connections found in activist and yoga communities in Urbana and Phoenix have been sources of tremendous sustenance; my parents, family, and closest friends continue to instill unconditional love and support with each turn of the proverbial page. The right people appear in our lives at exactly the right time. Much sweat equity and many thanks are owed to friends and colleagues--too numerous to name--throughout my various iterations of graduate school at the University of Illinois, first as a master’s student in the Center for Writing Studies, then as a doctoral student in the Department of Communication, and finally during these last couple of years during my return to the U of I to finish my degree. In a mutually supportive environment, we have shared our ideas and our processes, commiserated, celebrated, held vigil, and kept each other properly caffeinated. Approaching final revisions of this project, I realized the extent to which my scholarship has been shaped by some formidable minds in the field of rhetorical studies. Graduate seminars with Professors Peter Mortensen, Gail Hawisher, Catherine Prendergast, Debra Hawhee, Stephen Hartnett, Cara Finnegan, and Bob Ivie stand out as particularly influential. Bob Ivie encouraged me to pursue research in the Willkie archive, which was supported by the Helm Fellowship and Lilly Library at Indiana University. Classes and conversations with Peter Mortensen early in my graduate career still inform my pedagogical approaches and historical, rhetorical, and general curiosities. Ned O’Gorman has been an insightful reader, intrepid questioner, and steadfast committee member from the dissertation’s earliest stages. Oratorical extraordinaire John Murphy is an encyclopedia of all things rhetoric, public address, the presidency, and American history; his direction has, of course, been invaluable. Finally, I cannot thank Cara Finnegan enough for her patient willingness to work with me despite my many stubborn moments. She is a brilliant scholar, mentor, and teacher; I am honored and lucky to be her student, always. v TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ..............................................................................................1 CHAPTER TWO: WENDELL WILLKIE’S ONE WORLD .........................................................29 CHAPTER THREE: THE “ECONOMIC BILL OF RIGHTS” IN FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT’S 1944 ANNUAL MESSAGE ADDRESS ...............................................61 CHAPTER FOUR: CONGRESSIONAL DEBATES ABOUT BRETTON WOODS .................91 CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION..............................................................................................130 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................137 vi CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION Historians often note that the post-World War II era was a remarkable episode in world politics and economics, what John Ikenberry calls an “ordering moment” in which the global dynamics of power shifted.1 The narrative we most usually hear is that the United States, counterbalanced in a modernist bipolar world by Soviet Russia, rose after the war to dominate and lead as a liberal hegemon for the next half century, and that the end of the Cold War brought a new era of globalization characterized by national security through international economic cooperation. Although scholars of the Cold War variously mark its origins and rhetorical trajectories, it is certain that the world changed course when Franklin D. Roosevelt died in office in April 1945, the atomic bombs were dropped in August 1945, Churchill gave his “Iron Curtain” speech in 1946, and Harry S. Truman launched the Truman Doctrine in 1947—which began the policy of Soviet containment and, as one observer states, “helped to enshrine in American popular culture the conviction that the world is a fundamentally dangerous place.”2 However, starting roughly in 1940 with debates about Lend-Lease and throughout World War II, a different vision of the future was taking hold of the American imagination, one of peace through global economic cooperation. It is this brief, overlooked era of global optimism, or what I refer to as globalism, that this dissertation project takes up. Globalism was popular in the postwar planning era. One of its chief and vocal proponents was businessman and failed 1940 Republican presidential candidate Wendell Willkie, whose October 1942 radio address following a famous trip around the world was heard by 36,200,000 listeners—second only to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Pearl Harbor address.3 Willkie’s book One World shattered publication records upon initial release in April 1943, with Simon & Schuster running four sets of print plates around the clock to keep up with sales averaging 1 50,000 per day.4 Serialized versions of the book circulated in newspapers and magazines across the country, and around the world, reaching hundreds of thousands of readers. So popular and charismatic was Willkie that after the 1940 election President Roosevelt asked him to travel as a personal representative to London in order to boost American public support for Lend-Lease. The two maintained a friendship despite a history of bitter political rivalry, Willkie uniquely able to trumpet globalism in ways that Roosevelt, physically and rhetorically constrained, could not. Meanwhile, shortly after the Pearl Harbor bombings in December 1941, the Roosevelt administration began making plans for international currency stabilization, fearing a global return to the Great Depression.5 Harry Dexter White, Assistant to Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, became

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