THIRD PARTIES: Iowa Hybrid

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After hatching out his Progressive Party in Philadelphia last week, Henry Wallace headed for a hilltop in New York's Westchester County. There, on Farvue Farm, in a large white house overlooking the village of South Salem, he tended his 116 acres of farm land, cultivated his garden, and supervised the care of his 4,000 Leghorns and New Hampshire Reds.

He planned to stay on his hill the rest of the month, in comparative seclusion, coming down some time after Labor Day to hurl himself back into the active campaign. Until then, no doubt, he would do some musing on his future. Henry Wallace, who considers himself a reflective man, had plenty to think about.

He had passed a critical milestone in his life. He was now, at 59, what he had always wanted to be: a presidential candidate. In his own view, he was more than that. He was the only candidate who had the true key to peace & prosperity, the only man who could keep America—and the world—from complete ruin.

But at the very time that he had reached this exalted position, something else had taken place. The real leadership of his party had been openly and boldly taken over by Communists and fellow travelers. Communists well knew that if the indictments against their twelve top leaders resulted in convictions, their party would be seriously crippled. The Progressive Party was an escape hatch.

Wallace, if he was to be believed—and his loyal followers believed him to the hilt—was not aware that this capture had taken place. The U.S. people, most of whom would vote as Republicans or Democrats in November, were not sure, watching Wallace's political sideshow, just what to make of him. Was he a liberal—or a lollipop? Was he Sir Galahad or, as Westbrook Pegler has savagely dubbed him, an old Bubblehead? Was he a true prophet or a sinister Pied Piper?

Somewhere, the Sun. Few men have their roots deeper in their own country than Henry Agard Wallace. If there is such a thing as "authentically American" stock, his is.

Grandfather Henry was one of the nine children of John Wallace, a high-tempered farmer who emigrated from Ireland to Pennsylvania. Eight of the nine children died of consumptive diseases. But grandfather Henry lived to be almost 80—an ordained minister in the United Presbyterian Church, a doer and dreamer, a smoker of Pittsburgh stogies, a man of vast physical bulk, who quit the regular ministry to homestead, later to edit and write for the family's Wallaces' Farmer. He wrote a three-volume story of his life and a robust column, "Uncle Henry's Sabbath School Lesson," which was one of the biggest circulation builders in Midwest journalism. To grandfather Henry, who looked like an Old Testament prophet, the Old Testament stories were as fresh as the morning milk.

Grandfather's oldest son was another Henry—redheaded "Harry," who taught at Iowa State Agricultural College and became Secretary of Agriculture under Harding and Coolidge. Harry's wife, interested in genealogy, dug up the Wallace family coat of arms. It displayed an ostrich about to swallow a horseshoe. The motto: Sperandum est (free translation: Somewhere, the sun is shining).