Wallace M. Short

s biography of Wallace M. Short is a welcome contribution to the study of twentieth-century Iowa politics and midwestern progressivism.While Short is not well known today, fifty years ago he was a prominent figure in farmer and labor circles.He first acquired notoriety as a Congregationalist minister opposed to prohibition prior to World War I.As a result of that position, he ultimately lost his Sioux City pulpit and was expelled from two ministerial associations.He may have become more controversial in 1919, when as mayor of Sioux City, he extended a welcome to the radical Industrial Workers of the World.All of his adult life, he was a strong supporter of organized labor and he directed much of his attention after his three mayoralty terms toward building a farmer-, labor political coalition.He edited a weekly labor paper, the Unionist and Public Forum, for more than twenty years, and emerged as the key figure in Iowa's Farmer-Labor party during the Depression.Close to Milo Reno, Short supported the Farm Holiday and criticized the New Deal farm program.Later, however, during World War II, he became a strong backer of FDR and Henry Wallace.Then, in the postwar era, he opposed American foreign policy and endorsed Wallace's third-party candidacy in 1948.Cumberland's fair-minded account covers the long public career of this "Iowa rebel," and in so doing, illuminates other topics as well.One of the most interesting sections of the book concerns Short's involvement with third-party efforts in the 1930s.Early in the decade, he had served one term as a Republican legislator and later he failed to obtain the 1934 Republican gubernatorial nomination.Then he opted for the new Farmer-Labor party and was its candidate for governor three times.The most controversial episode of his

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