Although my parents always voted (almost always, I think, for Democrats), they weren’t political. They didn’t work on campaigns, go to rallies or become involved in the civil rights or anti-war movements.
And, with one exception, I never heard them speak highly of any national politician. The exception was Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic nominee for president in both 1952 and 1956. He is pictured on today’s #stampoftheday, which was issued on October 23, 1965, a little more than three months after he died of a heart attack in London.
Why did my parents, especially my father, think so highly of Stevenson? The answer, as I recall (and reconstruct) the story is that he gave an amazing speech that blew them away. Specifically, in July 1952, about a month after my brother Neil was born, my parents were sitting outside their apartment in Jackson Heights listening to the radio. The Democratic National Convention was starting and Stevenson, then the highly regarded governor of Illinois, was giving welcoming remarks.
The speech greatly impressed my parents, who had never heard of Stevenson. Apparently many others had the same reaction because a few nights later, Stevenson, who had previously rebuffed suggestions that he run for president, changed his mind and was selected on the third ballot (making him the last person nominated on anything but the first ballot).
Though my father often recounted the story, he never told me what Stevenson actually said. It appears that the convention speech, like many of Stevenson’s speeches was a wonderful mix of humor, intellect, and morality. For example, as governor he explained his veto a bill requiring public employees and candidates for office to sign a loyalty oath by asking “Does anyone seriously think that a real traitor will hesitate to sign a loyalty oath? Of course not. Really dangerous subversives and saboteurs will be caught by careful, constant, professional investigation, not by pieces of paper. The whole notion of loyalty inquisitions is a natural characteristic of the police state, not of democracy. I know full well this veto will be distorted and misunderstood….I know that to veto this bill in this period of grave anxiety will be unpopular with many. But I must, in good conscience, protest against any unnecessary suppression of our ancient rights as free men….We will win the contest of ideas that afflicts the world not by suppressing those rights, but by their triumph.”
In his famous convention speech, Stevenson described the achievements of the Democratic Party under Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, and went on to note that “our Republican friends have said it was all a miserable failure. For almost a week pompous phrases marched over this landscape in search of an idea, and the only idea that they found was that the two great decades of progress…were the misbegotten spawn of bungling, of corruption, of socialism, of mismanagement, of waste and worse….After listening to this everlasting procession of epithets about our [party’s] misdeeds I was even surprised the next morning when the mail was delivered on time. But we Democrats were by no means the only victims here. First they [Republicans] slaughtered each other, and then they went after us….Perhaps the proximity of the stockyards accounts for the carnage.”
The same speech also included timeless statements that are as true today as they were then. “What counts now is not just what we are against, but what we are for.,” he asserted. “Who leads us is less important than what leads us – what convictions, what courage, what faith – win or lose.” And then he added: ” What America needs and the world wants is not bombast, abuse, and double-talk, but a sober message of firm faith and confidence.”
Accepting the nomination a few nights later, he explained, he had not sought the nomination “because the burdens of that office stagger the imagination. Its potential for good or evil now and in the years of our lives smothers exultation and converts vanity to prayer . . . that my heart has been troubled, that I have not sought this nomination, that I could not seek it in good conscience, that I would not seek it in honest self-appraisal,…is not to say that I value it the less. Rather it is that I revere the office of the Presidency of the United States.”
Despite such eloquence and honesty, Stevenson, who many perceived as aloof, was twice beaten badly by Dwight D. Eisenhower. (As Stevenson later noted, “who did I think I was, running against George Washington?” And, reminded of that after his second defeat, he added, “who did I think I was, running against George Washington twice?”)
Stevenson, who also made an unsuccessful, last-minute effort to get the Democratic presidential nomination in 1960, was then appointed the US ambassador to the UN, a post he held until he died. So his career, while honorable, wasn’t one full of notable successes. But his impact was enormous because, as David Halberstam wrote, he ” reinvigorated [the Democratic Party] and made it seem an open and exciting place for a generation of younger Americans who might otherwise never have thought of working for a political candidate.”
The work done by those people and the people that they in turn inspired greatly transformed America and American politics. But, as they would be the first to admit, the fights have been hard and the setbacks have been frequent, a reality summed up by an apocryphal but apparently true story about Stevenson. During his first campaign for president, a young woman approached Stevenson and supposedly said, “Governor, every thinking person will be voting for you.” Stevenson famously replied, “Madam, that is not enough. I need a majority.”
Those words are both funny and chilling because today, perhaps more than ever, “what America needs and the world wants is not bombast, abuse, and double-talk, but a sober message of firm faith and confidence.” Hopefully, enough people are smart enough to recognize this.
Be well, stay safe, fight for justice, and work for peace.