In 1952, when I was fourteen, I got a job at the Democratic National Convention in nearby Chicago. I wasn’t much into politics, but the convention sounded like fun, so for a memorable week that July I worked as a copy boy for the Chicago Sun-Times at the International Theater next to the stockyards. There, two weeks earlier, the Republicans had nominated Dwight D. Eisenhower. Here’s what I witnessed.
Eager delegates eagerly awaited the opening gavel, including, according to the New York Times, “525 delegates and alternates.” Ornate banners announced the many candidates vying for the nomination. The honor guard was coming! The orchestra played “Eyes of Texas” and “California, Here I Come,” and the smell of cattle dying nearby filled the air.
Feeling self-important, political bigwigs exchange manly greetings and gossip from the Iowa caucus. Sen. Lyndon Johnson, a Texas-style powerhouse, dominates the stage. U.S. Rep. John F. Kennedy, 35, casually mingles with the Massachusetts delegation.
On every seat is a sign that the convention is being televised; delegates are asked to behave themselves. At the top of the vast arena stands Walter Cronkite, the CBS announcer. In 1945, there were only a few thousand television sets in use across the country; now, seven years later, there are 17 million homes. Delegates wave to the television cameras back home.
The host Governor Adlai Stevenson II delivered the welcoming address, an old convention staple. “Here, my friends, on the plains of Illinois and the Midwest, we can see far in all directions,” he said. “Here there are no barriers, no defenses, to ideas and aspirations. … We want no shackles on mind or spirit, no rigid patterns of thought, no rigid conformity.” Then he made a playful mockery of the Republican convention that had just passed. “Large phrases have marched across this landscape in search of an idea.”
In the press section next to the stage, the best seats in the auditorium, sit the giants of American journalism. Walter Lippmann. James B. Reston of the Times. The great Murray Kempton. Henry Luce walks by. My job is to send a fresh copy of the paper to the theater halls where the big-city papers keep their dirty spaces.
Copies are everywhere. Men tell their stories on the telephone, while Associated Press telex machines transmit minute-by-minute details from the convention. Michigan Governor J. Mennen Williams meets behind closed doors with Vice President Alben Barkley, who is aspiring to the top job. Barkley is criticized for being too old at 74 to be president.
After winning twelve of the fifteen primaries, anti-gang Sen. Estes Kvauder is the frontrunner. But like his fellow candidates—Barkley, W. Averell Harriman of New York, and Robert S. Kerr of Oklahoma (a favorite of Big Oil)—Kvauder is losing ground to an outsider.
Stevenson practices politics at unfamiliar frequencies: not over-the-top, vulgar, or clichéd, but rather thoughtful, educated, intelligent, sarcastic, and honest.
During a secret meeting at Blair House the previous January, President Harry Truman had offered Stevenson the nomination, and was surprised when the first-term governor declined.
He has insisted for a year that being governor of Illinois is the limit of his ambition. But his reluctance to seek higher office sets him apart, and in any case an army of volunteers is marching for him. By convention, he is unstoppable.
When Stevenson was chosen in the third round of voting as the Democratic Party's nominee for president, having done nothing to advance his cause and in fact frustrated it, he accepted it. “I don't feel any exhilaration or sense of triumph,” he said.
The final night of the National Convention was a great show. The bright lights shone on the faces of the dignitaries. When the work was done, the “Adlai Madly” banners were held high, and the delegates cheered enthusiastically.
America is waiting for the new man.
He speaks of sacrifice, morality and the assault on human dignity. He reminds his party of the “silent millions who look to us for compassion, understanding and honest purpose.”
He describes Eisenhower as “a leader we all respect.”
“More important than winning an election is governing a nation. That is the test of any political party, the ultimate test. When the noise and shouting subsides, when the bands die down and the lights dim, the stark reality of responsibility emerges,” he says.“Let’s talk to the American people with common sense. Let’s tell them the truth, which is that there is no gain without suffering… It is better to lose an election than to mislead people.”
When it's over, the place goes crazy. Truman raises Stevenson's hand in triumph. “Happy days are here again” rises above the noise. On nights like these, anything is possible.
Stevenson had suffered painful defeats in his life of honor and noble purpose. That night in Chicago he ignited in me, and in millions of people, a flame of idealism, and even here, in the political sewers in which we now live, that flame has never been extinguished.
Calvin Fentress is a retired journalist and former aide to Republican U.S. Senator Charles Percy of Illinois.
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