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<text id=93HT1017> <title> 52 Election: Democrats:To the Future </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1952 Election </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> August 4, 1952 DEMOCRATS To the Future </hdr> <body> Six months ago it looked as if Harry S. Truman and Robert A. Taft would be the nominees for the presidency. Instead of these familiar quantities, the country now has to reckon with two men relatively new to national politics, both clearly able, both clearly capable to springing lots of surprises. The two meetings at the stockyards proved that fresh winds are badly needed. Different as the two conventions were, they had one striking feature in common: intense conservatism. The Democrats' eyes were turned back to 1932. A more popular character even than F.D.R. in Democratic Convention oratory was the sheriff foreclosing the old mortgage. The party mascot no longer seemed to be the donkey, but the $.02-a-lb. hog. The almost unanimous party line was contained in the phrase "20 years ago." The Democrats' hope is to stimulate the fear that the Republicans would (in the words of the official campaign song) "take it away." At times it seemed as if the Democrats had nothing to cheer but fear itself. The Good Old Days. Conservatism, which has been defined as the worship of dead revolutionists, was present in the factors that led the Democrats to pick Stevenson. He was selected in spite of rather than because of the fact that he is a new face with a new line of talk. What the real leaders of the Democratic Party wanted was a man who could repair the North-South damage and the mink-coat damage of the Truman regime and thereby put the party back where it was when Franklin Roosevelt died. If the Democrats worshiped a dead revolution, a good many Republicans, at their convention two weeks before, seemed to worship a dead counter-revolution. Too much Republican oratory hankered for a "return to" something--return to the good old days of fiscal stability, low taxes, cheap steak. If the conventions are considered as a debate between the parties, the Democrats came out ahead. Backward-looking though their line was, it was coherent, consistent and easy for the voter to understand. But the Republicans were not really arguing with the Democrats; the Republicans were arguing with each other. In the deeply earnest conflict over political principle that raged at the Republican Convention, it was expedient for both sides to sound as conservative as possible, and, as a result, the party as a whole sounded far more conservative than it is. The Better New Days. What was strangely missing from both conventions was a sense of the modern American Revolution, that marriage of political freedom and technology which promises to Americans and to all men the ever-growing hope of better things to come. The Democrats are hypnotized into complacency by the advances over "20 years ago." This dangerous smugness shows in their foreign (as well as their domestic) policy. "Containment" is what a diplomat says when he means "Don't let them take it away." Despite the great material prosperity, Americans are not feeling smug. Their grousing may spring from something deeper than the price of steak (or mink). They may sense that the future depends on how the U.S. plays its part in the world crisis and that this, in turn, depends on what goes on inside the U.S. A better American life--and not merely what the Democrats mean by better--could resolve the international deadlock. The Democratic leaders are blind to that kind of opportunity. They shot their bolt "20 years ago" and have no dynamic approach to the future. If the Republicans get lost in the "20 years ago" debate, they will not grasp the opportunity either. Me-neitherism, not me-tooism, is the Republican pitfall. The Big Battle Before the convention opened, it was clear that Adlai Stevenson, the reluctant candidate, was the man most of the most influential delegates wanted. The Kefauver and Harriman forces of more or less liberal Democrats formed an alliance, decided that what they needed was an issue comparable to the contested delegate fight at the opening of the G.O.P. convention. The issue they hoped would rouse the convention to their side: Northern New Dealism v. Southern conservatism. Monday. At the first night session they rammed through (by voice vote) a resolution requiring all delegations to sign a "loyalty pledge," promising to use "all honorable means" to get the convention's nominees on the ballots in their states. This was designed to make it impossible for the Dixiecrats to run their own regional candidate on the Democratic ticket, as some Southern states had done in 1948. Chiefly responsible for the loyalty pledge move were Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., Harriman campaign manager, Michigan Senator Blair Moody, Michigan Governor Mennen ("Soapy") Williams, a group which North Carolina's old (82), formidable former Governor Cameron Morrison called "half- educated boys." Against them were such fierce old eagles as South Carolina's Jimmy Byrnes and Virginia's Senator Harry Byrd, who were politicians before Roosevelt & Co. could spell "caucus." Tuesday. The "half-educated boys" began to suspect that they had gone too far, agreed to soften the pledge by adding a proviso that, "for this convention only," it would not be binding if it interfered with state laws. But Virginia, South Carolina and Louisiana still refused to sign. Wednesday. On the floor, it became apparent that there was no seam in the North-South fight. Reason: the issue that divided them was "white supremacy," and "white supremacy" is no longer a live slogan in the U.S. One of the Democratic convention's most important achievements was to make this fact clear. Few delegates really wanted to force the South into a walkout. Said Virginia's Harry Byrd: "We'll just sit here, and maybe they'll have to throw us out." Thursday. On nominating day the delegates, not unlike a family taking the kids to the circus, eager and just a little apprehensive, brought a full arsenal of convention democracy--placards and pennants, paper hats and noisemakers, confetti and enthusiasm, Dick Russell was first. Then that great tribal dance known as the demonstration for the candidate broke loose, with waving banners, music shouting. Nominating speeches for Kefauver, Kerr, Fulbright, Harriman, Ewing followed. More shouting, more music, more posters. Then Stevenson. In the midst of the nomination hoopla, the North-South battle erupted again. Louisiana's Governor Kennon insisted that his delegation could not sign the loyalty pledge. "So, I suppose I shall have to say goodbye and God bless you." Maryland's senatorial candidate Lansdale Sasscer moved to seat Virginia even though it had not signed the pledge. The Harriman-Kefauver forces fought it all out. For a while, it looked as if they would win this test, Stevenson's own Illinois voted 45 against seating Virginia 15 for. But by the time the roll passed Pennsylvania, it became clear that the Kefauver-Harriman bloc did not include the bosses. Pennsylvania voted 57-13 for seating Virginia. That was the tip-off to other states that a vote for the motion was a vote for Stevenson. Pro-Stevenson leaders frantically worked up & down the aisles, urging delegates to switch. After a wave of corrections and switches (including Illinois), the vote was 615 for seating Virginia, 529 against. The Harriman-Kefauver forces, beaten again, decided they needed an adjournment to rally their strength and prevent a ballot that night. Senator Paul Douglas, like a man possessed, shouted, "Mr. Chairman! Mr. Chairman!" In a hoarse, weird croak, he moved adjournment. When it looked as if Chairman Rayburn might let the convention dispose of the matter by voice vote, Douglas, his face contorted in frenzy, shouted, "Roll call! Roll call!" The roll was called, and the convention decided to stay in session. While Governor Byrnes was being harassed with questions on the loyalty pledge, smoke and flames rose from among the tightly packed crowd of delegates. In short order, the firemen put out the flames, Jimmy Byrnes rose to say dryly; "I want to announce that I did not set the place on fire." The convention laughed. His remark did much to ease the tension of the fight. By voice vote the convention seated South Carolina and Virginia. At 1:55 a.m. after 14 1/4 hours, the delegates scrambled for their cars and buses. The Kefauver-Harriman strategists called a caucus at the Congress Hotel: F.D.R. Jr. seemed dazed. "Let's see," he rambled...We were dealed out and gaveled out of victory...Life is not always a bowl of cherries but...I promise you this: I'll be back..." Friday. There were no more noisemakers, no more streamers. The musicians left their seats. It was the day of reckoning and the arithmetic was to be more dramatic than the speeches. Kefauver spurted ahead at the start. There were no major surprises. The favorite-son states stuck to their candidates. The Southern states held a solid front for Richard Russell. Result of the first ballot: Kefauver 340, Stevenson 273. Russell 268, Harriman 123 1/2, Kerr 65, Barkley 48 1/2. On the second ballot, some favorite son strength melted away, but there were no major breaks. Both Kefauver and Stevenson gained. The position at the end of Ballot No. 2: Kefauver 362 1/2. Stevenson 324 1/2. Russell 294. Harriman 121, Barkley 78 1/2. Estes Kefauver sat in his grubby bedroom in the Stock Yard Inn, a bottle of beer in his hand and a sandwich on his lap. His sleepy eyes were fixed on the TV screen. As he watched the first two ballots, his spirits revived. "I've never been more delighted in my life," said he. Then James Roosevelt, Governor Menen ("Soapy") Williams and Senator Blair Moody appeared in the little bedroom to tell Kefauver the facts of life. He had done better then they expected, but he could never hope to get enough Stevenson or Russell votes for a majority. Truman, who was having dinner on the floor below, had just seen Paul Fitzpatrick of New York and Governor Dever of Massachusetts. Within minutes, Dever would announce his own witchcraft. Fitzpatrick the withdrawal of New York's Harriman. It was all over. Kefauver tried one more fantastic grandstand play. With Senator Douglas, he slipped out of the inn and headed for the arena, flanked by bodyguards and reporters. They ran into a police cordon, thrown around the amphitheater because of Harry Truman's impending visit, pounded on a closed door. No one would let them in. Then someone led them back to the inn, through a pantry and the crowded taproom, into the hall. The third ballot had reached Colorado. Up the center aisle, elbowing aside the ushers, came a small procession. The delegates strained to see who it was. They could hardly believe their eyes: it was Kefauver and Douglas, heading straight for the platform. Later Kefauver explained: he wanted to withdraw in favor of Douglas, and then Douglas would withdraw in favor of Stevenson. But Sam Rayburn led the invaders to the back, behind a chain shutting off the front end of the platform. Cried Rayburn: "Never in the history of a Democratic Convention has a roll call been interrupted for any purpose." Kefauver and Douglas sat down sheepishly as the roll call went on. Kefauver's hard core still stuck to him, and individual delegates still shouted slogans ("I am happy to cast my vote for that man of destiny from the mountains of Tennessee"). Sagging Balloon. Michigan's 40 votes were the first big switch to Stevenson, followed inexorably by a gain of 83 1/2 from New York. The roll call dragged on, as delegate after delegate asked that delegations by polled. Theoretically, this is done when anyone questions the accuracy of the vote announced by the chairman. Actually, most of those who said they questioned the accuracy were fibbing; they did it partly for the record, partly for a brief moment in the TV glare. At the end of the roll call, Stevenson was still 2 1/2 short of the majority. Kefauver finally got the floor. "I, and I know all my friends, will join to...elect Governor Stevenson as President of the United States," he said, in a low voice. Utah's switch put Stevenson over the top. The final vote: Stevenson 617 1/2, Kefauver 275 1/2, Russell 261, Barkley 67 1/2. At the rear of the platform stood Nancy Kefauver, an orchid on her shoulder, tears in the corners of her eyes. An official asked her to come forward. "No, I don't want to," she said. Later, someone remembered that it was Kefauver's 49th birthday, and the convention dutifully burst into <qt> <l>...Happy birthday, dear Estes,</l> <l>Happy birthday to you!</l> </qt> Hail & Farewell Within a space of days, old (74) Alben Barkley was swept into such riptides of excitement, wild hopes and shattering delusion as few men ever know in a lifetime. On the very eve of the convention he heard heart-lifting news: the Administration, fearful that Stevenson could not be drafted, uncertain of other candidates, was turning at the eleventh hour to him. He hurried to Chicago, buoyed by a strong old man's fierce pride, strutted five blocks through heat and applause, and girded himself to grasp the ultimate prize. Then, with cruel suddenness, the prize was snatched away. The Stevenson boom had never really died; when Barkley invited some labor friends, among them the C.I.O.'s Walter Reuther and Jack Kroll, to a friendly breakfast, they carelessly told him the awful truth: he was too old. Forgiveness. No man knew better than he that there was no appeal from the cold dictates of expediency, but the knowledge was salt in his wounds. He issued a bitter public reply and locked himself in his room. The party had not meant to hurt him, but having done so, it could not rest without obtaining his forgiveness. He must, it urged, come forth and be saluted. In a sense it was a terrible request; the party now had nothing to offer but mocking sound, but it asked that he return thanks and praise before the world. He agreed. On the night the ritual was to be enacted, the amphitheater's galleries were jammed to the rafters with crowds which sat ghostly and half revealed behind the slanted, dazzling shafts of brightness from the television lights. When Barkley came down the stairs at the end of the platform, stiffened his back, lifted his chin and advanced unsmilingly to the speaker's stand, the restless rumble of the crowd became a roar. The ovation went on for 20 minutes. Occasionally, Barkley forced a grin. Occasionally, he lifted his thick arms for the beelike clusters of photographers below him. But for the most part he remained motionless and impassive, his hands clamped on the stand. Behind him in the mezzanine his pretty wife stood, surrounded by applauding women, stared expressionlessly straight ahead. She licked her lips as if her mouth were dry. Then, finally, the uproar hushed and Alben Barkley began to speak--his vigorous, harsh, measured and practiced voice carrying to the farthest corners of the huge hall. He was interrupted almost at once by applause. He was, he cried "more firmly convinced in the righteousness of the Democratic cause than...ever before in my entire life..." He was not a candidate. But as he went on, it was impossible not to conclude that he was making a hopeless, last-ditch attempt to bring about some improbable stampede of delegates, to set off some improbable rallying of the television audiences. He spoke without a text. "Not," he said, "from a piece of paper, but from the heart." Bathed by applause, he fell into that half trance in which the old-fashioned political orator achieves communion with his fellow men. No Lightning. Too old? Only last November, he recalled, he had visited U.S. troops upon the "snowclad mountains" of Korea, had eaten a humble meal from a mess kit in the open. He had celebrated his last birthday in Korea, but it was not the last birthday he would enjoy. He spoke as if he did not really believe he would return "to the shades and shelters or private life..." In effect, he repeated the points made by almost every orator at the convention--but none had said them as passionately, as dramatically, or with such skill. The Republican crusade? "We," he cried, "are not beginning a crusade. We are continuing a crusade...(for) a happier and fuller life for all mankind in the years that lie before us." He ended by speaking of "2 1/2 billion human beings bowed down...by war and fear of war," predicted that "the day shall come when they shall all rise...and stand erect before Almighty God...as free men and women. God grant that it may come in your day and mine. Thank you...and goodbye." As he ended, the hall erupted sound. He stood, arms widespread, beaming finally in what seemed genuine delight. His wife made her way down to stand and wave beside him. Dignitaries rushed up to shake his hand--pink-domed Jim Farley, the Roosevelt brothers, Jimmy and Franklin, James Caesar Petrillo, scores of Senators, bosses, party leaders. The clamor went on for a full 50 minutes. But no lightning struck. No change of heart gripped the milling thousands--then, or later in the convention. As he left the platform and disappeared into the mezzanine after his two hours in the limelight, the crowd was singing: "My Old Kentucky Home...good night." Vigil on Astor Street <qt> <l>Farewell, my friends-farewell and hail!</l> <l>I'm off to seek the Holy Grail.</l> <l>I cannot tell you why.</l> <l>Remember, please, when I am gone,</l> <l>'Twas aspiration led me on.</l> <l>Tiddleyly, widdlely, tootle-oo.</l> <l>All I want is to stay with you.</l> <l>But here I go, Good-bye.</l> </qt> -- Clarence Day Three days before he was nominated, Adlai Stevenson went to earth at the William McCormick Blair home on Chicago's most aristocratic lane, elm-shrouded Astor Street. What happened after that was enough to make Gold Coast matrons stare as they strolled by with their neatly clipped poodles and haughty Chihuahuas. Shirtsleeved reporters and photographers, gnawing sandwiches, drinking coffee and sitting on the curb, took up the vigil outside the red brick Georgian mansion. From time to time, William McCormick Blair Jr., a Stevenson assistant, came out of his parents' house to survey the scene uneasily. He decided to open up the garden between the Blair house and the four-story brick home of his 93-year-old grandmother, Mrs. Louise de Koven Bowen. She wouldn't be disturbed; she was up at the family house near Waukegan. In the garden the Blair butler, Herman, set up a makeshift bar and plugged in a portable radio for the reporters. Serpents in the Elms. But this did not quiet things down on Astor Street. Reporters need telephones. So half a dozen telephone company trucks roared up, electricians swarmed up into the Blair elms, foremen raced up & down the street, cables streamed out of the trees like boa constrictors, and nine pay- telephone booths were set up outside the garden wall. A mobile unit with six more pay phones hummed at the curb. The Chicago Transit Authority was asked to set up portable toilets on Astor Street. The gold Coast was spared this indignity when the Maryknoll Brothers, across from Blair house, opened their bathroom to the press on a 24-hour basis. The man inside the Blair house was much more interesting to cover than the usual candidate; it looked as if he could get the nomination, but he had not agreed to take it. In the garden and on the street, reporters and neighbors recalled Stevenson's long indecision. In April he had said: "I could not accept the nomination for any other office this summer." Last week Stevenson had described himself as "temperamentally, physically and mentally" unfit for the presidency. When a friend asked him what he would do if the convention drafted him, he quipped: "Shoot myself, I guess." All the while, however, he never said he would not accept a draft, and his friends kept working furiously. "I Shall Go." Inside the Blair house, Stevenson alternately watched television on the first floor, then worked in a second- floor room while listening to the radio. He was deeply moved by the demonstration that roared through the convention hall when his name was placed in nomination. He sent out a statement: "I had hoped they would not nominate me, but I am deeply affected..." As the balloting and the roll calls of states and the bickering went on, Stevenson and his friends had moments of depression. A man who decides to bow to a draft wants a good strong one. The draft he got was only so-so. Two extreme Fair Dealers, Minnesota's Senator Hubert Humphrey and Michigan's Governor G. Mennen Williams, telephoned, talked to Stevenson. By midafternoon of the last day, he was working on his acceptance speech. One of his friends who had seen part of the speech marched into the living room and asked how to pronounce "schizophrenia"--the malady Stevenson would diagnose in the Republican Party. Just after midnight of the third day, the vigil on Astor Street ended. The convention had spoken, and the nominee strode before the microphones on grandmother Bowen's veranda. His first words were for the reporters and photographers. "First let me say how much I regret the inconvenience that all of you newsmen have suffered." Then he turned to the subject of the hour: "...I have never been more conscious of the appalling responsibilities of the office. I did not seek it. I did not want it. I am however, persuaded that to shirk it, to evade, to decline would be to repay honor with dishonor. I shall go now to the convention hall and accept the nomination of the Democratic Party. Then the nominee's caravan moved off to convention hall. Before long Astor street was quiet again except for the excited buzzing of the well modulated voices from the mansions along the street. They would go on for quite a while. The Speech Harry Truman had just finished speaking when Adlai Stevenson walked down the steps on to the rostrum. Truman led. It was the first glimpse most of the delegates and most of the U.S. had of the man who Democratic orators told them fervently would be the next President of the United States. When Truman introduced him, Stevenson stood ramrod stiff behind the President occasionally rising on tiptoe. Then he began reading his speech. After 4 weeks of turgid oratory, Truman's included, Stevenson's words struck an entirely new deeply appealing note. Most delegates had never heard anything like it. Excerpts: "None of you...can wholly appreciate what is in my heart. I can only hope that you may understand my words... "I would not seek your nomination for the presidency 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. "I have asked the merciful Father of us all to let this cup pass from me. But from such dread responsibility one does not shrink in fear, in self-interest, or in false humility. "So, `If this cup may not pass from me, except I drink it. Thy will be done'... "And now that you have made your decision, I will fight to win that office with all my heart and soul... "But I feel no exultation, no sense of triumph. Our troubles are all ahead of us. Some will call us appeasers; other will say that we are the war party. Some will say we are reactionary; other will say that we stand for socialism... "But we will hear nothing that we have not heard before. I am not too much concerned with partisan denunciation, with epithets abuse...Nor am I afraid that the precious two-party system is in danger. Certainly the Republican Party looked brutally alive here a couple of weeks ago, and I mean both Republican parties! Nor am I afraid that the Democratic Party is old and fat and indolent. After 150 years it has been old for a long time, and it will never be indolent as long as it looks forward and not back... "What does concern me, in common with thinking partisans of both parties, is not just winning this election, but how it is won...I hope and pray that we Democrats...can campaign not as a crusade to exterminate the opposing party, as our opponents seem to prefer, but as a great opportunity to educate and elevate a people whose destiny is leadership, not alone of a rich, prosperous, contented country as in the past, but of a world in ferment. "And, my friends, more important than winning the election is governing the nation...When the tumult and the shouting die, when the bands are gone and the lights are dimmed, there is the stark reality of responsibility in an hour of history of strife, dissension and materialism at home and ruthless, inscrutable and hostile power abroad... "Let's face it. Let's talk sense to the American people. Let's tell them the truth, that there are no gains without pains, that we are now on the eye of great decisions not easy decisions like resistance when you're attacked, but a long, patient, costly struggle which alone can assure triumph over the great enemies of men--war, poverty and tyranny, and the assaults upon human dignity which are the most grievous consequences of each. "Let's tell them that the victory to be won in the 20th century, this portal to the golden age, mocks the pretensions of individual acumen and ingenuity. For it is a citadel guarded by thick walls of ignorance and mistrust which will not fall before the trumpets' blast or the politicians' imprecations...(They) must be directly stormed by the hosts of courage, of morality and of vision, standing shoulder to shoulder, unafraid of ugly truth, contemptuous, of lies, half truths, circuses and demagoguery. "The people are wise--wiser than the Republicans think. And the Democratic Party is the people's party, not the labor party, not the farmers' party, not the employers' party--it is the party of no one because it is the party of everyone. "That, I think is our ancient mission. Where we have deserted it, we have failed. With your help there will be no desertion now. Better we lose the election than mislead the people: better we lose than misgovern the people... "I ask of you all you have. I will give to you all I have...in the staggering task that you have assigned me, I shall always try `to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with my God.'" Prize Specimen After Stevenson finished his speech, he withdrew for a little serious politicking. In a low ceilinged room behind the rostrum, the candidate and the President gathered with Democratic leaders to pick a Veep. The others present Illinois' ex-Senator Scott Lucas, House Majority Leader John McCormack, Sam Rayburn, National Committee, Chairman Frank McKinney, Jack Arvey. About 40 "witnesses" paraded through the room to give their opinions on who should be Veep. The field quickly narrowed down. Out went Kefauver (unacceptable in the South), Russell (unacceptable in the North), Barkley (too old). Oklahoma's Mike Monroney (not well known enough). The final choice: Senator John Sparkman of Alabama who, though no Dixiecrat, failed to support Truman in 1948. Later, one of the men present explained: "Stevenson made his decision with Harry Truman's help." A few hours later, at noon, the convention met once more, nominated Sparkman, labored wearily through one more demonstration. Said Stevenson: "You have inspected some of the finest political livestock in the U.S. (But) we've reserved until this morning the prize human animal for your approbation." Stevenson was keeping up his record of an aphorism a day. To New York Publisher Dorothy Schiff, at the height of the convention tiredness, he had said: "intellectual rigor mortis has set in." The Special Interests Harry S. Truman last week explained again the secret of his party's past successes. "You know" said he "the real reason the Democrats Party gives the American people the kind of government they want." The platform which his audience had adopted only two days before suggested that there was more to the President's statement than met the eye. The 1952 Democratic platform does not address itself to the American people as a whole. Unlike progressives of an earlier day. Fair Deal Democrats conceive of politics not in terms of "the people" versus "the special interests," but in terms of the people as the sum of innumerable "special interests." Accordingly, the 1952 platform contains clauses offering something to: -- Farmers, consumers, taxpayers, civil servants, investors, organized labor, doctors, advocates of socialized medicine, hunters, fishermen, conservationists, small businessmen, migrant workers, airline operators, automobile owners, shipowners, miners, veterans, students, immigrants, the crippled, the blind, the aged, the sick, the unemployed, and widows & orphans. -- East Germans & West Germans (the hope of unity), Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, Rumanians, Bulgars, Albanians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Latvians (the hope of liberty), Indians, Pakistanis, Japanese, Filipinos, Australians, New Zealanders, Israelis (continued aid), Arabs ("measures for the relief and reintegration of the Palestine refugees"), Latin Americans, Puerto Ricans, Alaskans, Hawaiians; Virgin Islanders, American Indians and residents of Washington, D.C. Digging really deep in the barrel, Democratic platform- makers had also come up with one of the finest special-interest appeals yet, a "baby-sitting" clause which urged that day care for children of working mothers "should be provided and adequately financed." The Democrats seem pleased with their platform and Republicans should be pleased with one aspect of it: the Democratic platform proves to the hilt the Republican contention that no aspect of life is outside the Fair Deal's view of the Federal Government's domain. The Women The Democrats did not overlook the fact that they had some wonderfully interesting female exhibits: two lady diplomats, one lady treasurer, two lady vice-presidential aspirants and one world-famous lady delegate to the United Nations. Unlike the Republicans, the Democratic program-makers managed to give the impression that they were proud of their women leaders. However, the Democratic women speakers, like the Republican women before them, tended to take off from the phrase "we women" in discussing all problems--as if women were either class B or class AA citizens. The two lady diplomats were not howling oratorical successes. Mrs. Perle Mesta, party-giving U.S. envoy to Luxembourg, called her speech "Women as Partners." She began by saying: "This is one of the most exciting moments of my life," a line which might have been lifted straight from Call Me Madam, a musical comedy about her. Sample cliches from her address: "It is a great thing to be an American woman...In America today women are a tremendous force." Mrs. Mesta wore a chic black dress and liberal strands of pearls and looked, withal, as though she had just come in from cooking over a hot stove. The Babble. All the ladies were forced to talk into a dismaying babble from the delegates. Minnesota's handsome, fair Mrs. Eugenie Anderson, U.S. Ambassador to Denmark, did achieve one moment of triumph. During a slight lull she cried that the Democrats had to go on demonstrating that basic policies were "made by our civilians...and...not...by generals-- in or out of uniform!" The crowd gave her a rousing hand. There were few on the floor and undoubtedly few among televiewers who did not stare with interest at pert, grey-haired, 52-year-old Mrs. Georgia Neese Clark, the Treasurer of the U.S. The reason: it is one of Mrs. Clark's duties and privileges to affix her signature to the lower left-hand corner of all paper money. She hoped, she said, that everyone in the hall had "many dollar bills with my signature..." Hefty, hearty Mrs. India Edwards--vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee and a woman with an eye on the vice-presidency--gave the convention a change of pace. She tramped to the speakers stand splendidly corseted, and garbed in lacy black. She clasped her hands over her head and mitted the crowd. Then she cried--of its treatment of the other women speakers--"you were exceedingly rude!" Amid the startled applause she fogged in some fast opening lines. The Gavel. "I come to you not just as an official of the Democratic Party. I come as a woman, a wife who wore a Gold Star in World War I and a mother who wore a Gold Star in World War II..." She abhorred war, she said, but called on her sex to demand that the U.S. live up to its military responsibilities. When the crowd grew noisy she seized the gavel and whacked away with it like a section hand driving a spike. When she was done, half the delegates came to their feet to cheer. "I would have appreciated a little silence more," said Mrs. India Edwards grimly. (She made many a delegate wonder who Mr. Edwards might be. He is Herbert Phrelkeid Edwards Acting Assistant Administrator of the Motion Picture Service of the International Information Administration of the Department of State and Mrs. Edwards' third husband. Her first, Dan Sharp, died in action in World War I. She was married again in 1920 to John Mofield a Chicago broker; they were divorced in 1937.) The biggest ovation was reserved for Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose new frizzy hairdo made her look like a genial golliwogg. She was introduced by Massachusetts' Governor Dever as the "first lady of the world." Her arrival also set off a startling display of acrimony from Southern delegations, many of whom snubbed her pointedly by remaining seated during the 20 minutes of cheering which followed her entrance. Her speech seemed anticlimactic--an earnest, highschool debating case for the U.N. Most of the delegates joined in a tremendous outburst of applause when she was done. In 32 years since they got the vote, women had never before cut such a swath at a national political convention. Besides the big-name women, there were 525 women delegates and alternates. Domestic Issue When the Democratic Convention nominated Adlai Stevenson for President, it gave him another position: he became the most eligible unmarried man in the U.S. That status will not ease the nominee's burden from here to November. Almost every time he is seen in public with a woman, or a feminine acquaintance mentions his name with what her listeners consider a special inflection, tongues will wag and columnists' typewriters will clatter. Last week, even before he was nominated, at least four women were being mentioned as prospective Stevenson brides. All four rumors were wrong. The fact is that Stevenson has no intention of remarrying. "Incompatibility." Adlai Stevenson married Ellen Borden, one of CHicago's most attractive debutantes, on Dec. 1, 1928. They have three sons, Adlai III, 21 (recently enlisted in the Marines): Borden, 20: and John Fell, 16. In 1949, less than a year after Stevenson became governor of Illinois, his wife sued for divorce. The unhappy governor told reporters: "Although I don't believe in divorce, I will not contest it...Due to the incompatibility of our lives, Mrs. Stevenson feels a separation is necessary." Now, some of Stevenson's friends are concerned about what his ex-wife might say and do during the presidential campaign. He does not share this concern; it was not a factor in his reluctance to run. Last month, Mrs. Stevenson announced that she would vote Republican, no matter whom the Democrats selected. Said she: "I feel another four years of Democratic Administration would ruin the country." But last week she penned a carefully worded note: "Dear Adlai, Congratulations to the Democratic Party for choosing the finest available Democrat...All good wishes to you personally." She handed it to a family friend who carried it just four doors up Chicago's Astor Street from her home to the Blair house, where the governor had established his waiting headquarters. After he read the note, a happy Stevenson scribbled a reply on the envelope and sent it back to her. "That's grand," he wrote. "Many thanks." A Sensitive Test. As the first divorced presidential nominee (of a major party) in U.S. history, Stevenson will face an issue never raised before. Last may, Pollster George Gallup took a reading on the question. Results: 81% of those interviewed said they would vote for a qualified candidate for President even if he were divorced; 16% said they would not. (At the same time, another Gallup poll showed that 70% said they would vote for a military man; 25% said they would not.) Some support for Mr. Gallup's finding appeared last week in Chicago among politicians who could be considered highly sensitive to the divorce issue. At a caucus of the Massachusetts delegation, predominantly Roman Catholic, one delegate brought up the divorce question. Another said Stevenson couldn't be blamed for the divorce, because his wife divorced him. Said the delegate: "Hell, half of our wives would divorce us if they could." A roar of laughter swept the caucus room. On the third ballot, Massachusetts cast 25 of its 36 votes for divorced Adlai Stevenson. </body> </article> </text>