August 12, 1980: Regrets at the Democratic Convention

August 12, 1980: The Democratic National Convention is underway at Madison Square Garden in New York. In 1976, it also met at The Garden, nominating former Governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia for President, and Senator Walter Mondale of Minnesota for Vice President. It was a highly successful Convention, the Democrats' least contentious since 1936, and spurred the Carter-Mondale ticket on to victory in November.

Four years later, it was the same venue, and the same ticket. But so much had changed. The Iran Hostage Crisis dragged on. Inflation and interest rates were rising. In each case, with no end in sight. Carter had enforced an American boycott of the Olympic Games in Moscow, in response to the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan -- in hindsight, the right thing to do; but, at the time, a highly unpopular decision.

He had even signed signs Proclamation 4771, in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. It retroactively re-established the Selective Service registration requirement for all male U.S. citizens between the ages of 18 and 26, born on or after January 1, 1960.

In other words, it was a first step toward reinstituting the military draft, which President Richard Nixon had eliminated on January 27, 1973, at the end of the Vietnam War. Of all the reasons that Carter lost the election, this is one of the less-remembered, but most important. He essentially threw away the votes of anyone subject to the bill.

The month before, the Republican Party had held their Convention. They had a lot of guts, as a racially divisive, union-busting party, holding it in a majority-black city known for its labor unions, Detroit, in a a building named for a black man, the Joe Louis Arena.

For President, they had nominated former Governor of California, and former actor, Ronald Reagan, who had seemed like his time had come and gone in 1976. For Vice President, they had nominated George H.W. Bush, former Congressman from Texas, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, former Director of the CIA, and former Chairman of the Republican National Committee. They were absolutely united.

The Democrats were not. Despite the fact that, for what turned out to be the only time between 1964 and 1996, the Presidency was held by a Democrat running for re-election, Senator Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy of Massachusetts -- brother of a former President, brother of a noted Presidential candidate, both of them assassinated -- made what turned out to be his only run for President. He didn't think Carter was strong enough on liberal issues like the cities, labor rights, and health care, issues on which he had excelled in drafting legislation for the Senate.

Despite coming from a State next door, Carter beat Kennedy solidly in the New Hampshire Primary, and wrapped up the nomination fairly early. But as things got worse on the job for Carter, something interesting happened: Even though Democratic Primary voters knew Kennedy couldn't catch Carter in Delegates, they started voting for Kennedy anyway, as a protest. This weakened Carter further.

Kennedy spoke on the 2nd night of the Convention. For a moment, people forgot all about his flaws -- the marital infidelities, the drinking, the Chappaquiddick incident of 1969, and his embarrassing interview with Roger Mudd the preceding November, when he couldn't seem to properly answer the question of why he was running -- and saw him as he had hoped to be seen all along, as the heir to the Kennedy legacy.

After a few opening platitudes, he went after the opposition:

The 1980 Republican Convention was awash with crocodile tears for our economic distress, but it is by their long record, and not their recent words, that you shall know them.

The same Republicans who are talking about the crisis of unemployment have nominated a man who once said, and I quote, "Unemployment insurance is a prepaid vacation plan for freeloaders." And that nominee is no friend of labor.

The same Republicans who are talking about the problems of the inner cities have nominated a man who said, and I quote, "I have included in my morning and evening prayers every day the prayer that the Federal Government not bail out New York." And that nominee is no friend of this city and our great urban centers across this nation.

The same Republicans who are talking about security for the elderly have nominated a man who said, just four years ago, that "Participation in Social Security should be made voluntary." And that nominee is no friend of the senior citizens of this nation.

The same Republicans who are talking about preserving the environment have nominated a man who, last year, made the preposterous statement, and I quote, "Eighty percent of our air pollution comes from plants and trees." And that nominee is no friend of the environment.

And the same Republicans who are invoking Franklin Roosevelt have nominated a man who said in 1976, and these are his exact words, "Fascism was really the basis of the New Deal." And that nominee, whose name is Ronald Reagan, has no right to quote Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

For those few minutes, in spite of his Boston accent, Edward Moore Kennedy sounded like not just the proper heir to John Fitzgerald Kennedy, but the proper heir to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He closed with words that not only invoked his brothers, but made him sound like them:

Someday, long after this Convention, long after the signs come down, and the crowds stop cheering, and the bands stop playing, may it be said of our campaign that we kept the faith. May it be said of our Party in 1980 that we found our faith again.

May it be said of us, both in dark passages and in bright days, in the words of Tennyson that my brothers quoted and loved, and that have special meaning for me now: "I am a part of all that I have met. Too much is taken, much abides. That which we are, we are: One equal temper of heroic hearts, strong in will to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

For me, a few hours ago, this campaign came to an end. For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die!

For a 10-year-old boy, growing up within an hour's bus ride of Midtown Manhattan, who had heard his parents wax poetic about Jack and Bobby, but only knew them himself as historic figures already dead, this was a taste of what they knew well.

Maybe "my Kennedy" was Teddy, but, after this, every 4 years, up to and including 2008, Teddy -- along with Jesse Jackson, Mario Cuomo, and sometimes Bill Bradley -- could always be counted on to deliver the goods at a Democratic Convention.

Unless you were working for Jimmy Carter on this occasion. Carter's White House Chief of Staff, Hamilton Jordan, wrote in his memoir:

For a long year, Ted Kennedy had been the enemy... but it was difficult for me to see him in the Convention setting without thinking of his family and its tragedies... Ted Kennedy’s words triggered open the floodgates of memories: Camelot, magic rhetoric, and the shock of the assassinations.

Carter's acceptance speech on Thursday night was terrible. He messed up the name of the late Democratic icon Hubert Horatio Humphrey, calling him "Hubert Horatio Hornblower." He mentioned his move to bring back the draft, and became the 1st sitting President ever to get booed at his own Party's Convention.

(A lot of people switched their votes to Ronald Reagan, who didn't say he would keep the Proclamation; or stayed home, because they thought it made both candidates "war hawks." In 2022, the Proclamation is still in effect: While we have never again had a draft, every male citizen has to register when he turns 18. My 18th birthday fell on a Friday, and I registered at the East Brunswick Post Office the following Monday.)

When Carter's speech was over, he sought Kennedy out, to do the traditional gesture of the victorious candidate with all the defeated candidates, arms raised, united in victory. As Ted worked his way to the podium, shaking hands with First Lady Rosalynn Carter, First Daughter Amy Carter, Vice President Mondale, Second Lady Joan Mondale, and pretty much everybody he could reach, Carter just stood there, as if he were a foreign dignitary waiting for the President of the United States to come down the steps of Air Force One. Kennedy was the one who looked like the President at that moment.

Over the next few minutes, 5 times, Carter and Kennedy could be seen shaking hands. But not once would Kennedy raise his and Carter's arms, nor would he allow Carter to do so. Carter didn't get the gesture he so desperately needed.

Few political figures have been identified with sincere Christianity as much as Jimmy Carter. But Ted Kennedy was one political figure he found it very difficult to forgive.

Just as, 4 years earlier, Republicans heard Reagan's speech after Ford's, and thought it, Democrats had seen Carter and Kennedy, separately and together, and left the Convention hall, or turned off their TV sets, thinking, "We nominated the wrong guy."

Did they? Would Kennedy have beaten Reagan in 1980? No: The Republicans' campaign slime machine, which stayed in low gear against Carter, because it didn't need to go any higher, would have taken Ted's nostalgia-driven popularity into account, and harped on his personal failings, as well as calling his liberal stands outdated and out of touch.

Indeed, one prominent commercial showed two men in a car, the driver looking like Ted's Boston ally, Speaker of the House Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, the passenger looking like a typical lobbyist in a cheap suit. They were lost, and the lobbyist suggested pulling over to a gas station for directions, and the driver refused, until they were in the middle of nowhere, and out of gas. The voiceover said, "The Democrats are out of gas. Vote Republican."

Had Ted been the nominee, the Republicans would have portrayed him as a drunken, philandering Sixties liberal, out of touch with America, and Reagan would still have won in a landslide, though perhaps not as big of one as he got against Carter. And the Kennedy dream that Ted spoke of would have been as dead and buried as his brothers.

Instead, Carter took the loss, and the Kennedy dream lived on. Later Democrats tried to copy the Kennedys, especially Senator Gary Hart of Colorado, but he ended up copying the Kennedys in the bedroom as well. So did Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas, but he handled the questions better, and was elected in 1992. Had Ted Kennedy been nominated in 1980, the next Democrat to get elected might have taken until 1992, or even later, and he certainly would not have been a Kennedy-style Democrat.

No member of the Kennedy family has made a serious run for President since. (UPDATE: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ran a 3rd-party campaign in 2024, but his run cannot be called "serious." He won 756,000 votes for 0.49 percent.) 

*

August 12, 1980 was a Tuesday. Actress Maggie Lawson was born. And these games were played in Major League Baseball:

* The New York Yankees beat the Chicago White Sox, 8-4 at Yankee Stadium. Reggie Jackson went 1-for-5 with an RBI. Ruppert Jones hit a walkoff grand slam off Ed Farmer in the bottom of the 10th inning, to make a winning pitcher out of Doug Bird, in relief of Luis Tiant.

It didn't look right: Tiant had starred for the Yankees' arch-rivals, the Boston Red Sox; Bird had been a key figure in the Yankees' 1977 and 1978 Playoff wins over the Kansas City Royals; and Jones had been the 1st-ever All-Star for the expansion Seattle Mariners in 1977. He was a good pickup, but on August 25, he crashed into the center field fence in Oakland making a great catch, and was out for the season.

Just before the next season started, the Yankees traded him to the San Diego Padres, for a package that included his replacement in center field, Jerry Mumphrey, who helped the Yankees win the American League Pennant that year. Jones recovered enough to make the All-Star Game again in 1982, and helped the Detroit Tigers win the 1984 World Series and the California Angels win the 1986 AL Western Division title.

* The New York Mets beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 3-1 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Steve Henderson hit a home run, in support of Ray Burris. Willie Stargell went 1-for-4.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Texas Rangers, 2-1 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 5-4 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-4. Mark Fidrych was the losing pitcher. It was the injury-riddled former phenom's 1st major league appearance of the season. He would make only 8 more that season, and never made another.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Chicago Cubs, 5-2 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. For the Phils, it was "Win Day": Steve Carlton went the distance for the victory, despite giving up a home run to the opposing pitcher, Mike Krukow. Mike Schmidt (who seemed to own Wrigley Field as much as the Wrigley family did) and Bob Boone (son of Ray, father of Bret and Aaron) hit home runs for the Phils. Pete Rose went 1-for-4.

* The Toronto Blue Jays swept a doubleheader from the Milwaukee Brewers, 3-1 and 5-4 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Paul Molitor went 0-for-3 with a walk in the opener, but did not play in the nightcap. Robin Yount went 2-for-3 with a home run, 2 walks and 2 RBIs in the nightcap, but did not play in the opener.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Oakland Athletics, 3-2 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota. Rickey Henderson went 0-for-5.

* The Montreal Expos beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 4-0 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Fred Norman allowed 4 hits over 6 shutout innings, and Elias Sosa and Woody Fryman allowed no hits the rest of the way.

* The Kansas City Royals beat the Baltimore Orioles, 4-3 at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City. George Brett went 2-for-4 with a walk and an RBI. He was batting .389. He got up to .407 on August 26, and was still at .400 on September 19, but finished the season on October 4 at .390. Eddie Murray went 1-for-4.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the San Diego Padres, 3-2 at San Diego Stadium (later Jack Murphy Stadium and Qualcomm Stadium). Johnny Bench went 0-for-3 with a walk. So did Dave Winfield.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 7-6 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

* The San Francisco Giants beat the Houston Astros, 2-0 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Allen Ripley allowed 6 hits over 7 innings, and Gary Lavelle 1 over 2, to complete a 7-hit shutout.

* And the California Angels beat the Seattle Mariners, 9-6 at the Kingdome in Seattle.

July 27, 1936: FDR & a Rendezvous With Destiny

July 27, 1936: The Democratic National Convention is held at the Philadelphia Civic Center's Convention Hall. (A hospital is on the site now.) President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Vice President John Nance Garner are nominated for a 2nd term.

For the 1st time, the Democrats needed only a majority of their Delegates to officially nominate a President and a Vice President. The previous rule required two-thirds of the Delegates, and basically gave Southern States a veto over a potential nominee.

One candidate whose Convention bid was derailed by the 2/3rds rule was Champ Clark of Missouri, Speaker of the House, who ran in 1912. His son, Senator Bennett Champ Clark, said at the 1936 Convention that the abolition of the rule meant that "the Democratic Party is no longer a sectional party, it has become a great national party."

But Southern Democrats considered it a slap in the face, and while FDR managed to keep them as part of his coalition, they began to break away, starting with the "Dixiecrat" walkout in 1948. At this convention Senator Ellison Smith of South Carolina walked out when he saw that a black minister, Rev. Marshall L. Shepard, was going to deliver the invocation.

That was all indoors. Outdoors, at the University of Pennsylvania's Franklin Field (which is still in use), FDR was being led to the podium to give his acceptance speech. He "walked" by using a can in one hand, and having his other arm held by an aide, usually his son, James. With people packed around him, it looked from a distance like he was walking, and that, while it was known that he once had polio, it hadn't affected him much. In fact, he was, for the most part, paralyzed from the waist down, so this illusion of walking was necessary.

Among those in attendance on this day was poet Edwin Markham, best known for his 1898 poem "The Man With the Hoe," making him popular with farmers and other working men. In 1914, his contribution to the nonfiction book Children In Bondage helped to end child labor in America. As an editor, he popularized for the 20th Century the works of John Keats, Edgar Allan Poe, John Greenleaf Whittier and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In 1922, he published the poem "Lincoln, Man of the People," and a recording of him reciting it became one of the earliest sound film.

Markham was a great fan of FDR's, and walked up to shake his hand. But, 84 years old, he tripped, and knocked FDR over.

Markham was terribly embarrassed. FDR was not hurt, and was quickly picked up so that the audience couldn't really see what has happened. But the pages of his speech were scattered. (No teleprompters in those days.) So he had to put them back together. He said:

Here, and in every community throughout the land, we are met at a time of great moment to the future of the Nation. It is an occasion to be dedicated to the simple and sincere expression of an attitude toward problems, the determination of which will profoundly affect America.

I come not only as a leader of a party, not only as a candidate for high office, but as one upon whom many critical hours have imposed and still impose a grave responsibility...

America will not forget these recent years, will not forget that the rescue was not a mere party task. It was the concern of all of us. In our strength we rose together, rallied our energies together, applied the old rules of common sense, and together survived.

In those days we feared fear. That was why we fought fear. And today, my friends, we have won against the most dangerous of our foes. We have conquered fear.

But I cannot, with candor, tell you that all is well with the world. Clouds of suspicion, tides of ill-will and intolerance gather darkly in many places. In our own land we enjoy indeed a fullness of life greater than that of most Nations. But the rush of modern civilization itself has raised for us new difficulties, new problems which must be solved if we are to preserve to the United States the political and economic freedom for which Washington and Jefferson planned and fought...

Out of this modern civilization, economic royalists carved new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over material things. Through new uses of corporations, banks and securities, new machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital, all undreamed of by the fathers, the whole structure of modern life was impressed into this royal service...

Throughout the Nation, opportunity was limited by monopoly. Individual initiative was crushed in the cogs of a great machine. The field open for free business was more and more restricted. Private enterprise, indeed, became too private. It became privileged enterprise, not free enterprise.

An old English judge once said: "Necessitous men are not free men." Liberty requires opportunity to make a living—a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.

For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor, other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.

Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of Government. The collapse of 1929 showed up the despotism for what it was. The election of 1932 was the people's mandate to end it. Under that mandate it is being ended...

These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the Flag and the Constitution. In their blindness, they forget what the Flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.

The brave and clear platform adopted by this Convention, to which I heartily subscribe, sets forth that Government in a modern civilization has certain inescapable obligations to its citizens, among which are protection of the family and the home, the establishment of a democracy of opportunity, and aid to those overtaken by disaster...

We are poor indeed if this Nation cannot afford to lift from every recess of American life the dread fear of the unemployed that they are not needed in the world. We cannot afford to accumulate a deficit in the books of human fortitude...

Governments can err. Presidents do make mistakes. But the immortal Dante tells us that divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted in different scales. Better the occasional faults of a Government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.

There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

In this world of ours in other lands, there are some people, who, in times past, have lived and fought for freedom, and seem to have grown too weary to carry on the fight. They have sold their heritage of freedom for the illusion of a living. They have yielded their democracy.

I believe in my heart that only our success can stir their ancient hope. They begin to know that here in America we are waging a great and successful war. It is not alone a war against want and destitution and economic demoralization. It is more than that; it is a war for the survival of democracy. We are fighting to save a great and precious form of government for ourselves and for the world.

I accept the commission you have tendered me. I join with you. I am enlisted for the duration of the war.

FDR knew what he was doing with that closing: Within the last year, Italy's Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini had invaded and annexed Ethiopia, Somaliland and Eritrea, and created the colony of Italian East Africa, as the start of a new version of the Roman Empire; Fascists led by Francisco Franco began the Spanish Civil War, to overthrow the leftist Second Republic; Nazi Germany's Fascist dictator Adolf Hitler had occupied the Rhineland, violating the terms of the Treaty of Versailles that finalized the results of World War I; and Japan had increased its aggressiveness toward China. The clouds of war were forming.

But that phrase, "a rendezvous with destiny," would echo through the ages. Later Presidents John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan would use it. And in his speech announcing the independence of India in 1947, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru would say that his new nation's people had "a tryst with destiny."

*

July 27, 1936 was a Monday. These 4 baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Detroit Tigers, 9-1 at Navin Field (later renamed Briggs Stadium and Tiger Stadium) in Detroit. Lynwood "Schoolboy" Rowe not only outpitched Vernon "Lefty" Gomez, but, in his own cause, went 2-for-4 with a home run and 4 RBIs. Hank Greenberg had been injured early in the season, and missed the rest, including this game.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-3 at Ebbets Field. Paul Waner went 0-for-4. Lloyd Waner went 1-for-5 with an RBI.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Chicago White Sox, 15-8 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. All the A's got at least 1 hit, including pitcher Harry Kelley; and all but Kelley got at least 2 hits. Lou Finney went 5-for-6 with an RBI. Pinky Higgins went 4-for-6 with 2 RBIs. Frankie Hayes went 3-for-5 with a walk and 2 RBIs. Wally Moses went 3-for-6 with 2 RBIs. Chubby Dean (no relation to Dizzy and Daffy) went 3-for-6 with 1 RBI. Bob Johnson went 2-for-6 with 4 RBIs.

Zeke Bonura went 4-for-5 with 2 RBIs for the South Siders. In spite of a combined 23 runs, no home runs were hit by either team.

* And the St. Louis Browns beat the Boston Red Sox, 7-5 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Jimmie Foxx went 3-for-4 with an RBI.

July 26, 1952: Adlai Stevenson Wants to Talk Sense to the American People

July 26, 1952: The Democratic National Convention wraps up at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago. A legend is born. But a Presidential Administration is not.

Since coming to power in 1932, when the Great Depression caused the American people to turn against the Republican Party, the Democratic Party had won 5 straight Presidential elections: 1932, 1936, 1940 and 1944 under Franklin Delano Roosevelt; and 1948 under Harry S Truman, who benefited from several things: Voters' fondness for FDR's "New Deal," their memories of the Republicans' incompetence and heartlessness, the Republicans' overconfidence going into the '48 election, and their colorless candidate, Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York.

All those things went against the Democrats this time. FDR died early in his 4th term, meaning Truman got to serve nearly 2 full terms. His 2nd term was hard. The Korean War forced him to turn his attention away from some of his "Fair Deal" programs. Accusations of Communist influence in his Administration (nearly all of them untrue) were a distraction. Accusations of corruption in his Administration abounded (more of them were true, but nothing as bad as would later be seen in Republican Administrations).

The Republicans thought they had the right formula: They called it "K₁C₂," for "Korea, Communism, and Corruption." It had been 20 years since the public had seen a Republican government in action, and they had largely forgotten. Most of all, this time, the Republicans had the right guy running.

As the leading General of the U.S. Army from the D-Day invasion of June 6, 1944 to the end of "The War" (for those who lived through it, like my grandparents, always Capital T, Capital W), Dwight D. Eisenhower was expected to follow in the footsteps of previous American Generals: George Washington, Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Franklin Pierce, Ulysses S. Grant and Theodore Roosevelt (who never got promoted from Colonel to General).

In 1952, Ike looked around at the potential candidates, on both sides, considered their ability to both maintain American prosperity and stand up to the Communist world, and thought that he could do a better job than any of them. So he ran, as a Republican.

The conservative wing of the Party saw Ike as the candidate of the more moderate "Eastern Establishment" wing of the Party, which would eventually be called "the Rockefeller Republicans." (Nelson Rockefeller, having already crossed Party lines to serve in FDR's Administration as an Assistant Secretary of State, was part of Ike's advisory committee.)

And they saw this wing as the one that nominated Wendell Willkie in 1940, and Dewey in 1944 and 1948, and doomed the Party to defeat. They were sure -- as conservatives usually are -- in a great delusion: That, if the American people saw a Republican Party sticking to true conservative principles, they would sweep the nation. (It's only worked once, for Ronald Reagan, and that was because Jimmy Carter's last year in office, unlike his 1st 3 years, was a disaster.)

Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois gave a speech nominating Senator Robert Taft of Ohio. The son of President William Howard Taft, and the grandson of an Attorney General and Secretary of War, Taft was one of the Senate's leading isolationists, which cost him the nomination in 1940. He was so conservative, he was known as "Mr. Republican."

With a bass voice that earned him the nickname "The Wizard of Ooze," Dirksen extolled Taft's virtues, and then pointed at Dewey, who was seated with the New York delegation, and shouted, "We followed you before, and you took us down the road to defeat!" Dirksen's condemnation of Dewey touched off sustained anti-Dewey and pro-Taft demonstrations.

Had there been a single opponent for Eisenhower, it might have derailed him. There wasn't: Governor Earl Warren of California, the Party's 1948 Vice Presidential nominee, was in the race. So was Governor Harold Stassen of Minnesota. After the 1st ballot, with 614 required to win the nomination, Ike had 595 Delegates, Taft 500, Warren 81, and Stassen 20, all from his home State, including Warren Burger, who, like Warren, would eventually serve as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

But a quirk in the balloting rules saved Ike: Because Stassen had not received 10 percent of the total Delegates, those Delegates were freed from their pledge to him. Thus, with the results of the 1st ballot not yet made official, they were free to switch their votes. They did, putting Eisenhower over the top, with 615.

The Party regulars saddled him with a running mate they liked, but almost nobody else did: Senator Richard Nixon of California. In less than 6 years in Congress, including a year and a half in the Senate, Nixon had already generated a reputation as the slimiest, most dishonest major politician in America. His opponent in his 1950 Senate election, Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas, gave him the nickname that stuck with him for the rest of his life: "Tricky Dick."

*

Under a "grandfather clause" in the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, Truman was the last President who could have run for what would have amounted to a 3rd term. He refused. He was tired of the job, and his wife hated being in Washington: He said that if he ran again, "Bess would impeach me."

And the Democrats didn't have an obvious successor to Truman, nor had he "groomed" one. Vice President Alben Barkley, a former Senate Majority Leader from Kentucky, was popular within the Party, but not especially well-known in the nation at large, and was 74 years old, and a Southerner.

Also Southerners were the next-highest-ranking Democrat, Sam Rayburn of Texas, the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, and on top of being a Southerner, was 70 years old, bald, and divorced; the man who seemed to have the most interest in becoming the Democratic nominee, Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, who had become famous the year before for chairing committee hearings on organized crime; and 2 other men popular within the Party, Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, and Senator Robert Kerr of Oklahoma.

And the men who turned out to be the next generation of major Democrats, despite whatever they might have already achieved, were not yet ready. In descending order of age:

* W. Stuart Symington was 51, the Chairman of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), was the 1st Secretary of the Air Force, and was running for the Senate from Missouri. (He won.)

* Richard J. Daley was 50, and the Clerk of Cook County, Illinois, which is mostly made up of Chicago. He was 3 years away from being elected Mayor.

* Mike Mansfield was 49, and a Representative from Montana, running for the Senate.

* Edmund G. "Pat" Brown was 47, and the Attorney General of California.

* Lyndon B. Johnson was 43, a Senator from Texas, and the Senate's Minority Whip.

* Robert F. Wagner Jr. was 42, and the Borough President of Manhattan, preparing to run for Mayor of New York the next year. (He won.)

* Sam Yorty was 42, and a Representative from California, having won the seat of Helen Gahagan Douglas. He was 9 years from being elected Mayor of Los Angeles.

* Hubert H. Humphrey was 40, and a Senator from Minnesota.

* Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill was 39, and the Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, running for the U.S. House. (He won.)

* Edmund S. Muskie was 38, and out of office, having lost re-election for the State House in Maine.

* Eugene McCarthy was 36, and a Representative from Minnesota.

* John F. Kennedy was 35, and a Representative from Massachusetts, running for the Senate. (O'Neill was running for his U.S. House seat.) Because of his father's promotion of him, his 1940 best-seller Why England Slept, and his status as the son of a familiar figure, he was, along with Humphrey, due to his speech about civil rights at the 1948 Democratic Convention, the closest any of these men came to being a nationally-known figure.

* Robert C. Byrd was 34, a member of the West Virginia Senate, and a candidate for the U.S. House. (He won.)

* George McGovern was 30, and a history professor at Dakota Wesleyan University.

* Jimmy Carter was 27, and in the U.S. Navy.

* Robert F. Kennedy was 26, and his brother Jack's campaign manager.

* Walter Mondale was 24, and in the U.S. Army.

* Thomas Eagleton was 22, and in law school at Harvard University.

* And another brother, Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy, was 20, and an undergraduate (and a star football player) at Harvard.

So when the Democrats convened at the Amphitheatre on July 21, 2 weeks after the Republicans had met in the same building, the only thing anybody knew for sure was that President Truman, through his own choice as much as the circumstances being against him, was not going to be the nominee.

One man who was definitely not considered a serious candidate going in, and had said he wasn't running, was the Convention's host, the Governor of Illinois, Adlai Ewing Stevenson II. A grandson of Adlai Stevenson, who was Grover Cleveland's Vice President from 1893 to 1897, he was 51 years old, had served in various parts of FDR's New Deal, and in the Departments of State and the Navy. In 1948, he was elected Governor. He'd done pretty well in the role, and had already decided not to run for re-election.

Had he been actively running for President, he would have been a great candidate -- by the old, print-media standards. Even by the standards of the radio era, because he had a fantastic voice, and was already renowned for his speeches.

But this was the dawn of the television age. And he was bald. And he had a broken nose. What's more, he was divorced. His wife, Ellen Borden Stevenson, was mentally ill, and such things weren't talked about then. True, Eisenhower was also bald, but he had the great military record. Stevenson was a little too young to serve in World War I, and too old to be drafted into World War II.

And "Ike" had a "winning smile." Adlai did not. Both men had gravitas, but Ike had more. Plus, Ike had the good nickname. Adlai only had "Ad," and that didn't work. And he couldn't go by his middle name: "Ewing Stevenson" would have sounded like the name of a law firm.

Stevenson gave a welcoming speech to the Delegates, and they loved it. A "Draft Stevenson" movement arose. Jacob Arvey, a member of the Democratic National Committee and the leader of the Illinois delegation, talked him into getting in.

On the 1st ballot, Kefauver led with 340 Delegates, Stevenson was 2nd with 273, Russell was 3rd with 268, and Averell Harriman, a former Secretary of Commerce and, by this point, Director of the Mutual Security Agency, was 4th with 123. (Harriman would be elected Governor of New York in 1954, but was defeated for re-election by Rockefeller. He would later be a Presidential foreign policy advisor.)

The 2nd ballot was virtually unchanged. But Harriman dropped out, and on the 3rd ballot, Stevenson gained most of his supporters: He got 617 Delegates, a majority, with Kefauver falling to 275 and Russell to 261. This remains the last Convention at which either major party failed to select a nominee on the 1st ballot. To mollify the South, the Democrats nominated Senator John Sparkman of Alabama for Vice President.

Stevenson's acceptance speech has been hailed as one of the best ever. He began by saying, "Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Convention, My Fellow Citizens: I accept your nomination, and your program. I should have preferred to hear those words uttered by a stronger, a wiser, a better man than myself. But, after listening to the President's speech, I even feel better about myself. None of you, my friends, can wholly appreciate what is in my heart. I can only hope that you understand my words. They will be few."

Then Stevenson made a massive mistake. He told the American people the truth:

The ordeal of the 20th Century, the bloodiest, most turbulent era of the whole Christian age, is far from over. Sacrifice, patience, understanding, and implacable purpose may be our lot of years to come.

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 there -- that we are now on the eve 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 man: 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 of mistrust, which do not fall before the trumpets' blast or the politicians' imprecations -- or even a general's baton.

They are, they are, my friends, walls that 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, that, I, 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, and better we lose than misgovern the people.

That speech inspired a lot of people. McGovern later said that it convinced him to go into politics, and he made his 1st run for Congress in 1956. As late as 1984, Garry Trudeau, in his politically-themed comic strip Doonesbury, used Stevenson as a counterpoint to conservative Republican insurgents, calling out Newt Gingrich by name.

Stevenson wanted to talk sense to the American people. But they weren't willing to listen. As occasionally happens -- it had happened in 1840, 1876, 1896 and 1920; and would happen again in 1980, 2000 and 2016 -- they wanted to step back from the difficult things, like war abroad, and big-government answers to big problems at home. They didn't want difficult decisions, they wanted easy answers.

And Stevenson knew it. A story which may be apocryphal says that a woman told him, "All the intelligent people are voting for you," and he said, "But I need a majority."

It didn't help that, unlike all previous major-party nominees except one (James M. Cox in 1920), he was divorced. Then again (as with Cox), it wouldn't have mattered if he were happily married. Or had matinee-idol looks. Or had a few medals of his own from wartime service.

Because, after 20 years of Democratic leadership, the party had grown stale in office, and the Republicans used the slogan, "It's time for a change." As far as I know, this was the first time it was used. And Ike was way too popular: The biggest fashion accessory of 1952 -- and 1956, as it turned out -- was an "I LIKE IKE" button. (The counterpart, "WE NEED ADLAI BADLY," didn't get far.)

Stevenson seemed perpetually sad and tired, while Ike always seemed to be smiling, except when he was talking about standing up to Communism. The famous photo by William Gallagher of the Flint Journal, of Stevenson sitting next to Governor G. Mennen Williams of Michigan, with a hole in his shoe, on a campaign visit to Flint, Michigan on September 1, was used as a symbol of hard work by Democrats, but also a symbol of hopelessness by Republicans.

In the end, Stevenson asked, "How you expect to defeat a man called Ike with a name like Adlai?" He never figured that out in 1956, either, and lost to Eisenhower by an even wider margin.

In 1960, Stevenson was determined not to run for a 3rd time. But Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota, who (for reasons I won't get into here) despised John F. Kennedy, the frontrunner going into the Convention, gave a nominating speech for Stevenson, one that attempted to copy Stevenson's own high-soaring rhetoric, and failed.

Upon winning, JFK appointed Stevenson to be the U.S.' Ambassador to the United Nations. He served in that office until dying in 1965. Hearing JFK's Inaugural Address, which inspired more people than Stevenson ever could, compared them to two renowned public speakers of ancient times, albeit 300 years apart: "Do you remember that, in classical times, when Cicero had finished speaking, the people said, 'How well he spoke.' But when Demosthenes had finished speaking, they said, 'Let us march!'"

High schools have been named for Stevenson in The Bronx, in the suburbs of Detroit, and in the suburbs of Chicago. From Lake Shore Drive to Interstate 294 in the Chicago area, Interstate 55 is known as the Adlai E. Stevenson Expressway, not far from expressways named for his opponent, Eisenhower; and his successor, Kennedy.

His son, Adlai Stevenson III, served Illinois in the U.S. Senate from 1970 to 1981. His son, Adlai Stevenson IV, is a business executive and a former journalist. His son, Adlai Stevenson V is a computer engineer. As of July 26, 2022, Adlai V does not have any children.

*

July 26, 1952 was a Saturday. Also on this day, Eva Perón, the First Lady of Argentina, died of cancer at age 33. I have a separate entry for that event.

These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Detroit Tigers, 10-6 at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. (The ballpark was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961.) Mickey Mantle hit a grand slam in the 1st inning to give the Yankees a 4-0 lead, but starting pitcher Vic Raschi blew it. Despite that slam, and 3 hits each from Phil Rizzuto and Hank Bauer, the game went to extra innings, and Bobby Hogue gave up a walkoff grand slam to Bud Souchock in the 10th. Ted Gray went all 11 innings for the Tigers.

* The New York Giants beat the Cincinnati Reds, 7-2 at the Polo Grounds. Hank Thomspon hit a grand slam, and Dusty Rhodes also hit a home run. Willie Mays was serving in the Korean War, and was unavailable for the Giants.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the St. Louis Cardinals, 5-3 at Ebbets Field. Stan Musial had hurt the Dodgers so often that it led to his nickname: He became known as Stan the Man because Brooklyn fans would say, "That man is back in town." This time, he went 1-for-3 with 2 walks and an RBI. Jackie Robinson only appeared as a pinch-hitter, and did not reach base.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Boston Braves, 6-4 at Braves Field in Boston.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Chicago Cubs, 7-2 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia.

* The Washington Senators beat the Cleveland Indians, 11-10 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Gil Coan went 4-for-5 with a home run and 5 RBIs for the Senators.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 9-3 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* The St. Louis Browns beat the Boston Red Sox, 7-2 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Ted Williams was unavailable for the Red Sox, due to serving in the Korean War.

July 21, 1944: "The Second Missouri Compromise"

Truman and Roosevelt at FDR's home in Hyde Park, New York,

after the Convention. The color is real.

Truman was 60 and healthy. FDR was 62 and not.

July 21, 1944: The Democratic Convention is held at Chicago Stadium. 12 years earlier, at the same building, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was nominated for President for the 1st time, and, decided to show his physical vitality (and dampen the rumors polio having rendered him an invalid) by flying there, something that was considered truly daring at the time, and became the 1st nominee of either major party to delivers acceptance speech in person.

This time, his 4th nomination, he became the last major party nominee to not show up, a concession to his worsening health, but use the excuse that World War II was keeping him at home. Instead, a radio hookup was made to the White House, so he could give his acceptance speech remotely.

To make matters worse, the more conservative elements in the party demanded that he dumped Vice President Henry Wallace from the ticket, because he was seen as being too friendly to the Soviet Union, which was still our ally at the time; but also because he was too friendly with both organized labor and the civil rights movement. They thought FDR might be dying, and they didn't want Wallace as President.

The more conservative elements of the Party, especially the Southern wing, wanted James F. Byrnes. On paper, he was definitely qualified to be President, let alone Vice President. He had served South Carolina in both houses of Congress, had briefly been an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and was, at this point, the Director of the Office of War Mobilization. But, like most Southern politicians of the time, he was racist and anti-labor. And both the civil rights movement and the labor movement, both friendly to Wallace, wouldn't allow Byrnes to be nominated.

So the Convention was at an impasse. And Party insiders knew what the general public did not: FDR was already ill, and the thought had come to them that he might not survive a full 4th term. Whoever they chose as Vice President to the 32nd President was likely to be the 33rd. That's why civil rights and labor wanted Wallace, and the South wanted Byrnes: They wanted the next President to be one of their guys, and wanted it badly.

FDR -- having once told a reporter, "You know, I'm a juggler, and I have to keep several balls in the air at the same time" -- needed a Vice Presidential nominee was acceptable to both the Byrnes side of the party and the Wallace side. What became known as "The Second Missouri Compromise" was made, and that State's Senator, Harry Truman, was chosen.

(The first "Missouri Compromise" was in 1820, designed to keep the number of free States and slave States even: Missouri would be admitted as a slave State, while Maine was separated from Massachusetts, and added as a free State.)

Truman wasn't a total unknown: He had chaired the Senate committee that exposed war profiteers, and had appeared on the cover of Time magazine the year before. He was in his 2nd term, and was qualified. One thing bugged some people: He had come out of the "political machine" in Kansas City, run by the crooked Thomas Pendergast. But no one ever found any evidence of corruption on Truman's part.

Truman was offered the nomination, but wasn't sure. FDR had to convince him over the phone, and he accepted. But FDR wanted to assure labor leaders that the choice was a good one. Robert Hannegan was the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and, as a native of St. Louis, on the other side of Missouri, was an ally of Truman, and key to his nomination. Referring to Sidney Hillman, President of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, "And clear everything with Sidney!"

Founded in 1935 as a more liberal labor group than the American Federation of Labor, the CIO had been assailed as Communist by conservatives. When FDR's demand that Truman's nomination be cleared with Hillman reached the press, Republican-leaning newspapers suggested that Hillman was actually running the Party. Hillman had actually worked hard to keep Communists out of the CIO. Nevertheless, someone wrote a limerick, a Red-baiting smear -- and possibly an anti-Semitic one, as Hillman was Jewish:

Clear it with Sidney, you Yanks.

Then offer Joe Stalin your thanks.

You'll bow to Sid's rule

no matter how cruel

for that's a directive of Frank's.

The Republicans nominated Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York for President, and Governor John Bricker of Ohio for Vice President. This allowed them to write one of those campaign slogans that occasionally rhymes with the ticket: "Win the war quicker with Dewey and Bricker."

Despite the Republicans' insistence that they could win The War quicker (which was unlikely), and the insinuations that FDR was dying (which he was) and his Administration was loaded with Communists (which it wasn't), Roosevelt and Truman won. It had little to do with Dewey's youth and inexperience (he was just 41, and had been Governor less than 2 years after several years as a crusading District Attorney), and more to do with FDR being the man America knew, and knew it could trust to win The War and avoid another depression after it.

Just 3 months into his 4th term, with the European phase of The War nearly won, FDR died, and Truman became President. After V-E Day, Truman decided that Secretary of State Edward Stettinius was too cozy with the Soviet Union, fired him, and replaced him with Byrnes, who had been a friend in the Senate. But relations between them soured after V-J Day, and Byrnes lasted just a year and a half in the office.

In 1950, he was elected Governor of South Carolina. This was unusual, especially at the time, because it usually worked the other way around: Southern Governors often used their jobs as springboards for the Senate, mainly because their State Constitutions usually prevented Governors from serving consecutive terms. (Most now can, with Virginia the only exception.) In South Carolina, this has since included Strom Thurmond and Ernest "Fritz" Hollings. Unfortunately, Byrnes was a typical Southern politician of his time, and resisted desegregation. After leaving the Governorship after his mandated single term, he never ran for office again.

Byrnes never endorsed another Democrat for President, endorsing Thurmond over Truman in 1948, independent segregationist Harry Byrd Sr. in 1956, and Republicans Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952, Richard Nixon in 1960 and 1968, and Barry Goldwater in 1964. That year, over the Civil Rights Act, Thurmond, who had returned to the Democratic Party after the 1948 election, became the 1st major Southern politician to switch to the Republican Party, and Byrnes supported him, though himself remaining officially a Democrat.

Byrnes died in 1972, 8 months before Truman did, and 7 years after Wallace. By this point, Byrnes had been mostly forgotten outside his home State, with most Americans being unaware of how close he came to becoming President of the United States. Wallace came even closer. Truman actually made it.

*

July 21, 1944 was a Friday. Paul Wellstone was born, and, like Truman and Byrnes, would be elected to the U.S. Senate, in his case Minnesota. He became one of the most liberal Senators, and many people wanted him to run for President. He never did, dying in a suspicious plane crash while running for re-election in 2002.

These baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the St. Louis Browns, 8-2 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Atley Donald went the distance for the win. In spite of this, the Browns won their one and only American League Pennant this season, ending the Yankees' run of 3 straight and 7 out of 8.

* The New York Giants lost to the St. Louis Cardinals, 5-0 at the Polo Grounds. Harry "the Cat" Brecheen pitched a 5-hit shutout. Mel Ott, now the Giants' player-manager, got 1 of those hits. So did former Cincinnati catching star Ernie Lombardi, now running out the string with the Giants. Stan Musial, one of the few big stars not yet serving in The War (he would spend the 1945 season in the Navy), went 2-for-5.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 3-2 at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn.

* The Chicago Cubs beat the Boston Braves, 4-2 at Braves Field in Boston.

* And the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 5-3 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 4-1 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Washington Senators, 6-5 at Briggs Stadium (later Tiger Stadium) in Detroit. Dizzy Trout outpitched Early Wynn.

* The Chicago White Sox beat the Boston Red Sox, 5-3 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

July 16, 1940: "We Want Roosevelt!"

July 16, 1940: The Democratic National Convention is being held at the Chicago Stadium, the big Midwestern city's largest arena, home of the NHL's Chicago Black Hawks. (Starting in 1986, the official spelling became one word: "Blackhawks.")

It's not going well. The Democratic Party is badly divided. Their leader, the incumbent President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, is in his 8th year, the last year of his 2nd term. Only 2 of the previous 30 men to hold the Presidency have run for a 3rd term, or what would have amounted to one: Ulysses S. Grant and FDR's cousin, Theodore Roosevelt. Only 2 others have even seriously considered it, before realizing that they were unlikely to win: Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson.

But FDR has made no announcement as to whether he would run again. To make matters worse, the Democrats appear to have no obvious successor in place:

* Vice President John Nance Garner was a Southerner, from Texas. Although Andrew Johnson had become President upon the death of Abraham Lincoln, and Woodrow Wilson had been a Virginia native but the Governor of New Jersey when he was elected, no politician representing a Southern State had been elected President since Zachary Taylor from Kentucky in 1848. And even he wasn't exactly a "politician": He was the leading General of a war that had just been won, and had never run for office before. Garner was also considered too conservative outside the South.

* The other major candidate was the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who was also in FDR's Cabinet, as Postmaster General: James A. Farley of New York. Farley was considered a great organizer, but didn't really have name recognition among the general public, and was a Catholic. Except for Alfred E. Smith, who lost the general election of 1928 very badly, no Catholic had ever even been nominated for President by a major party.

* FDR might have wanted his Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, to be the next President. But Hull was another Southerner, having served Tennessee in both houses of Congress. What's more, Hull had a speech impediment on top of his Southern accent, which would have ruined a campaign in this era of radio and newsreels.

* Another would-be President, Joseph P. Kennedy, the U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain, a Boston native who thought that his large personal fortune and network of personal contacts could make him the 1st Catholic President, but his isolationism and apparent favoritism toward Nazi Germany made him persona non grata in the Party.

* Several potential Presidential candidates had been defeated in the Republican tide of the 1938 elections, including James Michael Curley, the former Mayor of Boston and Governor of Massachusetts, who lost a Senate race that year. And, besides, he was a Catholic.

* And then, of course, there were the Republicans. Having gotten clobbered in the elections of 1930, 1932, 1934 and 1936, they didn't have a clear President-in-the-making, either. They ended up nominating Wendell Willkie, a man with no political experience, but a strong anti-New Deal message, but also a willingness to help Britain against Nazi Germany in World War II, while otherwise keeping the U.S. out of it -- in other words, FDR's position.

FDR had been thinking about running for a 3rd term, even in 1939, but he really wanted to retire to his mansion on the Hudson River in Hyde Park, New York. Certainly, the Republicans' rhetoric at their Convention, in Philadelphia, suggested that they were running against him, as the avatar of American liberalism, rather than against the Democratic Party in general.

What made FDR run again was the Nazis' leader, Adolf Hitler. In May, his troops began marching across Western Europe. By mid-June, it had all fallen to him, even France. Britain was next in their sights, and whoever was going to be President starting on January 20, 1941, the end of FDR's 2nd term, was going to have to deal with Hitler's seemingly limitless ambition. And he, Roosevelt, was the only person in the country who was even remotely experienced enough to take Hitler on.

The problem was, being that he was seeking an unprecedented 3rd term, he had to do what Presidential candidates used to do, before his time: Make it look like he wasn't actively running. The idea was that the office should seek the man, not the other way around. So he drafted a statement for the Convention Chairman, Senate Majority Leader Alben Barkley of Kentucky, to read to the Delegates. It concluded:

The President has never had, and has not today, any desire or purpose to continue in the office of President, to be a candidate for that office, or to be nominated by the convention for that office. He wishes in earnestness and sincerity to make it clear that all of the Delegates in this Convention are free to vote for any candidate.

The Delegates sat in shocked silence for a moment. Then came a voice thundering over the stadium loudspeakers: "We want Roosevelt! We want Roosevelt! We want Roosevelt!"

The voice belonged to Thomas D. Garry, Superintendent of Chicago's Department of Sanitation -- in other words, the sewer department. He was a trusted henchman of Chicago Mayor Edward J. Kelly, the Convention's host, an FDR loyalist, and, himself, chief engineer of the Chicago Sanitary District during the 1920s.

Garry was stationed in a basement room with a microphone, waiting for that moment. Kelly had posted hundreds of Chicago city workers and precinct captains around the Stadium. Other Democratic bosses had brought followers from their home territories. All of them joined Garry's chant. Within a few seconds, hundreds of delegates joined in. Many poured into the aisles, carrying state delegation standards for impromptu demonstrations. Whenever the chant began to die down, State chairmen, who also had microphones connected to the speakers, added their own endorsements: "New Jersey wants Roosevelt!" "Arizona wants Roosevelt!" "Iowa wants Roosevelt!"

Despite coming out of the loudspeakers, Garry was in the basement, and thus became known as "The Voice From the Sewers." Life magazine, conservative as always, called it a "shabby pretense" that "fooled nobody." Nevertheless, on the 1st ballot, FDR got 946 Delegates, Farley 73, Garner 61, and others got 20. There would be no 2nd ballot.

It would be harder to get the Vice President FDR wanted. Nobody wanted Garner to have the job for a 3rd term, including Garner himself: The former Speaker of the House had said, "The job isn't worth a pitcher of warm piss." For public consumption, it was printed as "a pitcher of warm spit."

FDR wanted his Secretary of Agriculture, Henry Wallace. There were problems with this: Wallace was a former Republican, was pro-civil rights, and was considered to have questionable ties, both to the Soviet Union and to Nicholas Roerich, a Russian painter, writer and philosopher with some odd views. The conservative Southerners were adamant that Wallace not be nominated.

So FDR sent First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to Chicago, to speak on behalf of Wallace. She flew there, and told the Delegates, "You cannot treat this as you would an ordinary nomination in an ordinary time." It was the best-received speech of the Convention, and Wallace defeated the Speaker of the House, William Bankhead of Alabama, on the 1st ballot.

Perhaps Bankhead would have made a stronger bid for the office had he not been ill, and he died 2 months later. His father, John, had served Alabama in both houses of Congress; his brother, John II, was a Senator and a Delegate to the Convention; and his daughter, Tallulah Bankhead, was one of America's greatest actresses.

Unlike in 1932 in Chicago, and in 1936 in Philadelphia, FDR felt he had to stay in Washington, and so he delivered his acceptance speech remotely, by radio, which was piped into the Convention. He would do the same in Chicago in 1944. He was the 1st Presidential nominee to deliver his acceptance speech in person, and he remains, through the 2020 election, the last one to not do so.

The 1940 Convention was not one of the Democratic Party's best. But it did show a commitment to the principles that FDR had stood for, and wanted to stand for. For all intents and purposes, it is still his Party.

Ed Kelly served as Mayor of Chicago from 1933 to 1947, and lived until 1950. Thomas D. Garry, who had worked on a sewer survey under Kelly, served as Assistant Commissioner until 1963, and who always insisted that the D stood for "Democrat," lived until 1976.

*

July 16, 1940 was a Tuesday. These baseball games were played:

* Elsewhere in Chicago, at Wrigley Field, the New York Giants lost to the Chicago Cubs, 2-0. Vern Olsen pitched a 6-hit shutout, outpitching Harry Gumbert. Phil Cavarretta drove in both runs with a 7th-inning single. Mel Ott went 1-for-3 with a walk.

* The New York Yankees lost to the Chicago White Sox, 5-1 at Yankee Stadium. Johnny Rigney outpitched Marius Russo. Joe Kuhel hit a home run. Joe DiMaggio went 1-for-4, driving in the Yankees' only run.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 5-3 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Detroit Tigers, 3-1 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. Hank Greenberg went 1-for-4.

* The Washington Senators beat the Cleveland Indians, 11-8 at Griffith Stadium in Washington.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Boston Bees, 4-3 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. This was the last of 5 seasons in which the Boston team of the National League used the Bees name. The next season, they went back to their former name, the Boston Braves.

* The Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Browns moved their game scheduled for today back 2 days, to have a Sunday doubleheader and a bigger gate. The BoSox won the opener, 5-4. Roger "Doc" Cramer doubled Dom DiMaggio (Joe's brother) home with the winning run in the bottom of the 11th inning. This made Emerson Dickman the winning pitcher in relief of Lefty Grove. Dickman would win 22 games in his career; Grove, 300.

The Red Sox won the nightcap, 7-3. Over the 2 games, Ted Williams went 1-for-9.

* And the Cincinnati Reds and the Philadelphia Phillies were rained out at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. It was agreed to play the game on July 28, as part of a Sunday doubleheader, and move it to Shibe Park. The Reds won the 1st game, 7-2. The Phils won the 2nd game, 4-1.