Hubert H Humphrey
Reflections on a twentieth century life
by G CALVIN MACKENZIE
Footnote g calvin mackenzie Is The distinguished presidential professor
of american government At colby college.
His books include the politics of presidential appointments, american
government And public policy, And the in and outers. He is at work on
a new biography of hubert humphrey.
This collection of pieces on hubert h humphreys life and times is 
occasioned by the eightieth anniversary of his birth. But no milestone
is necessary to justify these reflections. The legacy and lessons of
humphreys life are justification enough for such revisiting.
Humphrey wanted desperately to be president of the united states.
He actively sought the office on at least three occasions. And though he
never achieved that goal, his life in politics was rich in many other ways.
He championed some of the great causes of the century. He was a masterful
legislator. He was the embodiment of creativity in public life. and He knew
how to run a campaign that was simultaneously hard and clean.
These things perhaps were taken for granted in humphreys time.
He made them seem natural, almost commonplace. Now we realize they were
nothing of the sort. We live in a time where balancing the budget is
characterized as a great cause, where legislative coalition building seems
a lost art and legislatures find it hard to act even on routine matters, 
where campaining has become a brutal contact sport.
Hubert humphrey was no paragon. As with all great men, his large virtues
cohabited with imperfections. Ambition sometimes got the better of his good
judgment. He often spread himself too thin because, as he said, he was "just
interested in everything". The swelling of his own enthusiasm often outgrew
prepared texts and audiences patience. And he was disinclined to address the
question that became the comeuppance of american liberalism. What are the 
limits of government competence?
Humphrey was a vital force at a crucial time in american politics 
nonetheless. The man who would be president was not, but he was the architect
and a principal engineer of many of the programs now working to provide food 
for the hungry, care for the elderly, treatment for the sick, job training
for the disadvantaged, education for the young, and equal opportunity for all.
Origins
In many ways, though it ended before his energy and creativity were
spent, Hubert humphreys life was a metaphor for american politics in the
twentieth century. Humphreys maternal grandparents were immigrants, arriving
from norway to make a new start in a sod house on the south dakota prairie.
For young hubert, coming of age in small midwestern towns in the second and 
third decades of this century was not very different from what it would have 
been a hundred years earlier. One is drawn to the graduation picture of
humphrey and his ten doland high school classmates. How different their early
years must have been from those of their grandchildren. Childhood was simple
and uncluttered, schooling was primitive and formulaic, daily routines centered
on family, church, and community. And for rural americans like the humphreys,
the land and the cycles of nature dominated the rhythms of life.
Although hubert humphrey was well educated for a man of his time and
became a great champion of formal education, he was the first to admit that
the important lessons of his life had come from experience, not classrooms.
"I learned more about economics from one south dakota dust storm," he once 
said, "than I did from all my years in college." He often talked of learning
"hard lessons of sacrifice and trouble in the depression." His public life
was informed and driven by those hard lessons. He believed that life could be
made better, that ignorance and poverty were curable, that justice could be
achieved if enough good people applied enough commitment to those daunting 
tasks.
Humphrey was neither an ideologue nor a theorist. He loved ideas,
and, as paul light describes in one of the articles in this issue, he never
lost touch with his academic roots. Political philosophy interested him 
primarily for its practical uses, its ability to inspire action. Humphrey
was a doer. His intellectualism and creativity were action oriented.
From the legacy of his politically active father and his formative
experiences on the prairie, humphrey bore a deeply hewn populism. Nothing
so touched his heart as the warmth of the small town, the importance of the
schoomarm, the daily struggles of the farmer and the small businessperson.
Senator philip hart once asked humphrey to make a short speech at the 
dedication of a local library in a small michigan town. When humphrey arrived
there, he learned that this library, like many in rural america, had long 
been the domain of a single, deeply dedicated librarian. He put aside his
prepared text and spoke movingly about the importance of small town librarians
in so many american communities. It was a natural for humphrey. He knew the
subject well. It was the story of his life.
Hubert humphrey and ronald reagan were born in the same year. Both grew
up in various small towns in the midwest, and both retained lifelong
inspiration from their early years in those communities. But the lessons they
drew were very different. For reagan, life was full of happy endings. His
recollection was more romantic than humphreys, though no more cherished.
Reagan remembered that when troubles occurred, people helped themselves or
sometimes relied on the help of their neighbors. Self-reliance and pluck 
conquered all.
Humphrey knew better. His speeches were laced with references to "the little
people," and those he had in mind were the men and women who struggled every
day in the small circles of their own lives simply to get by. He knew that
for many of them the world was full of large and often frightening forces,
some natural, some political, some economic, and he saw government as the
peoples only enduring protection against the excesses of those larger forces.
For the farmer who needed water to irrigate his land and the elderly woman
whose meager fixed income could not keep pace with the escalating cost of
prescription drugs, only government offered real, permanent hope.
During the depression years in the family drug store, humphrey saw what
happened when jobs disappeared, health failed, educations ended early, and
good, hardworking people had no place to turn for help. Humphrey learned
about desperation firsthand and knew well that hope was the best, perhaps
the only, antidote to desperation. His public efforts to build a foundation
of independence and dignity for individual americans had deep roots in the
populist inspiration of his own experience. Good health, educational 
opportunities, a job, and a secure retirement, these things, humphrey 
believed, were human rights. Individuals should not have to fear or suffer
their removal at the hands of larger forces they could not control.
Humphreys political course was also guided by an abiding faith in the
urban progressivism that emerged as a potent political force around the time
of his birth and came to full fruit in the federal government during the
new deal. Franklin roosevelt was humphreys political hero, a fact symbolized
by humphreys placement of roosevelts portrait on the wall behind his desk
when he served as mayor of minneapolis. Humphrey believed deeply in popular
government, responsive political institutions, expansions and protections of
the franchise, and regulation of the excesses of capitalism. Just as the
farmer and small businessperson had the right to government protection from
larger natural and economic forces, so was the laborer entitled to government
protection of the right to organize and bargain collectively, and the consumer
entitled to safety and honesty in the marketplace.
Humphrey was the inheritor of these two powerful strains in american
politics, and they profoundly shaped his political instincts. But humphrey
himself played a leading role in the emergence of that third great chord of
twentieth century liberalism, the postwar movement for social justice rooted
in the legal enforcement of equal rights and the entitlement of all citizens
to minimum standards of health, nutrition, education, and income.
With no issue is humphrey more closely identified than civil rights. Of
all of humphreys thousands of public speeches, none is more deeply embedded
in memory than the first he made to a national audience. As the democratic
party convention danced around the political fire kindled by the controversial
civil rights plank in its nineteen forty eight platform, the young senate candidate from
minnesota strode to the microphone and issued a clarion call that echoed 
through a generation of american political life. "The time has arrived," he
said, "For the democratic party to get out of the shadow of states rights
and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.
Walk forthrightly. No better phrase describes the character of 
humphreys service to this cause. It was not an easy time to be what martin
luther king called a "Drum major for justice." The long shadow of states
rights still loomed over the congress that humphrey entered in ninteen forty nine. He and
the others in the small band of senate liberals were lonely voices calling for
progress in civil rights. But persistence was a key element in the humphrey 
legislative style. The role of the legislator, he believed, was to sustain
issues on the agenda while painstakingly making the case and building 
political coalitions for their enactment. And so he did, through those early 
years on capitol hill.
Hope brightened after the nineteen fifty eight election. The eisenhower recession opened
the doors to a large and uncommonly liberal class of new representatives.
Imagine the happiness that hubert humphrey must have felt to look around the
senate chamber in january of nineteen fifty nine and find many new democrats like edmund
muskie, philip hart, eugene mccarthy, and harrison williams among his 
colleagues. The time for lonely persistence was almost over, the time for
action was approaching. The liberal hour was beginning to toll.
The next six years changed the face of american life. The peculiar 
convergence in one historical moment of the warren court, the kennedy and
johnson presidencies, huge democratic majorities in congress, a robust 
economy, and bold ideas whose time had come was richly fertile soil for
social change. And there at the legislative crossroads of his time was hubert
h humphrey. Seasoned and mature, highly regarded now among his colleagues, at
the peak of his skills and power, humphrey was the quintessential right man at 
the right time.
As congress seized the opportunity to cash in the postponed hopes of the
sick, the elderly, the old, the young, and the oppressed, humphrey was at the
center or, as he might have put it, at the heart of the fray. John stewarts
article describes humphreys role in the most important of these legislative
battles, the passage of the civil rights act of nineteen sixty four. All of the virtues of a
good legislator are on display here, patience, persistence, sensitivity, 
tact, substantive creativity, and leadership. Humphrey was up to the task.
And the task in this case was nothing less than repairing the largest hole in
the promise, the denial of basic civil rights to millions of American citizens.
The prominence Humphrey attained from his emergence as the leader of the 
liberal forces in congress made him the obvious choice as lyndon johnsons
running mate in nineteen sixty four. Johnson could have certified that by offering the
nomination to humphrey well before the democratic convention opened in 
atlantic city in late summer. But, as humphrey would learn more painfully in 
the years ahead, that was not johnsons way. Instead, he sought to build 
suspense by toying with humphrey and other potential vice presidential
nominees over the several weeks preceding the convention. He did not finally 
offer the nomination to humphrey until the middle of the convention and, even 
then, only after teasing out the mystery throughout humphreys flight to
washington for his audience with the president.
Why would humphrey agree to leave the senate in the very prime of his 
tenure there when so many of the causes that evoked his passion were moving
to the top of the legislative agenda? For the same reason that johnson had
left the senate in nineteen sixty, ambition. Ambition can be an important and positive
force in a politician. The dream of higher office is a source of energy, and
energy fuels accomplishment. But ambition has a dark side as well, when it
blinds politicians to their unique talents and limitations and lures them away
from great opportunities. William welsh contemplates all this in his essay on
humphreys vice presidency. What was lost to hubert humphrey, and to the 
american people and the causes in which humphrey believed, by his decision to
leave the senate for four years of imposed obscurity? Humphrey always sought
to put the best public face on his period as vice president, but those who
knew him best, and no doubt humphrey himself, could not overlook the lost
opportunity for public service and the personal pain that it caused him.
A revivification of humphreys career suddenly seemed possible in 1968
with lyndon johnsons unexpected withdrawal from the presidential campaign.
Humphrey quickly mounted a campaign of his own. At first there seemed little 
hope, the race was well underway and humphrey commanded the support of few of 
the emergent political forces in that most peculiar and incendiary political 
year.
Humphreys pursuit of the nomination seems almost quaint to us now. He was the 
last candidate of the major parties to earn a nomination without 
actively contesting or winning a single primary. And there is no small irony
to that nomination contest, for here was hubert humphrey, once the defiant 
young turk of his party and later the constant soul mate of insurgents and
outsiders, running as the establishment candidate. Even humphrey himself must 
have felt more than a little out of place in that unaccustomed role.
The presidency was the prize on which humphrey had fixed his eye for more
than a decade. Then, as the moment approached when the prize appeared within
his grasp, american politics blew apart. What thoughts must have passed 
through humphreys mind on that evening in chicago when thousands of young
people, kids full of passions like those that had long charged the energies
of hubert humphrey, cursed him as a warmonger, as the archangel of the 
establishment? If it is possible to feel sorrow and joy, rejection and
acceptance simultaneously, so hubert humphrey must have felt on that hard
night in chicago.
With all the forces conspired against him, the taint of incumbency, 
johnsons phlegmatic support, the wounds of chicago, and a badly splintered
party, humphreys candidacy seemed doomed to disaster. But his essential
optimism never served him better. He refused to give up or concede the
hopelessness of his cause. He campaigned in overdrive and, as election day
approached, the impossible began to seem, well, possible. Richard nixons
lead was shrinking. George wallaces campaign peaked and then began to self 
destruct. On the last weekend of the campaign, the final national polls
called it a dead heat. And indeed it was. Of more than seventy two million
votes cast, the margin between nixon and humphrey was only five hundred and
ten thousand. A moral victory, some called it, a miraculous political
rally. When the dew dried, however, richard nixon was the new president of
the united states. And hubert humphrey, for the first time in twenty four 
years, was again a private citizen.
But not for long. There was much more of value to follow in the final
decade of humphreys life. The people of minnesota returned him to the senate
in nineteen seventy, and he served there with the same creativity and dedication that had 
marked his earlier tenure in congress. By the time of his death in nineteen seventy seven, he
had completed the politicians life cycle from enfant terrible to eminence 
grise. Love poured out to him in his last few public appearances. Old friends
in the causes he had served so well embraced him as a beloved comrade in arms.
A new generation of politicians paid reverent affection to his legend. At a
memorial service crowded with old friends and admiring adversaries, his 
protegee, walter mondale, moved the assembly to tears with a final valediction
on this american life, "He taught us all how to hope and how to live, How to
win and how to lose. He taught us how to live and, finally, He taught us how 
to die."
Humphreys contributions
The two Democratic conventions in which hubert humphrey played the most
prominent role, those of nineteen forty eight and nineteen sixty eight, loom like giant parentheses 
around a crucial period in American history. In nineteen forty eight, the percentage of black children 
who attended school with white children in the south was just a trace above
zero. Not much larger was the percentage of southern blacks who voted. There
was no peace corps in nineteen forty eight, no federal aid to education, no national health 
care for the elderly and indigent. Arms control was not even a public issue.
There was little federal involvement in the creation of jobs or in job 
training, no effective program to distribute American food surpluses abroad,
and no meaningful federal support for the arts. Life changed remarkably in the
years that followed. Public policy induced many of those changes. And hubert
humphrey was present at, and a forceful participant in, every new creation.
American history reveals no steady evolution of ideas and policy. 
Progress comes in fits and starts, history is the tale of action and reaction.
Each generation begets its own successes and excesses. Every legacy is mixed.
The legacy of hubert humphreys political era is hotly debated today. The first
assault came from the new left, the second wave from the new right. The former
attacked humphreys approach as accommodationist and watered down, a thin gruel
to serve the countrys underpriviledged. The latter castigated the liberal 
hour as tax and spend politics run amok, the victory of emotional idealism 
over practical understanding of human nature.
Yet here in the nineteen nineties, we still find democratic presidential candidates
pleased to call themlselves "Humphrey liberals," calling on their party not
to lose touch with its fundamental faiths. A humphrey liberal believes that 
political parties still have important functions to perform, believes that 
government can still be a powerful engine for economic and social justice,
and believes that politics at its best is a temn sport.
Humphrey liberals are an endangered species in our time. Political 
parties are in disrepair and disrepute. The hands on politics that norman 
sherman describes in these pages, and that humphrey so loved, is on the
wane, technology is in the saddle. Labor union membership is in decline, and
union leaders have lost much of their ability to deliver the votes of their 
rank and file. Interest groups have sprouted in multiples around every
political issue and come heavily armed with money and lobbyists to protect 
their interests. Coalitions are harder to form than they were in humphreys 
time, and government often seems stuck in gridlock.
Congress these days is filled with a new breed of legislator. Younger,
better educated, more devoted to issues and ideology than their predecessors
were, they are also less politically experienceded and less patient with the
whims and ways of legislative politics. They seek gratification in their
personal careers rather than in collective activity and are thus more willing
merely to espouse public positions on issues than to do the hard work 
necessary to make new laws. With their reelection virtually assured by a
wondrous array of incumbent protection mechanisms, current members are free
to posture and investigate and engage in other publicity making activities 
that have little to do with legislative policymaking. It is not surprising
that the congresses in which humphrey served in the nineteen fifties and early nineteen sixties
typically enacted two to three times as many new laws as congress does today. 
Show horses produce less than work horses.
Several polls in the mid nineteen seventies identified humphrey as the greatest 
legislator of the twentieth century. To this, he characteristically responded,
"Wait until lyndon hears about that." But one wonders if even so gifted a
legislator as hubert humphrey could get much done in the contemporary congress.
Were humphrey to reappear miraculously in the hallways of the capitol, 
most of the current inhabitants would likely regard him as a museum piece.
How peculiar he would seem, a man with inexhaustible patience in pursuit of 
the causes he deemed worthy, a man who valued loyalty and cherished the great
organizations of the democratic party and big labor, a man who liked to mingle
with the people, who genuinely cared about them and their problems, a man who
communicated in real speeches, not sound bites. True enough, hubert humphrey
and the politics he symbolized might seem out of place in the capitol rooms 
he loved so well on this, his eightieth birthday. How sad it is that we have 
come to that.
END NOTES
Reviews of newly released books by hubert h humphrey, The education of a 
public man, My life and politics, University of minnesota press, second
edition and by his counselor and confidant Max m kampelman, Entering new 
worlds. The Memoirs of a private man in public life, Harper collins
Publishers, appear in this issues review section on pages thirty six and 
thirty seven.

this transcript was transcripted by richard altman