Report of the County Chairman Read Free Page B

was innately suspicious of a high interest rate that limited new starts in industry. And I was disturbed at the deterioration of our cities, at the vetoing of bills that would aid housing, health and depressed areas. For all these substantial internal reasons I wanted a Democratic administration. Third, it seemed certain that the Senate and the House of Representatives would be markedly Democratic, for the American people showed no inclination to elect conservative Republicans to those important bodies, and I suspected that our state governors and their legislatures would be increasingly Democratic, for that was apparently the mood of the people. “Therefore,” I reasoned, “at this critical period we ought to have a Democratic President, too. I don’t like divided responsibilities now, even though it didn’t worry me too much during the last six years.” Fourth, I was deeply distressed that President Eisenhower had not used the majesty of his office in support of the Supreme Court decision on integrating our schools, and I felt that any of the talked-about Democratic nominees would, if elected President, do so. Fifth, I was even more distressed by the fact that the last eight years of Republican rule had been a period of strong anti-intellectualism, both implied and overt. So far as I knew, President Eisenhower had done nothing to encourage the arts: he not once had attended the theater, or gone to a concert, or commented favorably on books, or entertained anyone but top business and sports leaders who were equally indifferent to the arts. One of the damning charges against the administration was James Reston’sanalysis of the Presidential visiting list; few men with an artistic or philosophical I.Q. of over 60 had ever appeared on it, and this attitude had insidiously permeated our national life. I myself do not place the arts inordinately high on the scale of national preferences; I have always supposed that people like painters and novelists and college professors came rather far down the list—say, right after efficient druggists or office managers—but they ought to appear somewhere, and much of America’s loss of prestige abroad stems from the world’s suspicion that Russia cares for the arts and we do not. I therefore concluded that as an artist and an intellectual I was obligated to vote for a change. Finally, and this was of major importance, I was convinced that any one of the principal Democratic contenders was on the whole a better man than Richard Nixon, and that assurance, whether accurate or not, gave me comfort. At the same time, from having talked with numerous Republicans, I knew that within their ranks there was deep dissatisfaction with Nixon and that in 1960 many who had previously voted for Eisenhower did not want to vote for Nixon. Therefore, if we nominated the right man, we had a chance of winning.
    But when I had reached the above reassuring conclusions I saw clearly that everything hinged upon the Democrats’ selection of their candidate, and so in my somewhat chilly, isolated room I tried to decide who the logical choice was. Alone, and without help from anyone or any printed material, I tried to predict in my own mind what ought to happen and what was likely to happen.
    I considered these men in order: Adlai Stevenson,Mennen Williams, Stuart Symington, Hubert Humphrey, Lyndon Johnson and John Kennedy. At no time did I consider Edmund Muskie, Pat Brown or Robert Meyner, for they were all Catholics; and although I was willing to support them, it seemed to me that as such they did not yet have an adequate stature to risk the adversities that overtook Al Smith, at least so far as popular legend reports.
    My wife kept reminding me forcefully of the claims of Adlai Stevenson. He had run two honorable campaigns and everything I knew about him suggested that he had grown in the interval since 1956. Having twice sacrificed himself at the altar of the unconquerable legend of General Eisenhower,