In every presidential election year since the 1950s, including this one, Adlai E. Stevenson’s name has been invoked by politicians and pundits–and dreamers. Although twice defeated as the Democratic candidate for the presidency, the former Illinois governor remains embedded in the memories of those who campaigned or voted for him in 1952 and 1956. I keep running into men and women who say they rang doorbells for Stevenson or who were just plain–as one campaign slogan put it–“madly for Adlai.”
Of course, there were not enough enthusiasts to ensure victory over Dwight Eisenhower, the popular World War II Allied commander. It was like running against D-Day and VE-Day. But it’s still remarkable that in 1952 Stevenson received 27,314,000 votes to Eisenhower’s 33,936,000. Stevenson was a relative unknown. What made him such a strong contender?
Not his achievements as governor; few Americans outside Illinois knew of his record as a fiscal conservative and legislative liberal. Or that he had served as an overseas troubleshooter for various government departments during World War II or that he had helped to create the legal and diplomatic underpinning of the United Nations.
Stevenson was a strong candidate, and is remembered so fondly, because of the power of his language and ideas. No candidate for high office had spoken with such eloquence since another great orator from Springfield held forth during the Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858.
Here is an example of a straightforward Stevenson campaign speech. Written before the age of the sound bite, his words still reverberate in this election year:
“When the tumult and the shouting dies, when the bands are gone and the lights are dimmed, what remains is the stark reality of responsibility.
“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 eve of great, though not easy, decisions: a long, costly struggle which alone can assure triumph over the great enemies of man–war, poverty and tyranny.
“These enemies assault human dignity.
“Let’s tell the people that the victory to be won in the second half of the 20th Century and in the next millennium–this portal to a Golden Age–mocks the pretensions of individual ingenuity alone.
“For victory is a citadel guarded by thick walls of ignorance and mistrust which do not fall down before the trumpets’ blast or the politicians’ imprecation.
“These walls must be directly stormed by the hosts of courage, of morality and of idealism–contemptuous of lies, circuses and demagoguery.
“It isn’t enough to pile weapons on weapons, and to totter dangerously from crisis to crisis. There must be a call to war against the poverty, the hunger, the nothingness in people’s lives.
“Above all else, a Stevenson administration will seek peace.
“As long as this nuclear death dance continues, millions of people are living on borrowed time. In the Hydrogen Age, we have improved man’s ability to blow up our planet. But there is no evil in the atom; only in men’s souls.
“On the eve of the Civil War, our revered 16th president, from my home state of Illinois, declared: ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’ It you choose me as your next president, I shall try to put our national house in order.
“How much can be done to improve the condition of man–and women–their education, housing, nutrition, health–if even a small proportion of the funds now devoted to improving the art of killing were transferred to the art of living.
“My hope for 20th Century man is not just for his survival . . . but for his triumph.”
For talking and writing like this–without the need for ghostwriters, pollsters and spinmeisters–Stevenson was derided as an “egghead” who spoke over the heads of people.
On the contrary, he spoke this frankly and intelligently because he didn’t believe in talking down to people–he respected their intelligence. And they respected him. Many of us still dream of candidates with Stevensonian eloquence.
