Word: dirksen
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...Effort. None of this is as easy as it sounds. "Votes," says Dirksen, "don't flutter down like handbills from an airplane. They don't shake off a tree. Effort still counts around here." As for effort, Dirksen gives it all he has got-and he is one of the Senate's most prodigious workers. Before dawn each morning he is at his desk in his small Washington apartment. At 8:30 he sets out in the chauffeured Cadillac that is the prerogative of his leadership office. He also rates a telephone...
...interrupted in the reading that occupies him all the way to the Hill. His only respite comes on the increasingly rare occasions when he and his wife slip away to the Leesburg, Va., countryside, where they have built a small home on 3½ acres. There Dirksen indulges in his hobby of raising a variety of fruits, vegetables and flowers. It's all part of a process he calls "system repair ... It freshens you up for the combat of the next week...
...continue in this life that he loves, Dirksen must win re-election in November. This may not be easy. For while Dirksen's Senate duties have kept him pretty much in Washington, Democrat Yates has been campaigning hard in Illinois. Last week he invaded Dirksen's own Pekin, plastering the Senator for "voting one way in Washington" and "talking another way in Illinois." Dirksen may use his flowing phrases, says Yates, "his soothing, oozy, syrupy words; but his record is coming out, and I'm going to help it come out." Candidate Yates charges that Dirksen "sabotaged...
...weekends during the campaign, Dirksen tries to get home. Lugging his huge briefcase (loaded, it weighs 35 Ibs. -more than the valise with his clothing) aboard the plane, he studies as he flies. But the minute he touches foot on Illinois soil, he shows that he has not lost his old touch. In Deerfield, a rainstorm scattered his audience. "Just a minute, folks," he commanded. "If I can stand up here and get wet talking, you can stay here and get wet listening. I've got another speech to make this afternoon, and my suit is going...
...Challenge. Everett Dirksen was once a man of vaulting ambition. He campaigned seriously for the Republican nomination for President in 1944. He badly wanted to be Taft's vicepresidential running mate in 1952. Now he is happy where he is, and has a deep sense of fulfillment. "Life," he muses, "is a matter of development or decay. You either grow or you retrogress. There's no standing still. You go backward or forward. The challenge will make you grow, if you are willing to assert a leadership and look on the challenge as something...