Word: humphrey
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Mashed Potatoes Circuit. Without ever taking his eye from his real goal-politics-Humphrey returned to Minnesota and a series of odd jobs: as an instructor at the university, as adult education director for the WPA, and as assistant regional director of the War Manpower Commission. But he also began to get around. In his WPA job, he printed and mailed out thousands of diplomas, each carefully signed by Hubert H. Humphrey Jr. He joined everything in sight. The word spread that Hubert Humphrey was a rousing speaker-and always available...
...became the darling of the Townsendites (though he nimbly avoided endorsing the Townsend Plan). He got on the chicken a la king and mashed potatoes circuit: Kiwanis, Rotary, the Elks. Then, at 31, when the time looked right, Humphrey plunged into politics, aiming high. He ran for mayor of Minneapolis, came in second in a field of ten. In the runoff he lost out by only 5,000 votes...
That summer Humphrey got to thinking: the trouble with liberal politics in Minnesota was that Democrats and Farmer-Laborites fought each other instead of the Republicans. He took a day coach to Washington, sold Democratic national headquarters on his plan for fusing the two parties, returned home and presided at the wedding...
That gave ambitious Hubert Humphrey a base to work from. He took a job teaching politics at St. Paul's Presbyterian Macalester College, got a part-time job as a radio commentator (WTCN) and waited. In 1945, he was elected mayor of Minneapolis by the largest plurality in the city's history...
...Humphrey moved into the Victorian-looking mayor's office and started to rattle the stained-glass windows. He gave his cops a single order-close down or else, Minneapolis closed down overnight, even to the slot machines at American Legion hall. He pushed through a city FEPC which made it a misdemeanor ($100 or 90 days) to discriminate in employment. He warned management that he would not use police to break up picket lines. When the labor bosses who had helped put him in office protested his selection of a police chief, Humphrey told them flatly...