Word: humphrey
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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With the D.F.L. Party behind him, Humphrey had no trouble getting elected mayor of Minneapolis in 1945 at the age of 34. Brash and boisterous, he proceeded to clean up the city's brothels, its police force, and its image in general. Said a Minneapolis newspaper: "He puts firecrackers under everything." Humphrey agreed: "I got the people all steamed...
...walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights." The plank was adopted, provoking the creation of the Dixiecrat Party, which threatened to cut deeply into the Democrats' normally heavy Southern vote. Defeat seemed assured for the Democratic nominee, Harry Truman. But Truman won, and so did Humphrey, who was running for the U.S. Senate...
...soon as he arrived in Washington in 1949, Humphrey started tossing firecrackers again. In his maiden speech he announced that he had come to shake things up. "What the people want is for the Senate to function," he declared. "Sometimes I think we become so cozy -we feel so secure in our six-year term -that we forget that the people want things done." He spoke on every subject at every opportunity. "I can't help it," he explained. "It's glands...
...more he spoke, the less he seemed to accomplish. He was frozen out by the Southern barons, who considered him a scandal. Eventually came the thaw. Georgia Senator Richard Russell called him a "damn fool," but any fool could learn, apparently, if he was tutored by Russell. Humphrey was also coached by that master strategist of the possible, Lyndon Johnson, who saw in the fiery freshman a possible avenue to the liberal support he needed in his quest for the presidency. It was a useful alliance on both sides, and it led to the vice presidency for Humphrey...
...wiser Humphrey began to emerge. He discovered compromise and maneuver and made friends within the Senate Establishment. That cost him some old friends, as he found himself at odds with more dogmatic liberals. "If I believe in something, I will fight for it with all I have," he explained. "But I do not demand all or nothing. I would rather get something than nothing. Professional liberals want glory in defeat. The hardest job for a politician today is to have the courage to be moderate...