Hubert Humphrey

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For other uses, see Hubert Humphrey (disambiguation).
Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr.
Hubert Humphrey
In office
20 January 1965 – 20 January 1969
Preceded by Lyndon B. Johnson
Succeeded by Spiro Agnew
President Lyndon B. Johnson
Born 27 May 1911
Wallace, South Dakota
Died 13 January 1978
Waverly, Minnesota
Political party Democratic
Spouse Muriel Buck Humphrey

Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. (May 27, 1911 – January 13, 1978) was the 38th Vice President of the United States, serving under President Lyndon Johnson. Humphrey twice served as a United States Senator from Minnesota, and served as Democratic Majority Whip. He was a founder of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and Americans for Democratic Action. He was also elected mayor of Minneapolis, Minnesota. In 1968 Humphrey was the nominee of the Democratic Party in the United States presidential election but lost to Republican Richard M. Nixon.

In one of the most renowned speeches in American political history, Humphrey told the 1948 Democratic National Convention: "the time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadows of states' rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights," winning support for a pro-civil-rights plank in the Party's platform.

Contents

[edit] Early years

Humphrey is from Wallace, South Dakota (Codington County) to Hubert Humphrey Senior and Ragnild Kristine Sannes, who was Norwegian [1]. After high school, he attended the University of Minnesota for a short time, but had to leave the school because of family financial hardship brought on by the Great Depression. He then became a pharmacist with the Humphrey Drug Co. in Huron, South Dakota, from 1933 to 1937. He was a brother of Phi Delta Chi, a professional pharmaceutical fraternity.

Humphrey then returned to school, receiving a degree from the University of Minnesota in 1939. He also earned a graduate degree from LSU in 1940 (his classmate was Russell B. Long, future senator from Louisiana.), serving as an assistant instructor of political science there. He then became an instructor and graduate student at the University of Minnesota from 1940–1941, and worked for the Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.). Humphrey never finished his Ph.D., and for this reason he was not allowed to teach in the political science department when he returned to the university after losing the 1968 presidential election to Richard Nixon. He lived in Waverly, Minnesota and had roots in Tveit, Norway.

[edit] City and state politics (1942-1948)

During World War II, he became state director of new production training and reemployment and State chief of Minnesota war service program 1942; assistant director, War Manpower Commission 1943; professor in political science at Macalester College in St. Paul 1943–1944; radio news commentator 1944–1945. In 1943, he made his first run at elective office, for mayor of Minneapolis, but he lost.

In 1944, Humphrey was the one of the key players in the merger of the Democratic and Farmer-Labor parties of Minnesota to form the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL). When in 1945 Minnesota Communists seized effective control over the state party, Humphrey became an engaged anti-Communist.

After the war, he ran for and became mayor of Minneapolis 1945–1948. He was re-elected in 1947 by the largest margin in the city's history, to that time. Humphrey gained national fame during these years by being among the founders of the liberal anti-communist Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) and for reforming the Minneapolis police force. Previously, the city had been declared the Anti-Semitism capital of the country and the small African-American population of the city encountered numerous instances of racism. His tenure as mayor would be famous for his efforts to fight bigotry in all its forms.

[edit] The 1948 Democratic National Convention

The national Democratic Party of 1948 was split between liberals who thought the federal government should assertively guarantee civil rights for non-whites and Southern conservatives who thought the states should be able to choose what civil rights their citizens would enjoy (the "states' rights" position).

At the 1948 Democratic National Convention, the draft party platform reflected this division and contained only platitudes in favor of civil rights. Though the incumbent President Harry S. Truman had already issued a detailed 10-point Civil Rights Program calling for aggressive federal action on the issue of civil rights, he gave his backing to the Democratic establishment draft that was a replication of the 1944 Democratic National Convention plank on civil rights.

A diverse coalition opposed this tepid draft. Within it were anti-communist liberals like Humphrey, Paul Douglas and John Shelley, all of whom would later become known as leading progressives. Also strongly backing the liberal civil rights plank were Democratic urban bosses like Ed Flynn of the Bronx, Jacob Arvey of Chicago, and David Lawrence of Pittsburgh, who were generally regarded at the time as being more conservative. Though many scholars have suggested that labor unions were leading figures in this coalition, virtually all significant labor leaders with the exception of the head of the Congress of Industrial Organizations' Political Action Committee (CIOPAC) Jack Kroll and A.F. Whitney, did not attend the convention.

Despite aggressive pressure by Truman aides to avoid forcing the issue on the Convention floor, Humphrey chose to speak. In a renowned speech, Humphrey passionately told the Convention: "To those who say, my friends, to those who say, that we are rushing this issue of civil rights, I say to them we are 172 years too late! To those who say, this civil rights program is an infringement on states' rights, I say this: the time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states' rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights!" Humphrey and his allies succeeded; the pro-civil-rights plank was narrowly adopted.

As a result of the Convention's vote, the Mississippi and one half of the Alabama delegation walked out of the hall. Many Southern Democrats were so enraged that they formed the "Dixiecrat" party and nominated their own presidential candidate, Strom Thurmond. (As a result, the powerful Richard Russell of Georgia once said of him, "Can you imagine the people of Minnesota sending that damn fool down here to represent them?") Although the strong civil rights plank adopted at the Convention cost Truman the support of the Dixiecrats, it gained him important votes from blacks, especially in Northern cities. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough has written that Humphrey probably did more to get Truman elected in 1948 than anyone other than Truman himself.

[edit] The Happy Warrior (1948-1964)

Minnesota elected Humphrey to the United States Senate in 1948 on the DFL ticket, and he took office on January 3, 1949. Humphrey's father died that year, and Humphrey stopped using "Jr." He was reelected in 1954 and 1960. His colleagues selected him as majority whip in 1961, a position he held until he left the Senate on December 29, 1964.

In the Senate, Humphrey became known for his advocacy of liberal causes (such as civil rights, arms control, a nuclear test ban, food stamps, and humanitarian foreign aid), and for his long and witty speeches. During the period of McCarthyism (1950-1954), Humphrey was accused of being "soft on Communism," despite having been one of the founders of the anti-communist liberal organization Americans for Democratic Action, having been a staunch supporter of Truman Administration efforts to combat the growth of the Soviet Union, and having fought Communist political activities in Minnesota and elsewhere. In 1954 Humphrey proposed to make mere membership in the Communist Party a felony. He was chairman on the Select Committee on Disarmament (Eighty-fourth and Eighty-fifth Congresses). As Democratic whip in the Senate in 1964, Humphrey was instrumental in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of that year.

[edit] Presidential and Vice-Presidential ambitions (1952-1964)

One of the most respected members of the U.S. Senate, Humphrey ran for the Democratic presidential nomination twice before his election to the Vice Presidency in 1964. The first time was as Minnesota's "favorite son" in 1952, where he received 26 votes on the first ballot, and again in 1960, but lost to Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy.

In a twist of history, this life-long opponent of bigotry played the role of Protestant foil in a key test of the Catholic Kennedy's ability to win Protestant votes in a primary fought in West Virginia. Humphrey calculated that his mid-western populist roots would appeal more to the state's disenfranchised voters more than the Ivy League millionaire's son, Kennedy. Kennedy led comfortably until the issue turned to religion. As one advisor explained to Kennedy why he was quickly losing ground in polls, "no one knew you were a Catholic then."

Kennedy chose to engage the religion issue head-on. In radio broadcasts, he carefully repositioned the issue from one of Catholic versus Protestant to tolerance versus intolerance. Kennedy appealed to West Virginia's long-held revulsion for prejudice; placed Humphrey, who had championed tolerance his entire career, on the defensive; and attacked him with a vengeance. Humphrey, who was short on funds, could not match the well-financed Kennedy operation. Kennedy defeated Humphrey soundly, winning 60.8 percent of the vote. That evening, Humphrey announced that he was no longer a candidate for the presidency. By winning the primary, Kennedy was able to overcome the taboo of Catholic candidates for President and virtually guarantee himself the Democratic nomination for President.

However, Humphrey did win the South Dakota and District of Columbia primaries, which JFK didn't enter. At the convention he received 41 votes.

Senator Humphrey was part of the vice-presidential free-for-all at the 1956 Democratic convention, where he received 134 votes on the first ballot and 74 on the second.

Humphrey was chosen by President Lyndon Johnson to be his running mate in the 1964 election over Connecticut Senator Thomas Dodd and fellow Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy.

[edit] The Vice Presidency

Humphrey took office on January 20, 1965. As Vice President, Humphrey was controversial for his complete and vocal loyalty to Johnson and the policies of the Johnson Administration, even as many of Humphrey's liberal admirers opposed Johnson with increasing fervor about the Vietnam War. Critics later learned that Johnson had informed Humphrey that he would oppose him for the presidential nomination if Humphrey (whom Johnson knew increasingly opposed the war) broke with the Johnson administration's Vietnam policies. Even Humphrey's nickname, the Happy Warrior, was used against him. The nickname referred not to hawkishness but rather Humphrey's crusading for social programs.

In Germany, Humphrey indirectly earned fame during an April 1967 visit when some Hippies, armed with what looked like a bomb, planned to cause trouble at the place Humphrey was to speak. However, the "bomb" contained nothing but pudding, and the plan was foiled by the police. The would-be vandals were dubbed "assassins" and "ten little Oswalds" in some widely-read right-leaning German newspapers; this characterization sparked riots by left-wing student activists. The well-known left-wing journalist Ulrike Meinhof wrote in the Konkret at the time; "It is thought rude to throw custard pies at politicians, but not to welcome politicians who have villages wiped out and cities bombed...napalm yes, custard, no." This "pudding assassination" thus became an early defining moment of the German part of the May 1968 movement, many of whose leaders moved into national politics later.

[edit] The 1968 Presidential election

On March 30,1968 a week before the Wisconsin primary, where the polls predicted a loss, President Johnson withdrew from his race for a second term, and Humphrey announced his candidacy. His biggest challenge was to come from Robert Kennedy. After his victory in the California Primary, it looked like Kennedy would be the Democrat's nominee. However the night of the primary Senator Kennedy was assassinated. After that tragic event, Humphrey became the top candidate of the United States Democratic Party and was selected their nominee at the 1968 Democratic National Convention at Chicago. As party boss Mayor Richard Daley managed the proceedings single-handedly in behalf of Humphrey's candidacy inside the convention hall, there were riots and protests by antiwar demonstrators outside, some of whom favored Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern, or other protest candidates.

Humphrey lost the 1968 election to Richard M. Nixon. His campaign was hurt in part because Humphrey had secured the presidential nomination without entering a single primary. (In later years, changes in party rules made such an outcome virtually impossible.) During his underfunded campaign Humphrey grew on voters, who saw a kind of transparent decency as well as a mind that quickly grasped complicated issues. Starting out substantially behind Richard Nixon in the polls, he had almost closed the gap by election day. He lost the election by .7 % of the vote: 43.4% (31,783,783 votes) for Nixon to 42.7% (31,271,839 votes) for Humphrey, with 13.5% (9,901,118 votes) for George Wallace of Alabama.

There were no debates between Humphrey and Nixon, despite a later recollection by Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger that it was during such a debate that Schwarzenegger determined his allegiance to the Republican party. [2]

While he was Vice President, Hubert Humphrey was the subject of a satirical song by songwriter/musician Tom Lehrer entitled "Whatever Became of Hubert?" ("I wonder how many people here tonight remember Hubert Humphrey. He used to be a senator..."). The song addressed how some liberals and progressives felt let down by Humphrey, who had become a much more mute figure as Vice President than he had been as a senator. The song goes "Whatever became of Hubert? Has anyone heard a thing? Once he shone on his own, now he sits home alone and waits for the phone to ring. Once a fiery liberal spirit, ah, but now when he speaks he must clear it. ..."

Immensely admired by associates and members of his staff, Humphrey could not break loose from the domination of Lyndon Johnson. The combination of the unpopularity of Johnson, the Chicago riots, and the discouragement of liberals and African-Americans when both Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., were assassinated during the election year caused him to lose to a candidate many thought less qualified to be president. Humphrey was also hurt by the presence of former Alabama Governor George Wallace as an independent candidate, who won many traditionally Democratic Southern states as well as many Northern whites who had been loyal Democratic voters. But many people believe Wallace hurt Nixon more than Humphrey, especially in the South. Thus, it is doubtful that Wallace cost Humphrey the election. The war Humphrey had come to oppose continued until the mid-1970s.

[edit] Return to the Senate and the 1972 campaign (1969-1976)

After leaving the Vice-Presidency, Humphrey kept busy by teaching at Macalester College and the University of Minnesota, and by serving as chairman of board of consultants of the Encyclopædia Britannica Educational Corporation.

Initially he had not planned to return to political life, but an unexpected opportunity changed his mind. Eugene McCarthy, a DFL U.S. Senator from Minnesota who was up for re-election in 1970, realized that he had only a slim chance of winning even re-nomination (he had angered his party by opposing Johnson and Humphrey for the 1968 presidential nomination), and declined to run. Humphrey won the DFL nomination and the election, and returned to the U.S. Senate on January 3, 1971. He was re-elected in 1976, and remained in office until his death. This seat however was not the same that he held before prior to becoming Vice President as it was still held by Walter F. Mondale. In a rarity in politics Humphrey served as a Senator by holding both seats in his state. Humphrey's reentry in the Senate also meant that until Mondale's resignation in 1976 to become Vice President, Minnesota had been represented in the Senate by both a past and future Vice President.

In 1972, Humphrey once again ran for the Democratic nomination for president. He was defeated by Senator George McGovern in several primaries, and was trailing in delegates at the 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida. His hopes rested on challenges to the credentials of some of the McGovern delegates. For example, the Humphrey forces argued that the winner-take-all rule for the California primary violated procedural reforms intended to produce a better reflection of the popular vote, the reason that the Illinois delegation was bounced. The effort failed, as several votes on delegate credentials went McGovern's way, guaranteeing his victory.

Humphrey also briefly considered mounting a campaign for the Democratic nomination from the Convention once again in 1976, when the primaries seemed likely to result in a deadlock, but ultimately decided against it. At the conclusion of the Democratic primary process that year, even with Jimmy Carter having requisite number of delegates needed to secure his nomination, many still wanted Humphrey to announce his availability for a "draft" movement. However, he did not do so, and Carter easily secured the nomination on the first round of balloting. What wasn't known to the general public was that Humphrey already had terminal cancer.

[edit] Deputy President pro tempore of the Senate (1976-1978)

In 1974, along with Rep. Augustus Hawkins of California, Humphrey authored Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act, the first attempt at full employment legislation. The original bill proposed to guarantee full employment to all citizens over 16 and set up a permanent system of public jobs to meet that goal. A watered-down version called the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act passed the House and Senate in 1978. It set the goal of 4 percent unemployment and 3 percent inflation and instructed the Federal Reserve Board to try to meet those goals in its policy decisions.

Humphrey ran for Majority Leader after the 1976 election but lost to Robert Byrd of West Virginia. The Senate honored Humphrey by creating the post of Deputy President pro tempore of the Senate for him. On August 16, 1977, Humphrey revealed his terminal cancer to the public. On October 25, 1977, he addressed the Senate, and on November 3, 1977, Humphrey became the first person other than a Member or the President to address the House of Representatives in session. President Carter honored him by giving him command of Air Force One for his final trip to Washington on October 23. One of Humphrey's speeches contained the lines "It was once said that the moral test of Government is how that Government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped," which is sometimes described as the "liberals' mantra."

Humphrey spent his last weeks calling old political acquaintances on a special long-distance telephone his family had given him. After his death at home in Waverly, Minnesota, he lay in state in the rotunda of both the U.S. Capitol and of the Minnesota State Capitol. His body was interred in Lakewood Cemetery, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Humphrey's wife, Muriel Humphrey, was appointed by the state governor to finish her husband's term in office.

[edit] Trivia

  • Cult American satirist, Tom Lehrer released a song entitled "Whatever Became of Hubert?", referring to the low profile maintained by Humphrey during his term as Vice-President.

[edit] Honors

A statue of Humphrey was placed outside Minneapolis City Hall in 1989.
Enlarge
A statue of Humphrey was placed outside Minneapolis City Hall in 1989.[1]

In 1965 Hubert Horatio Humphrey -- Vice President of the United States -- was made an Honorary Life Member of Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for African American males.

He was awarded posthumously the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor on June 13, 1979 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1980.

[edit] Buildings and institutions named for Humphrey

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • Berman, Edgar [3]. Hubert: The Triumph And Tragedy Of The Humphrey I Knew. New York, N.Y. : G.P. Putnam's & Sons, 1979
  • Cohen, Dan. Undefeated: The Life of Hubert H. Humphrey. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications, 1978.
  • Humphrey, Hubert H. The Education of a Public Man: My Life and Politics. Garden City, N. Y. : Doubleday, 1976.
  • Mann, Robert. The Walls of Jericho: Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Richard Russell and the Struggle for Civil Rights. New York, N.Y. : Harcourt Brace, 1996.
  • Solberg, Carl. Hubert Humphrey: A Biography. New York : Norton, 1984.
  • Taylor, Jeff. Where Did the Party Go?: William Jennings Bryan, Hubert Humphrey, and the Jeffersonian Legacy. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2006.
  • Thurber, Timothy N. The Politics of Equality: Hubert H. Humphrey and the African American Freedom Struggle. Columbia University Press, 1999. Pp. 352.
  1. ^ Municipal Building Commission: City Hall and Courthouse timeline

[edit] External links

Preceded by
Marvin Kline		 Mayor of Minneapolis
1945 – 1949		 Succeeded by
Eric G. Hoyer
Preceded by
Joseph H. Ball		 United States Senator (Class 2) from Minnesota
1949 - 1964
Served alongside: Edward J. Thye, Eugene McCarthy		 Succeeded by
Walter Mondale
Preceded by
Mike Mansfield		 United States Senate Majority Whip
1961 - 1965		 Succeeded by
Russell B. Long
Preceded by
Lyndon B. Johnson		 Democratic Party Vice Presidential candidate
1964 (won)		 Succeeded by
Edmund Muskie
Vice President of the United States
January 20, 1965 – January 20, 1969		 Succeeded by
Spiro Agnew
Democratic Party Presidential candidate
1968 (lost)		 Succeeded by
George McGovern
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Eugene McCarthy		 United States Senator (Class 1) from Minnesota
1971 - 1978
Served alongside: Walter Mondale, Wendell R. Anderson		 Succeeded by
Muriel Humphrey
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