A Candidate's Day

On the platform at Pittsfield had gathered the pols with their gray vests and Chesterfield coats. They were the same pols that always show up for the St. Patrick's Day parade or the opening day at Lincoln Downs, but this time they were waiting for the Democratic nominee for president. They smoked their cigars just the same and they talked ward politics as usual, and only when the sound of the train became too loud did they straighten their coat collars and snuff out their cigars.

The train was a long one, about 15 cars long, and it stopped very gently. The reporters and photographers waiting on the platform rushed alongside the last car. A host of functionaries came out on the rear platform and then Governor Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois appeared with his youngest son, John. A small pathway to the speaker's stand had been cleared by the police, but the photographers closed about the governor, pushing their cameras in his face. The governor smiled forgivingly and walked rapidly to the speaker's stand where, after a short introduction, he began to address the crowd gathered in the street below. While the speech was in progress we climbed aboard the train and began to look for William Flannagan, the Governor's press-secretary.

Flannagan was in the diner, finishing lunch. He promised us an interview with Arthur Schlesinger and handed us each a big white button reading "Stevenson Press-Campaign Train." "These will get you anywhere except the last car--the Governor's car," he said. We thanked him and wandered off through the train.

Stevenson's speech had just ended and the reporters traveling with the train began scrambling aboard. The press car, a coach with all scats removed and typing desks substituted, sounded like a locker-room between the halves of a close football game as the reporters rushed in to copy down their notes on Stevenson's reception in Pittsfield. On the window alongside each reporter's desk was placed the banner of the newspaper he represented. The Philadelphia Bulletin leaned across the aisle and said to the San Francisco Chronicle, "One of his best, on?" The Chronicle man nodded happily. "And did you see that crowd. Better than the second time around California." The other reporters, smiling joyfully, talked to one another about the growing size of Stevenson's crowds. In the corner of the car the Chicago Tribune glowered and said to the car at large, "He really got in some nasty cracks. Listen to this, 'I have concluded that there are three kinds of intelligence: animal, human, and military.' That's really dirty." Nobody was listening.

Near the end of the train was a club car in which all the pols who had gotten aboard in Pittsfield were clustered.

Another club car, this one inhabited mostly by newsmen, was next in line. Flannagan and Life photographer Cornell Capa were sitting together, Flannagan listening patiently while Capa complained, "I must get a tired shot of him. We have already a tired picture of Eisenhower and we must match it with a tired picture of him. But he is never tired--never."

"He" always refers to Stevenson--there is no first name familiarity between the reporters and the governor. We were passing fom one car to another when he suddenly appeared in front of us. "Meet the Governor," Flannagan said. We shook hands and introduced ourselves. Stevenson smiled and then bounded off behind Flannagan.

He gave four speeches that afternoon in four hours, each speech completely different and sprinkled with remarks that could not have been prepared in advance, but which were provoked by signs that people in the audience hoisted. The crowds were good, their reactions better, and everyone on the train was elated as the Presidential Special pulled into South Station for the real work of the day, the governor's speech at Mechanics Hall.

The next morning Stevenson was up at 8 a.m., ready for a breakfast with a veterans' group and then with the Volunteers for Stevenson. As he told the latter group, this was Sunday so he was "not even going to worry about Nixon's conscience." Since the campaign's start, he has imposed on himself a creed of not speaking on Sunday, and this Sunday he desperately strove to maintain the policy of no political speeches on Sunday. To the Volunteers he spoke about religion and political aims of a Democracy. Politics continually peeped up in the speech, but Stevenson almost managed to keep them unobtrusively submerged.

From the Statler Hotel, Stevenson's motorcade of three press buses, 18 motorcycle cops, three police cars, and about 15 open and closed automobiles containing sundry people drove through deserted streets to reach the First Unitarian Church in Harvard Square. By the time he arrived, a sizeable crowd had already gathered; inside, the regular parishioners awaited the only exciting event of the year--Stevenson's entrance.

Stevenson had been invited to dine at Governor Dever's Cambridge apartment, but when Dever assistants saw the size of Stevenson's party (about 20 aides and 45 newspapermen), they hastily arranged to eat in the Hotel Commander. We were greeted there by Edward Martin, the hotel's publicity agent, who told us that Stevenson would eat in the Grand Ball Room, and throughout his meal, face a theatrical fronting of the White House. "A clever symbolic gesture," said Martin. Newsmen went to another dining hall for food, and state troopers to still another.

After a few minutes, an aide ran from one room to another, shouting "we've got to leave, we've got to go." Everyone jumped up and ran for the buses and cars.

The first major stop was Taunton where Stevenson, again straining the no speech on Sunday theme, spoke briefly about the need for more local responsibility by the state and cited the new mental institution there, the cause of the visit, as an example of this. Throughout the talk, an airplane trailing a "Vote for Stevenson" sign circled overhead, and Stevenson noted that he had nothing to do "with that irritating airplane" which, he feared, was giving the dedication a political hint. Governor Dever merely smiled.

From there, the motorcade moved on to Fall River and New Bedford.

At intervals, the Republicans had stationed hired boys with Eisenhower signs; they were supposed to shout "We like Ike." But the Republicans forgot this was solid Democratic territory, and the youths of the area were partisan. They stood there with the Eisenhower signs as they were paid to do. But they shouted "I like Adlai" which they weren't paid for.