I heard nothing of what Kennedy said that last night. Maybe I was too tired to listen, but apparently he spoke well, for the crowd roared and went sort of crazy with joy. But something that happened at the end of the speech assured me that John Kennedy knew what it was all about, and when I saw what he did then I felt better.
Between where he was standing and where I was standing were the historic Democrats then living, almost all of them excepting only Adlai Stevenson. Surrounding him were Mrs. Roosevelt and Governor Harriman and Abe Ribicoff and Jim Farley and all the rest. Ignoring them, he elbowed his way across the stage to where I was standing and threw his arms about the tall man standing next to me. Kennedy embraced him in the French manner and thumped his broad back. “We needed you,” he said twice. The big man embraced him in the French manner and said, “You’re in, Jack.”
The man that Senator Kennedy embraced was Adam Clayton Powell, the Negro minister and congressman. In the days that were left in this 1960 election Mrs. Roosevelt and Carmine De Sapio could help John Kennedy no more. Their work was done and appreciated. But Adam Clayton Powell could still do a lot of work in Harlem, where the Negro vote was still touch and go. And if John Kennedy wanted to be elected President he had better see to it that Adam Clayton Powell did all the hard work he could in the remaining hours. As the powerful Negro and the young senator from Massachusetts embraced, I looked over Kennedy’s shoulder and saw Lyndon Johnson staring at the pair. He said nothing and moved away toward Governor Ribicoff, and I thought, “If there’s any man here tonight who understands exactly the significance of this extraordinary embrace, it’s Lyndon Johnson.”
Having greeted Powell, Kennedy now rejoined the great figures of the party, and the last roaring rally of the 1960 election ended.
Late that night I straggled into a restaurant and encountered another of those curious coincidences which make politics and life more dramatic than fiction, for seated at the next table was my old friend, Emmett Hughes, the right-hand man and political adviser to Nelson Rockefeller. He already feared a Democratic victory in the nation and was resigned to one in New York. The consequences could only be damaging to his superior, and he reflected glumly, “The tragedy of it is, Michener, that Rockefeller could have won the election so easily. Even the Democrats acknowledge that.”
“Some of the ones I’ve been around do,” I agreed. “How did he miss?”
“Republicans were still suffering from the Willkie syndrome,” Hughes explained. “They’d rather lose with a regular they can control than win with a newcomer they can’t. Yet victory with Rockefeller would have been so easy.” To my surprise he recapitulated the analysis I had developed a year before: “The real reactionaries would have had to vote for him, because they had no option. Many of the Stevensonians would have joined up. And he’d have held most of the Democrats who had crossed the line to vote for Eisenhower.” He fell silent, then added, “It’s maddening.”
I said, “A year ago I saw this, too. Why didn’t the Republicans see it?”
“They did,” he said.
Some minutes passed, then I observed, “Because I’m a strong Kennedy man, I was certainly relieved to see Rocky rejected, because when they turned him down I knew we’d win. But as a good American, I was unhappy to see him passed by. Each party ought to put up its best man. Then everybody wins. Right now, my guess is that he may take the nomination in 1964, but he’ll have no chance to win. How do you see it?”
Emmett Hughes, who must have been pondering these things, preferred not to comment.
On Election Night I was invited to the traditional glittering New York Election Eve party given by Tobé, the well-known hostess. From later newspaper stories I found that practically everybody in New York that I had missed for the last two months was there, but I was not. I wanted to be with Sam Thompson and the gang in Bucks County, and we trailed around from one headquarters to another. As soon as I heard that Connecticut had given Kennedy not the expected majority of 30,000 nor the hoped-for 60,000 but an astonishing 90,000, I was satisfied that we had won and bothered no more about the outcome. I drank beer with all the fine people who had worked with me and went to bed relatively early.
The next day Arthur Eastburn, long-time first lieutenant of Joe Grundy, warned me, “This election isn’t over, Jim. Nixon’s going to carry California and I think he’ll get Illinois and Texas on grounds of fraud.”
Then I began to sweat. Murphy’s Law was back in operation and I counted the agonizing days till December 19, when certification of the electoral votes would formally confirm our victory. I followed each new development with anxiety and foresaw all sorts of contingencies. Each night when I went to bed I said as I had during the last days of the campaign, “Thank God we got through today without anything upsetting the world.”
Then, on the last day of November, Sam Thompson came in grinning. “Worry no more,” he chuckled.
“How can you be so relaxed?” I asked with some irritation.
“Everything’s fixed,” he assured me. “The big Democrats are fighting mad over the way the Republicans are trying to steal the election and they’ve arranged everything, but good.”
“You think Kennedy’s going to hold on?”
“Well,” Sam hesitated, “he’s gonna be President, but there has to be just a little finagling first.”
“Are the Democrats going to high-pressure some of the Republican electors?” I asked.
“No,” Sam explained grandiosely. “Let’s suppose that the Republicans succeed in stealing Illinois and those votes are transferred to Nixon. Next let’s suppose that Mississippi and Alabama conspire to throw the election of President into the House of Representatives. On the surface it might look as if the Democrats would have a majority there, and that Kennedy would thus be elected, but we’re afraid the Republicans will be able to engineer a stalemate so that neither Kennedy nor anybody else can be elected President.”
“So Kennedy loses,” I said glumly.
“At first he seems to,” Sam agreed expansively, “but the Democrats have arranged a trick which makes him President anyway. This may be hard to follow, but listen. When the House is unable to elect a President, the Senate goes right ahead and elects Lyndon Johnson Vice President, and since there is no President, he takes over. At this point a congressman from an East Boston district made up of one hundred percent Roman Catholics resigns from Congress, whereupon Kennedy resigns from the Senate and in a special election runs for the House and wins. Now Lyndon Johnson resigns as Vice President, and according to perfectly good law Sam Rayburn, the Speaker of the House, succeeds to the Presidency. Of course, when he steps up he leaves the speakership vacant, and who do you suppose gets elected? John F. Kennedy, of Massachusetts, which puts him next in line for the Presidency. As soon as this is accomplished, Sam Rayburn resigns the Presidency and Jack Kennedy takes over.”
I was a little dizzy but asked, “What happens to Lyndon Johnson?”
“Same trick. A congressman from Texas resigns, Lyndon runs in a special election, wins, and is elected Speaker of the House, which leaves us Kennedy as President and Johnson as Vice President, just the way every honest man wanted it in the first place.”
These intricate shenanigans seemed so typically American that I started to laugh and asked, “What do you think of such manipulations, Sam?”
“Honest men have to protect themselves,” he said, starting to go. Then he added as an afterthought, “And mostly against Republicans.”
“Wait a minute!” I called. “What happens to Sam Rayburn?”
“In the interests of party loyalty,” Sam confided, “he’s agreed to take the job of customs collector for the Port of Houston.”
Actually, there was much undercover chicanery in November and December, attempts to pervert the Electoral College and to cause confusion throughout the nation. Many observers were frightened by the invitation to fraud which our system encourages and there was much talk of reforming it. Republicans wished to a
bandon the Electoral College altogether, which would mean that no longer could a popular-vote plurality of even one deliver all of New York’s 45 electoral votes to one party or the other. A plan of proportional representation was to be substituted whereby in this election New York’s 45 votes would have been divided 23.64 to Kennedy and 21.36 to Nixon. Taking the nation as a whole, this plan would have resulted in no winner, and the choice of President would have been thrown into the House, possibly with the results that Sam Thompson outlined above.
The Democrats would be foolish to permit abandonment of the Electoral College system, for it is this pattern of voting by states that enables a true balance between conservative rural areas and liberal large cities to be maintained. This was the system devised by the framers of the Constitution after prolonged deliberation, and it is about the only system that would protect the rights of all.
For example, our present pattern is sometimes condemned because it favors the big-city states; actually, the truth is quite the contrary. In 1960 it required only 60,762 Alaskan voters to determine three electoral votes, an average of one electoral vote for every 20,000. But in California to determine 32 electoral votes required 6,507,082 voters, an average of about 200,000 for each. Thus in our Presidential sweepstakes, an Alaskan is worth ten Californians.
The virtue of our present system is that a subtle balance between big units and small is maintained. Minority parties are not encouraged. By translating small popular majorities into large electoral ones, and into large blocs of power in both the House and Senate, responsibility is concentrated in one party or the other, and the nation can be governed.
The only change that need be considered is the elimination of the electors, those faceless, unknown men who are not now obligated to respect the choice of the people and who might some day, as some did in this election, pervert the will of the nation. Election officials in each state should certify the results to the state’s secretary, who should be required to forward them automatically to Washington. We came perilously close to trouble this time and the temptation to wrongdoing should be eliminated.
I am for our present system for one principal reason: if one considers all the governments that were in being when ours began operations in 1789, the United States alone has escaped the need for major overhaul. All the rest have been substantially modified, usually by revolution. We therefore have the oldest continuing form of government in the world, and it has succeeded, I think, principally because on the one hand it safeguards the exercise of power by hedging it with compromise, while on the other it allocates such power as it does allow to responsible parties and responsible men. When a system has worked so well it is worthy of retention.
During the critical days when the outcome of the election was uncertain I did not so much fear the shifting of enough electoral votes to cause Kennedy’s defeat as I did a recounting of ballots that would still permit Kennedy to win but which would cast moral doubt upon his right to the Presidency. In a democracy, even more than in a monarchy, legitimacy of inheritance is a supreme consideration, for it forestalls revolution, and I heard many rumors calculated to question the legitimacy of Kennedy’s victory.
I was truly delighted, therefore, when a count of votes in New Jersey, where the Republicans were making a lot of noise, had to be abandoned because in district after district Kennedy’s corrected totals were somewhat higher than had been reported. What normal errors had crept in seemed all to have been in Nixon’s favor.
But what settled the problem permanently was the Hawaii result. After all the post-election shouting, after all of Thruston Morton’s ridiculous charges and insinuations, the only state which had to be shifted from one candidate to the other was Hawaii, and it went from the Republicans to the Democrats. I think we cannot overestimate the psychological importance of this ironic switch, and the men in Hawaii who fought for this recount and who carried it through to a conclusion served their nation well. Imagine the editorial outcry if some one state had been forced to switch from Kennedy to Nixon! A grievous suspicion would have contaminated the election, but as it turned out, the Hawaii shift from Nixon to Kennedy put the whole matter of recounting into proper perspective and tension was dispersed in quiet laughter.
The reader must by now be aware of the fact that I see politics in a democracy as a process of hard fighting to win a nation, conciliation when the election ends, and generous compromise when the office is assumed. I was therefore proud of the manner in which John Kennedy went to see Richard Nixon immediately after the election and of the gracious way in which President Eisenhower put an end to rumors of an eventual Republican victory by inviting the President-elect and his wife to inspect their new home, the White House; but I was even more gratified by a letter which I received from Boise, Idaho. It was written by a man I did not know and said: “At the last meeting of the board of directors it was reported that prior to the last general election you had several persons who were supporting the candidacy of Mr. Kennedy at a luncheon at the country club as your guests. It was also reported that a group of ladies, some of whom were associate members and some of whom were wives of members, conducted themselves in an unladylike and rude manner, embarrassing both you and your guests.
“We have thoroughly investigated the matter and the board has requested that I write to you expressing the board’s sincere apologies for the conduct of these ladies. I am also authorized to write a personal letter to each of your guests expressing our regret for any embarassment which this incident caused them.” Such gestures of conciliation make the conduct of politics possible, and I am much indebted to this unknown gentleman from Boise, for his gracious gesture of apology stands in the fine tradition of political campaigning in our republic.
Throughout this report I have several times indicated that my audiences frequently considered John Kennedy less gifted than I did. Many were unwilling to believe that this young man would make a great and forceful President in the tradition of the two Roosevelts. Some doubted that he was a true liberal. Others felt that he was a crusading socialist. To all such doubters I gave my personal assurance that Kennedy was going to be one of the great Presidents. When they continued to doubt I said merely, “You watch!”
It was with real joy, therefore, that I saw the nation slowly swing around to my original assessment of John Kennedy. There was general applause for his cabinet appointments and admiration for his conciliatory approach to national problems. His mature and reassuring behavior in the ten weeks following the election surprised many; it did not surprise me, for during the campaign I had repeatedly assured my listeners, “John Kennedy will be President of all the people. He’ll conciliate political and economic enemies, and at the same time he’ll be a true liberal, for he’s that kind of man. His only ambition will be to give this nation the responsible leadership it deserves.”
When the electoral votes were finally certified, when the inauguration had legally taken place, I could at last relax. More even than when I started I was content that I had worked for a man whom I could respect. That he would make a great President I had no doubt, and I was convinced that I would be increasingly proud of having supported him early and strong.
To
JOHNNY WELSH
practical politician, county chairman,
a dedicated, arrogant, honest man
BY JAMES A. MICHENER
Tales of the South Pacific
The Fires of Spring
Return to Paradise
The Voice of Asia
The Bridges at Toko-Ri
Sayonara
The Floating World
The Bridge at Andau
Hawaii
Report of the County Chairman
Caravans
The Source
Iberia
Presidential Lottery
The Quality of Life
Kent State: What Happened and Why
The Drifters
A Michener Miscellany: 1950-1970
Centennial
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Sports in America
Chesapeake
The Covenant
Space
Poland
Texas
Legacy
Alaska
Journey
Caribbean
The Eagle and the Raven
Pilgrimage
The Novel
James A. Michener’s Writer’s Handbook
Mexico
Creatures of the Kingdom
Recessional
Miracle in Seville
This Noble Land: My Vision for America
The World Is My Home
with A. Grove Day
Rascals in Paradise
with John Kings
Six Days in Havana
About the Author
James A. Michener, one of the world’s most popular writers, was the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Tales of the South Pacific, the best-selling novels Hawaii, Texas, Chesapeake, The Covenant, and Alaska, and the memoir The World Is My Home. Michener served on the advisory council to NASA and the International Broadcast Board, which oversees the Voice of America. Among dozens of awards and honors, he received America’s highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 1977, and an award from the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities in 1983 for his commitment to art in America. Michener died in 1997 at the age of ninety.
Read on for an excerpt from James A. Michener’s
POLAND
Buk versus Bukowski
In a small Polish farm community, during the fall planting season of 1981, events occurred which electrified the world, sending reverberations of magnitude to capitals as diverse as Washington, Peking and especially Moscow.
This village of Bukowo, 763 souls, stood at the spot where the great river Vistula turns to the north in its stately passage from its birthplace in the Carpathian Mountains at the south to its destiny in the Baltic Sea at the north. In the little settlement there was a stone castle erected in A.D. 914 as a guard against marauders from the east, but this had been destroyed in the early years when those marauders arrived in stupefying force. Each subsequent owner of the village had planned at one time or other either to tear down the ruins or rebuild them, but none had done so because the old castle exercised a spell on all who saw it, and there was a legend among the villagers that so long as their ruined tower stood, they would stand. There must have been some truth to this because there had often been great clamor in Bukowo, but like its doomed tower, it still stood.
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