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Hubert H. Humphrey

, U.S. Vice President
Hubert H. Humphrey
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  • Born: 27 May 1911
  • Birthplace: Wallace, South Dakota
  • Died: 13 January 1978 (cancer)
  • Best Known As: United States vice president, 1965-69

Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. was the vice president of the United States under President Lyndon Johnson, elected in 1964. In the election of 1968 Humphrey, the Democratic candidate, was narrowly defeated by Republican Richard Nixon. Humphrey had a long career in politics, first as mayor of Minneapolis, Minnesota (1943-48) then as a U.S. Senator from Minnesota (1948-1964) before being picked for the vice presidency. A champion of civil rights and social reform, he served again in the senate from 1971 until his death in 1978. Humphrey died of cancer while still in office, and his wife, Muriel Buck Humphrey, was appointed by Minnesota's governor to finish his term.

 
 
Political Biography: Hubert Humphrey

(b. Wallace, South Dakota, 27 May 1911; d. 13 Jan. 1978) US; Vice-President 1964 – 8 Humphrey qualified from the University of Minnesota in pharmacy and political science and practised both. He became an organizer for the Democratic Farmer-Labour Party in the state in 1944 and was elected mayor for Minneapolis in 1945, holding the position until 1949. Always on the party's liberal wing he helped found the Americans for Democratic Action in 1947. At the 1948 Democratic Convention he spoke out for a strong civil rights platform; the adoption of the platform drove some Southern delegates to withdraw and form their own party. Between 1949 and 1965 he represented Minnesota in the Senate. He made a failed bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1960; he lacked the resources to compete with John Kennedy in the primaries and did not have the support of senior party figures. Between 1961 and 1965 he was Senate majority whip and played an important role in the passage of key legislation on civil rights as well as the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. At the 1964 Democratic convention, President Lyndon Johnson appeared at the convention rostrum and nominated Humphrey as the party's vice-presidential candidate. Humphrey was loyal to Johnson and, fatally for him, defended America's military involvement in Vietnam. This lost him much liberal party support and the anti-war candidates did well in the Democratic primaries in 1968, which Humphrey avoided. At the party convention in 1968, the party delegates nominated Humphrey on the first ballot. This caused outrage among critics of the war who felt that the nomination had been "stolen" from them. It was ironic that Humphrey, who had tried to challenge the party establishment in 1960, now relied on it. Because of the party divisions Humphrey was given little chance of winning the election, but he made up much ground on the Republican Richard Nixon in the last few days of the campaign, only losing by 43.4 per cent to 42.7 per cent of the popular vote. He returned to the Senate in 1971 and served until his death. He made one last effort for the presidential nomination in 1972, but his time was past. Humphrey was in many respects an old-fashioned liberal Democrat, remaining true to New Deal values, a believer in the beneficence of government action.

 
Biography: Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr.

Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. (1911-1978), the pharmacist turned politician, served different constituencies as mayor of Minneapolis, United States senator from Minnesota, and vice-president of the United States. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency of the United States in 1968.

For 35 years, 1943-1978, Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr., held various public offices. At all times he was the liberal candidate for these public positions. Rather early Humphrey knew the meaning of the term "empirical collectivism," which, applied to government, meant providing answers to various bona-fide public problems that confronted the American people. When the people were faced with problems to which they could not find solutions individually or by group actions, they could call upon government to resolve those problems. On various occasions Humphrey proposed that government take over responsibility from the individuals or the groups.

Probably the experiences of his family and of neighbors and farmers in the state of South Dakota were responsible for Humphrey's proposals. The people of the state ran into problems of various kinds, including dust bowls, bank failures, farm failures, and depressed economic situations.

Hubert's father was a small businessman, a pharmacist and owner of several different drug stores in South Dakota, first in Wallace, then in Dorland, and finally in Huron. Actually, he was not successful before the 1930s. The Huron drug store succeeded, becoming the first Walgreen Agency in the United States. Before this there were ups and downs in the business which reflected economic conditions in South Dakota. They also affected the family and Hubert. For example, in 1927 Humphrey's father was forced to sell their home to pay off debts of his business. The same thing had happened in 1932, when Humphrey was forced to withdraw from the University of Minnesota.

Education for Public Service

Humphrey was educated in the Dorland public schools and graduated from high school in 1929. He enrolled at the University of Minnesota in that year, remaining as a student for the next three years. Failure of his father's business forced Humphrey out of the university in 1932. In December of 1932 he was enrolled as a student at Capitol College of Pharmacy in Denver, Colorado. He graduated from this intensive program in six months. He then returned to the new drug store in Huron and was employed by his father. In Humphrey's words, "The drug store was my life and it seemed then it might always be." He remained as a druggist during the years 1933-1937. He was married to Muriel Buck in 1936, and they became a small town family. But Humphrey proved that he could do other things. Again he enrolled at the University of Minnesota in 1937 and received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1939. He entered the master's program in political science at Louisiana State University and was awarded his graduate degree in 1940. He and his family returned to Minneapolis, and Humphrey did further graduate work at the University of Minnesota. He did not receive his Doctor of Philosophy degree because he did not complete his dissertation.

Other things were more important than becoming a professor of political science. From 1941 to 1945 Humphrey had various public service jobs, including state director of war production training and reemployment, assistant director of the War Manpower Commission, and mayor of Minneapolis. These positions served as stepping stones in his later political career.

Political Career

Humphrey's first attempt at elected public office occurred in 1943 when he attempted to win election as a mayoral candidate. He was narrowly defeated, but he benefitted from his loss. In 1945 he was elected mayor and won reelection in 1947.

Humphrey had his first chance to put at least one of his proposals into practice. He believed in the civil rights of all Americans, including African Americans. He successfully proposed to the city council that it adopt a fair employment practices ordinance. In 1948 Humphrey had an opportunity to do something about civil rights at the Democratic national convention. He and other liberal Democrats who were members of the platform committee were opposed to the proposed weak plank on civil rights. These liberals challenged the leadership of the party, and Humphrey gave a minority report before the convention. Among other things, he said, "There are those who say: This issue of civil rights is an infringement on State's rights. The time has arrived for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of State's rights and walk forth-rightfully into the bright sunshine of human rights."

The delegates were so excited at Humphrey's statements that they paraded around the convention floor and voted in favor of the stronger civil rights position set forth in the minority report. One of the consequences was that conservative Southern Democrats walked out of that convention and established a splinter party, the Dixiecrats. President Truman had to face the Republican candidate (Tom Dewey) and two splinter party candidates from the right (J. Strom Thurman) and the left (Henry A. Wallace) of the Democratic Party. He won reelection in part because of the victories of various strong senatorial candidates, including Guy Gillette of Iowa, Paul Douglas of Illinois, Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, Bob Kerr of Oklahoma, Matt Neely of West Virginia, and Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota.

Although the Democrats were in complete control of the Congress, no law guaranteeing the civil rights of African Americans could be passed. The first modern civil rights law was adopted in 1957 under a Republican president, Dwight Eisenhower. This law of 1957 was followed by other civil rights and voting rights laws in 1960, 1964, 1965, 1968, and 1972.

Civil rights was only one of the political goals of Hubert Humphrey. On other occasions he proposed the establishment of the Peace Corps, the creation of a Food for Peace program, and legislation favoring labor unions, farmers, and the unemployed. Humphrey was concerned about the bigotry confronting Jews, discrimination against African Americans, better working conditions for labor, economic protection for American farmers, and laws in the public interest.

Humphrey was in the Senate from 1949 to 1965 and from 1971 to January 1978. He was vice president from 1965 to 1969. During those years Humphrey had a number of opportunities to talk about his proposals. His reelections went hand in hand with his concerns about these various groups. The question was whether these groups would follow a two way street, maintaining their support for Humphrey and his political success.

Communists, Conservatives, and Liberal Democrats

Humphrey was challenged by, and in turn challenged, three major groups of foes at some time in his political life. During World War II, and especially in 1943 and 1944, Humphrey had trouble with the Communists and the extreme left wingers. He was chiefly responsible for the establishment of a non-communist liberal organization, Americans for a Democratic Society. During the same period of time Humphrey expressed concern over the two progressive parties in the State of Minnesota, the Democrats and the Farmer-Laborites. He had recognized that the left wing of the Farmer-Labor Party was controlled by the left, and he and others wanted to unify these two parties without any support from the radicals. Humphrey and others had gone to a state party convention in 1944, but they were forced to withdraw and establish a "rump convention" elsewhere. This was just one occasion when Humphrey was called a fascist and a war monger.

While Humphrey believed that he was an anti-communist, conservatives within the Democratic and Republican parties would not accept his claim. This was especially true within that period known as McCarthyism (1950-1954), when Humphrey and the liberal Democrats were accused of being "soft on Communism." It was at this time that the liberals under the leadership of Senator Humphrey proposed that Congress adopt the toughest anti-communist bill, the Communist Control Bill. What the liberals had done was to accuse the conservatives of being "soft on Communism," and they forced Congress to adopt this legislation. So many constitutional questions were present in this law, it was never enforced.

The conservatives and Humphrey challenged each other on other occasions. For example, as a freshman senator Humphrey had spoken about a conservative, Senator Harry Flood Byrd of Virginia, who was not present in the Senate. Humphrey was not concerned about the rules of the Senate nor the fact that he did not have the support of the inner circle in the Senate. Humphrey had made mistakes in this attack, and he decided thereafter to follow the Senate rules. He later became a member of the inner circle, as was demonstrated in 1961 when he was chosen the majority whip of the Senate.

Whenever Humphrey wanted to run for the presidency of the United States he was challenged by liberal Democrats, including Jack and Bobby Kennedy, Gene McCarthy, and George McGovern. In 1960 Humphrey entered several state presidential primaries. He did not have much money and had to campaign on a bus. Jack Kennedy flew from place to place and campaigned with the support of celebrities from Hollywood. In Humphrey's words: "I heard a plane overhead. On my cot, bundled in layers of uncomfortable clothes, both chilled and sweaty, I yelled, 'Come down here, Jack, and play fair."'

Humphrey almost lost the 1960 presidential primary in Wisconsin and did lose the presidential primary in West Virginia. Immediately thereafter he withdrew from that presidential race and ran again for the United States Senate. He believed that he would spend the rest of his political life in the Senate. In 1964 this changed once again. President Lyndon Johnson selected Humphrey to be his running mate. While Johnson was overwhelmingly reelected, he still lost the confidence of the American people in the next four years as a consequence of increasing involvement in the war in Vietnam. Johnson almost lost the 1968 presidential primary in New Hampshire, and then he told the American people that he would not run for reelection.

Humphrey and other liberals - Gene McCarthy, George McGovern, and Bobby Kennedy - entered the 1968 primaries. Because Humphrey was part of the establishment and therefore responsible for the Vietnamese venture, he was opposed by many liberals, including McCarthy, McGovern, and Bobby Kennedy. Bobby Kennedy's effort ended in June when he was assassinated, but Kennedy's supporters would not join with Humphrey. Humphrey became the Democratic candidate for the presidency in 1968, but during the national convention the streets of Chicago were filled with anti-war rioters. At most Humphrey could only count on lukewarm support from McCarthy and McGovern. When Humphrey campaigned on college campuses and in major American cities he was heckled by anti-war activists. So many of these people refused to vote in that year that Humphrey lost the election to Richard Nixon.

Defeated and no doubt disappointed Humphrey returned to Minnesota and for the next two years served as a professor of public affairs at the university. This career did not last long, because in 1970 and again in 1976 Humphrey was reelected to the U.S. Senate.

In 1968 and again in 1977 doctors operated on Humphrey for cancer. In October 1977 Humphrey knew that his death was imminent and made his last trip to the Senate. On October 25 Humphrey was applauded by the senators and their guests, and several praised him in their speeches. On January 14, 1978, there was to be a tribute to Hubert Humphrey. Humphrey died the evening before. His Senate term was completed by his wife.

Further Reading

There are various books by Humphrey and about Humphrey and his ideas. There is an autobiography, The Education of a Public Man (1976), and a biography, Hubert Humphrey: The Man and His Dream (1978) by S. D. Engelmayer and R. J. Wagman. Humphrey was the author of Beyond Civil Rights: A New Day of Equality (1968), Intergration vs. Segregation (1964), War on Poverty (1964), and Young American in the "Now" World (1971). Humphrey was an able orator, and his notable statements were compiled by Perry D. Hall, The Quotable Hubert H. Humphrey.

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Hubert Horatio Humphrey

(born May 27, 1911, Wallace, S.D., U.S. — died Jan. 13, 1978, Waverly, Minn.) U.S. politician. He worked as a pharmacist and a teacher before becoming Minnesota campaign manager for Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944. During this period he was instrumental in merging the state's Democratic and Farmer-Labor parties. His public career began when he was elected mayor of Minneapolis (1945 – 48). In the U.S. Senate (1949 – 64), he proved to be a skilled parliamentary leader who helped forge bipartisan support for the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty (1963) and the Civil Rights Act (1964). As vice president under Lyndon B. Johnson (1965 – 69), he was vilified by left-wing opponents for his defense of U.S. participation in the Vietnam War. He won the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968 but narrowly lost the election to Richard Nixon. He served again in the Senate from 1971 to 1978.

For more information on Hubert Horatio Humphrey, visit Britannica.com.

 
US Government Guide: Hubert H. Humphrey, Vice President

Born: May 27, 1911, Wallace, S.D.
Political party: Democrat
Education: Denver College of Pharmacy, 1932–33; University of Minnesota, B.A., 1939; University of Louisiana, M.A., 1940
Military service: none
Previous government service: director, War Production Board, 1942; assistant director, War Manpower Commission for Minnesota, 1943; mayor of Minneapolis, 1945–48; U.S. Senate, 1949–65, 1971–78; Senate majority whip, 1961–65
Vice President under Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965–69
Died: Jan. 13, 1978, Waverly, Minn. Hubert Humphrey, a New Deal Democrat, gained national attention at the Democratic Presidential nominating convention of 1948. He made a fiery speech in favor of a civil rights plank for the Democratic party platform, a proposal that led to the walkout of Southern Democratic delegates and to the formation of a Dixiecrat third party.

Humphrey was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1948. He started as an outsider but was brought into the inner circle of leadership by Senator Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1961 Humphrey became majority whip, the second-ranking position in the Senate. He favored arms control pacts with the Soviet Union, federal aid for education, and national health insurance, and he was instrumental in achieving passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Lyndon Johnson chose Humphrey to be his running mate in 1964, not only for geographic and ideological balance but because he believed Humphrey best to succeed him.

As Vice President, Humphrey not only presided over the Senate but also played a role in the development of Johnson's Great Society social programs, often lobbying members of Congress to provide the margin of victory on close votes. He chaired the National Aeronautics and Space Council, the Council on Marine ReSources and Engineering, the Council on Native American Opportunity, the Council on Youth Opportunity, and a cabinet-level task force to promote tourism.

Humphrey's influence on foreign policy was small, though he made important trips to Western Europe to discuss military affairs and to the Far East to discuss the Vietnam War. His influence sharply diminished when he began advocating a political settlement of the war. He never went public with his criticisms and remained the chief defender of Johnson's war policies with his public speeches, an activity that caused a break with many of his liberal supporters.

Though Gallup polls after 1965 showed little public support for his quest for the Presidency, Humphrey announced his intention to run after Johnson withdrew his own candidacy in March 1968. Humphrey entered no primaries, so he received less than 2 percent of the primary vote, mostly from write-in ballots. Humphrey still had the support of a majority of the national convention delegates, chosen by state party leaders.

Humphrey won the nomination, but antiwar protesters in the streets of Chicago were involved in violent confrontations with the police, which gave Republican Presidential candidate Richard Nixon an insurmountable lead in public opinion. Even Humphrey's call for a halt to the bombing of North Vietnam, a step opposed by Johnson, could not bring him a victory, though his momentum in the closing days made the race extremely close.

Because Humphrey had won the Democratic nomination despite trailing far behind Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy in primary voting, the Democratic party appointed a commission headed by South Dakota senator George McGovern to reform party rules for the 1972 Presidential nomination.

Humphrey was reelected to the Senatein 1970 but was defeated for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1972 by George McGovern.

See also Great Society; Johnson, Lyndon B.; Nominating conventions, Presidential; Primaries, Presidential

Sources

  • Hubert Humphrey, The Education of a Public Man (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1976).
  • Carl Solberg, Hubert Humphrey: A Biography (New York: Norton, 1984)
 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Humphrey, Hubert Horatio,
1911–78, U.S. Vice President (1965–69), b. Wallace, S.Dak. After practicing pharmacy for several years, Humphrey taught political science and became involved in state politics. An ardent New Dealer, he was appointed to several federal offices in Minnesota. He was instrumental in getting the Democratic party and the Farmer-Labor party to merge, and with the combined backing of both parties he was elected mayor of Minneapolis in 1945 and reelected in 1947. In 1948, Humphrey (with the backing of the Farmer-Labor party) became the first Democrat from Minnesota ever elected to the U.S. Senate. He gained a national reputation by his strong stand for civil rights. Reelected in 1954, Humphrey campaigned in the 1960 presidential primaries against John F. Kennedy but withdrew after his defeat in the West Virginia primary. He was (1960) reelected to the U.S. Senate and became (1961) the assistant majority leader. In 1964, Lyndon B. Johnson chose Humphrey as his running mate on the Democratic national ticket, which won. In 1968, after Johnson decided not to run for reelection, Humphrey was a leading contender for the Democratic nomination. He was opposed by many critics of the Vietnam War, however, because he had supported the escalation of the war during Johnson's administration. Humphrey nevertheless secured the nomination but he was narrowly defeated by the Republican candidate, Richard M. Nixon, in the election. Humphrey successfully ran for the U.S. Senate in 1970. In 1972 he made another bid for the Democratic presidential nomination but failed to secure it. He was reelected to the Senate in 1976.

Bibliography

See his War on Poverty (1964), School Desegregation: Documents and Commentaries (also publ. as Integration vs. Segregation; 1964), Beyond Civil Rights (1968), and The Political Philosophy of the New Deal (1970); biographies by M. Amrine (1960), A. H. Ryskind (1968), and R. Sherrill and H. W. Ernst (1968).

 
Quotes By: Hubert H. Humphrey

Quotes:

"It is not enough to merely defend democracy. To defend it may be to lose it; to extend it is to strengthen it. Democracy is not property; it is an idea."

"Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent, and debate."

"If there is dissatisfaction with the status quo, good. If there is ferment, so much the better. If there is restlessness, I am pleased. Then let there be ideas, and hard thought, and hard work. If man feels small, let man make himself bigger."

"I learned more about the economy from one South Dakota dust storm that I did in all my years of college."

"This, then, is the test we must set for ourselves; not to march alone but to march in such a way that others will wish to join us."

"Freedom is the most contagious virus known to man."

See more famous quotes by Hubert H. Humphrey

 
Wikipedia: Hubert Humphrey


Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr.
Hubert Humphrey

In office
20 January 1965 – 20 January 1969
President Lyndon B. Johnson
Preceded by Lyndon B. Johnson
Succeeded by Spiro Agnew

In office
January 3, 1971 – January 13, 1978
Preceded by Eugene McCarthy
Succeeded by Muriel Humphrey

In office
January 3, 1949 – December 30, 1964
Preceded by Joseph H. Ball
Succeeded by Walter Mondale

In office
January 3, 1961 – December 30, 1964
Preceded by Mike Mansfield
Succeeded by Russell B. Long

In office
1977 – 1978
President Sen. James Eastland
Preceded by None
Succeeded by George J. Mitchell (1987)

Born May 27 1911(1911--)
Wallace, South Dakota
Died January 13 1978 (aged 66)
Waverly, Minnesota
Political party Democratic
Spouse Muriel Buck Humphrey
Religion Congregationalist (United Church of Christ)/United Methodist

Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. (May 27, 1911January 13, 1978) was the thirty-eighth 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 also served as mayor of Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1945–1949. In 1968, Humphrey was the nominee of the Democratic Party in the United States presidential election but narrowly lost to the Republican nominee, Richard M. Nixon.

In a renowned speech, 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.

Early years

Humphrey was born in Wallace, Codington County, South Dakota. He was the son of Hubert Humphrey, Sr. and Ragnild Kristine Sannes, who was Norwegian.[1] Humphrey spent most of his youth in the small town of Doland, South Dakota on the Dakota prairie. His father was the town pharmacist and a community leader; he served as Doland's mayor and as a town council member. In the late 1920s a severe economic downturn hit Doland; both of the town's banks closed and Humphrey's father struggled to keep his drugstore open. After his son graduated from Doland's high school, Hubert, Sr. left Doland and opened a new drugstore in the larger town of Huron, South Dakota, where he hoped to improve his fortunes. As a result of the family's financial struggles, Hubert had to leave the University of Minnesota after just one year to help his father in the new drugstore. He quickly earned a pharmacist's license from the Drew College of Pharmacy in Denver, Colorado, and spent the years from 1930 to 1937 helping his father run the family drugstore. He was a brother of Phi Delta Chi, a professional pharmaceutical fraternity and also Alpha Phi Alpha. Over time the "Humphrey Drug Company" in Huron became a profitable enterprise and the family was able to prosper again.

However, Hubert did not enjoy working as a pharmacist, and his dream remained to earn a doctorate in political science and become a college professor. In 1937 he returned to the University of Minnesota and earned a bachelor's degree in 1939. He also earned a master's degree from Louisiana State University in 1940, serving as an assistant instructor of political science there. One of his classmates was Russell B. Long, a future senator from Louisiana. He then became an instructor and graduate student at the University of Minnesota from 1940 to 1941 (joining the American Federation of Teachers), and was a supervisor for the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Humphrey would soon become active in Minneapolis politics, and as a result he never finished his Ph.D..

Marriage and family

In 1934 Hubert began dating Muriel Buck; she was a bookkeeper and graduate of local Huron College. They were married in 1936 and remained married until Humphrey's death nearly 42 years later. They had four children: Hubert Humphrey III, Nancy, Robert, and Douglas. Through most of his years as a U.S. Senator and Vice-President his home was located in a modest middle-class housing development in Chevy Chase, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C.. In the 1960s Hubert and Muriel used their savings to build a lakefront home in Waverly, Minnesota, some forty miles west of Minneapolis.

City and state politics (1942–1948)

During World War II, Humphrey tried twice to join the armed forces, but was rejected both times due to a hernia. Instead, he served in an administrative capacity in a variety of wartime government agencies; he also worked as a college instructor. In 1942 he was the state director of new production training and reemployment and chief of the Minnesota war service program. In 1943 he was the assistant director of the War Manpower Commission. From 1943-1944 Humphrey was a professor in political science at Macalester College in St. Paul and from 1944-1945 he was a news commentator for a Minneapolis radio station.

In 1943, Humphrey made his first run for elective office, for mayor of Minneapolis. Although he lost, his poorly-funded campaign still captured over 47% of the vote. 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 attempted to seize control of the new party, Humphrey became an engaged anti-Communist and led the successful fight to oust the Communists from the DFL.

After the war, he again ran for mayor of Minneapolis and won the election with 61% of the vote. He served as mayor from 1945–1949. 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 becoming one of 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 antisemitism capital of the country and the small African-American population of the city encountered numerous instances of racial discrimination. Humphrey worked hard to end these examples of racism, and his tenure as mayor would be famous for his efforts to fight bigotry in all its forms.

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 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 party establishment's platform that was a replication of the 1944 Democratic National Convention plank on civil rights.

A diverse coalition opposed this tepid platform, including anti-communist liberals like Humphrey, Paul Douglas and John Shelley, all of whom would later become known as leading progressives in the Democratic Party. These liberals proposed adding a "minority plank" to the party platform that would commit the Democratic Party to a more aggressive opposition to racial segregation. The minority plank called for federal legislation against lynching, an end to legalized school segregation in the South, and ending job discrimination based on skin color. Also strongly backing the liberal civil rights plank were Democratic urban bosses like Ed Flynn of the Bronx, who promised the votes of northeastern delegates to Humphrey's platform, Jacob Arvey of Chicago, and David Lawrence of Pittsburgh. Although viewed as being conservatives, these urban bosses believed that Northern Democrats could gain many black votes by supporting civil rights, and that losses among anti-civil rights Southern Democrats would be relatively small. Though many scholars have suggested that labor unions were leading figures in this coalition, no significant labor leaders attended the convention, with the exception of the heads of the Congress of Industrial Organizations Political Action Committee (CIOPAC), Jack Kroll and A.F. Whitney.

Despite aggressive pressure by Truman's aides to avoid forcing the issue on the Convention floor, Humphrey chose to speak on behalf of the minority plank. 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 at this affront to their "way of life" that they formed the Dixiecrat party and nominated their own presidential candidate, Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. The goal of the Dixiecrats was to take several Southern states away from Truman and thus cause his defeat. The Southern Democrats reasoned that after such a defeat the national Democratic Party would never again aggressively pursue a pro-civil rights agenda. However, this move actually backfired. 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 large northern cities. As a result Truman won a stunning upset victory over his Republican opponent, Thomas E. Dewey. Truman's victory demonstrated that the Democratic Party no longer needed the "Solid South" to win presidential elections, and thus weakened Southern Democrats instead of strengthening their position. 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.

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 the "Jr." suffix on his name. He was re-elected 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 to assume the vice presidency. During this period, he served in the 81st, 82nd, 83rd, 84th, 85th, 86th, 87th, and a portion of the 88th Congress.

Initially, Humphrey's support of civil rights led to him being ostracized by Southern Democrats, who dominated most of the Senate leadership positions and who wanted to punish Humphrey for proposing the successful civil rights platform at the 1948 Convention. However, Humphrey refused to be intimidated and stood his ground; his passion and eloquence eventually earned him the respect of even most of the Southerners. 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 the Truman Administration's 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 — a proposal that failed. He was chairman of the Select Committee on Disarmament (84th and 85th Congresses). As Democratic whip in the Senate in 1964, Humphrey was instrumental in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of that year. Humphrey's consistently cheerful and upbeat demeanor, and his forceful advocacy of liberal causes, led him to be nicknamed "The Happy Warrior" by many of his Senate colleagues and political journalists.

Presidential and Vice-Presidential ambitions (1952–1964)

As 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 only 26 votes on the first ballot; the second time was in 1960. In between these two presidential bids, Senator Humphrey was part of the free-for-all for the vice-presidential nomination at the 1956 Democratic National Convention, where he received 134 votes on the first ballot and 74 on the second.

In 1960, Humphrey ran again for the Democratic presidential nomination against fellow Senator John F. Kennedy in the primaries. Their first meeting was in the Wisconsin primary, where Kennedy's well-organized and well-funded campaign defeated Humphrey's energetic but poorly-funded effort. Kennedy's attractive brothers, sisters, and wife combed the state looking for votes, at one point Humphrey memorably complained that he "felt like an independent merchant running against a chain store." Kennedy won the Wisconsin primary, but by a smaller margin than anticipated; some commentators argued that Kennedy's victory margin had come almost entirely from areas that were heavily Roman Catholic, and that Protestants actually supported Humphrey. As a result, Humphrey refused to quit the race and decided to run against Kennedy again in the West Virginia primary. Humphrey calculated that his midwestern populist roots and Protestant religion (he was a Congregationalist) would appeal to the state's disenfranchised voters more than the Ivy League and Catholic millionaire's son, Kennedy. But Kennedy led comfortably until the issue turned to religion. When asked why he was quickly losing ground in polls, one adviser explained to Kennedy, "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 and placed Humphrey, who had championed tolerance his entire career, on the defensive; Kennedy attacked him with a vengeance. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., the son of the former President, stumped for Kennedy in West Virginia and raised the issue of Humphrey's failure to serve in the armed forces in World War II (Humphrey had tried to serve but had been rejected for medical reasons). Humphrey, who was short on funds, could not match the well-financed Kennedy operation; Humphrey traveled around the state in a cold, rented bus while Kennedy and his staff flew around West Virginia in a large, modern, family-owned airplane. There were also accusations (both by Humphrey and numerous historians) that the Kennedys "bought" the West Virginia primary by paying bribes to county sheriffs and other local officials to give Kennedy the vote, however these accusations have never been conclusively proven. Kennedy defeated Humphrey soundly, winning 60.8% of the vote in that state. That evening, Humphrey announced that he was no longer a candidate for the presidency. By winning the West Virginia primary, Kennedy was able to overcome the belief that Protestant voters would not elect a Catholic candidate to the Presidency and thus sewed up the Democratic nomination for President.[2]

Humphrey did win the South Dakota and District of Columbia primaries, which JFK did not enter. At the 1960 Democratic Convention he received 41 votes even though he was no longer an active presidential candidate.

At the 1964 Democratic National Convention, Lyndon Johnson kept the three likely vice presidential candidates, Connecticut Senator Thomas Dodd, fellow Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy, and Humphrey, as well as the rest of the nation in suspense before announcing Humphrey as his running-mate with much fan-fare, praising Humphrey's qualifications for a considerable amount of time before announcing his name.

The following day Humphrey's acceptance speech overshadowed Johnson's own acceptance address:

Hubert warmed up with a long tribute to the President, then hit his stride as he began a rhythmic jabbing and chopping at Barry Goldwater. "Most Democrats and Republicans in the Senate voted for an $11.5 billion tax cut for American citizens and American business," he cried, "but not Senator Goldwater. Most Democrats and Republicans in the Senate—in fact four-fifths of the members of his own party —voted for the Civil Rights Act, but not Senator Goldwater." Time after time, he capped his indictments with the drumbeat cry: "But not Senator Goldwater!" The delegates caught the cadence and took up the chant. A quizzical smile spread across Humphrey's face, then turned to a laugh of triumph. Hubert was in fine form. He knew it. The delegates knew it. And no one could deny that Hubert Humphrey would be a formidable political antagonist in the weeks ahead.[3]

In 1964, the Johnson/Humphrey ticket won overwhelmingly, garnering 486 electoral votes out of 538. Minnesota voted for the Democratic ticket; only five Southern states and Goldwater's home state of Arizona supported the Republican ticket.

The Vice Presidency

Vice President Humphrey bust
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Vice President Humphrey bust
Vice President Hubert Humphrey, President Lyndon Johnson, and General Creighton Abrams in a Cabinet Room meeting in March 1968
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Vice President Hubert Humphrey, President Lyndon Johnson, and General Creighton Abrams in a Cabinet Room meeting in March 1968

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 with respect to Johnson's policies during the war in Vietnam. Many of Humphrey's liberal friends and allies over the years abandoned him because of his refusal to publicly criticize Johnson's Vietnam War policies. Humphrey's critics later learned that Johnson had threatened Humphrey — Johnson told Humphrey that if he publicly opposed his Administration's Vietnam War policy, he would destroy Humphrey's chances to become President by opposing his nomination at the next Democratic Convention. However, Humphrey's critics were vocal and persistent - even his nickname, the Happy Warrior, was used against him. The nickname referred not to his military hawkishness but rather to his crusading for social welfare and civil rights 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.

The 1968 Presidential election

As 1968 began it looked as if President Johnson, despite the rapidly-increasing unpopularity of his Vietnam War policies, would easily win the Democratic nomination for a second time. Humphrey indicated to Johnson that he would like to be his running mate again. However, in the New Hampshire primary Johnson was nearly defeated by Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota; McCarthy had challenged Johnson on an anti-war platform. A few days later Senator Robert Kennedy of New York also entered the race on an anti-war platform. On March 31, 1968, a week before the Wisconsin primary, where the polls predicted a loss to McCarthy, President Lyndon B. Johnson stunned the nation by withdrawing from his race for a second term. Humphrey immediately re-evaluated his position, and then announced his presidential candidacy in late April 1968. Many people saw Humphrey as Johnson's stand-in; he won major backing from the nation's labor unions and other Democratic groups that were troubled by young antiwar protestors and the social unrest around the nation. Humphrey avoided the primaries and concentrated on winning delegates in non-primary states; by June he was seen as the clear front-runner for the nomination. However, following his victory over McCarthy in the California primary, it appeared that if Kennedy could unite the forces opposed to the Vietnam War that he could possibly beat Humphrey for the nomination. However, the night of the California primary, Senator Kennedy was assassinated. With the support of Mayor Richard J. Daley, Humphrey and his running mate, Ed Muskie went on to easily win the Democratic nomination at the party convention in Chicago, Illinois. Unfortunately for Humphrey's presidential chances, outside the convention hall there were riots and protests by thousands of antiwar demonstrators, some of whom favored Eugene McCarthy, George McGovern, or other "anti-war" candidates. These antiwar protestors - most of whom were young college students - were attacked and beaten on live television by Chicago police. Humphrey's inaction during the riots, and the turmoil within the Democratic Party, created divisions that Humphrey was never able to overcome in the general election, despite a vigorous and forceful campaign. Humphrey was also hurt by the third-party campaign of former Alabama Governor George Wallace, a Southern Democrat whose veiled racism and militant opposition to antiwar protestors attracted millions of Northern and Midwestern blue-collar votes that would otherwise have probably gone to Humphrey.

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 to the party rules made such an outcome virtually impossible. During his underdog 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 Nixon in the polls, he had almost closed the gap by election day. Humphrey lost the election by 0.7 % of the popular 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. In the electoral college Humphrey carried 13 states with 191 electoral votes, to Nixon's 32 states and 301 electoral votes, and Wallace's 5 states and 46 electoral votes (270 were needed to win).

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.The war that Humphrey was saddled with in the Johnson Administration continued until the mid-1970s.

Post-Vice Presidency (1969–1978)

Teaching and return to the Senate

Senator Hubert Humphrey with President Jimmy Carter aboard Air Force One in 1977.
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Senator Hubert Humphrey with President Jimmy Carter aboard Air Force One in 1977.

After leaving the Vice-Presidency, Humphrey utilized his talents by teaching at Macalester College and the University of Minnesota, and by serving as chairman of board of consultants at 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. In a rarity in politics Humphrey served as a Senator by holding both seats in his state (Class I and Class II). This time he served in the 92nd, 93rd, 94th, and a portion of the 95th Congress.

See also: US Congressional Delegations from Minnesota

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 knew he had terminal cancer.

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 produce those goals when making policy decisions.

Burial Plot of Vice President Humphrey. Lakewood Cemetery, Minneapolis, Minnesota
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Burial Plot of Vice President Humphrey. Lakewood Cemetery, Minneapolis, Minnesota

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. He also placed a call to his former foe in the 1968 presidential election, Richard Nixon, only to learn the depressed state of the Nixons. Disturbed by this, he called back to Nixon to invite the former president to his upcoming funeral, which Nixon accepted. 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.

Honors