The Home Front:
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
THE HOME FRONT By William E. Bohn Getting the Best President THE OTHER DAY I spent an hour or two with Congressman Chester Bowles and about a dozen alert, alive young Democrats. Of course we...
...however, just would not pretend he had any inside information...
...In the first place, the money to pay campaign expenses should be voted by Congress and paid out of the taxes...
...And as for Adlai Stevenson, millions of voters still hope he will win both the nomination and the election...
...And these boys, many of whom make their livings out of the good old party, are not concerned with getting a good man for President...
...After I left the young Democrats I couldn’t get them out of my mind...
...And that brings me to what I want to say about the election...
...Except for Abraham Lincoln, who was a sort of divine accident, there was not one really distinguished and effective President between Andrew Jackson and Grover Cleveland...
...But the crude and ugly looks of those assemblies were not their worst features...
...We did not have good Presidents because we had a good electoral system...
...And in the small country of that time, leaders all knew one another and had country-wide reputations...
...From the 1830s onward we were on the downward path...
...People as alert and smart as we are ought to be able to devise a better system...
...Woodrow Wilson owed his success to an unusual three-party election...
...The bargains that are made, the money that changes hands, would startle the loyal voters back home if they knew anything about the business...
...And in the second place, candidates for the Presidency should be selected by means of a national primary— also paid for by the Government...
...we had no system at all...
...In Washington many a well-informed politician down deep in his heart is still for Chester Bowles...
...The wrong sort of President could easily plunge us all into a world-destroying war...
...All of this leads to what I want to say to my young Democrats—or, even, to any young Republicans who may be among my readers...
...We just had good men and good sense...
...Only occasionally and by good luck do we send a really first-class man to the White House...
...There is, in fact, virtually nothing to be said against him, but Bowles still prefers Kennedy...
...They were so young, so intelligent, so eager...
...It seems to me that this is the time to dig into the whole subject of the machinery through which we nominate and elect our Presidents...
...Humphrey’s grasp of both domestic and foreign affairs, Bowles asserted, is extraordinary...
...The office of chief executive becomes more and more basic...
...Over and over again Bowles said that young Jack is an extremely intelligent and able statesman...
...Voters have often shown great good judgment in the pinches, but anyone who looks over our political history will note that on the whole our electoral machinery is ill-designed to serve its purpose...
...We had top-rate men up to the 1820s, but that was because, in those days, men had been trained as Englishmen...
...Under normal circumstances, our way of nominating and electing is terrible...
...Theodore Roosevelt came in, despite the politicians, by way of a too-well-aimed bullet...
...Senator Jack Kennedy...
...Of course we talked about the current Presidential campaign...
...Every year it becomes more important that we put at the head of our 180-million human beings the very best man we can dig up...
...In his opinion, Kennedy is not at all just a handsome boy making his way on his looks, manner and money...
...Our way of nominating, voting and counting the votes makes it difficult for the people to express their wills...
...It has given us three good and effective Presidents in 60 years...
...This is support of a very substantial sort, for Chester Bowles speaks with authority...
...The youngsters were eagerly trying to size up the comparative chances of the Democratic hopefuls and especially trying to lure Bowles into making some guesses...
...Practically all of the delegates to such a convention are chosen in their various states by the “professionals...
...In the long discussion Bowles quietly and never assertively supported his candidate...
...Their idea is to put a man who can win at the head of the ticket and, once elected, he will “do right by the boys...
...I spoke of Hubert Humphrey and Bowles quickly acknowledged that he is an extraordinarily able, intelligent and energetic man...
...I know many a man who is ready right now to bet that if Stevenson is nominated and runs against Vice President Nixon, he will win by a fair majority...
...A bad one would probably be more advantageous...
...All of them have brains enough to prefer Stevenson for President if they can get him on the ticket...
...With much pleasure I take note that the struggle for the Democratic nomination is still wide open and likely to remain so for some time...
...Persons who watched the 1956 national conventions on television will recall their sense of shame as those grotesque scenes unrolled...
...And Franklin D. Roosevelt was pushed into office by the Great Depression...
Vol. 43 • May 1960 • No. 20
