The Marksman

Adlai Stevenson's aim was true last week: at the A.F.L.-C.I.O. merger convention his speech was right on target; later, at a Manhattan luncheon, he hit the bull's eye in the form of nearly $100,000 in pledges for his preconvention campaigning; on a visit to Arkansas, he got his limit in mallards.

Arriving in New York at midweek, Stevenson was soon chin deep in political conferences. Among the conferees were his national campaign manager, James A. Finnegan of Philadelphia, Eleanor Roosevelt, Liberal Party Leader Alex Rose, Representative Adam Clayton Powell Jr., and onetime Air Force Secretary Thomas K. Finletter, who is heading a Stevenson-for-President committee in New York. By telephone, Stevenson had a "pleasant, friendly chat" with New York's Governor Averell Harriman, a presidential rival. At the Hotel Pierre, some 200 Stevensonites gathered for a private luncheon, at which Marshall Field was toastmaster. They heard brief talks by Stevenson, Mrs.

Roosevelt and Finletter, then pledged nearly $100,000 for Stevenson's preconvention war chest.

A Boost. The week's high point came when Stevenson appeared before the A.F.L.-C.I.O. representatives. Wearing a dark blue suit, with a white handkerchief peeking neatly from the breast pocket, Stevenson was in his top form as he accused leading Republicans of conspiring to play the "ugly politics of group conflict and hatred." "We in this country," said he, "are just emerging from a long and shameful interval of hate and fear and slander. Today, McCarthyism is out of style. I wonder if a similar hate campaign is in the making around distorted images of 'goons' and 'power-hungry labor bosses.' " The unionists roared happily when Stevenson spoke out against the anti-union-shop laws now in force in 18 states (eleven of them in the South). Said Stevenson: "The strengthening of our way of life means, too, making more secure the rights of labor to organize and to bargain collectively--to make democracy work in the plant, in the shop, on the job, in people's daily working lives. The laws must be fair to all, of course: to the workers, to the employers, yes, and to the people too. The so-called right-to-work laws do not meet this test." Stevenson also won applause with his remarks about civil-rights abuses in the South. Said he: "I've been shocked and shamed by the recent reports of bloody violence and gross intimidation to prevent people from exercising their right, indeed their duty, to vote in one section of the country." When Stevenson finished, A.F.L.-C.I.O.

President George Meany seized the microphone and declared that Stevenson, more ably than anyone else, had set forth the hopes and ideals of the merged union.

Since Averell Harriman had also spoken to the unionists, it was a clear Meany boost for Stevenson.

The Drillers. From New York, Stevenson flew to Greenville, Miss., thence to the rice plantation near Arkansas' Bayou Bartholomew of Dr. J. S. Rushing and Dr. Shade Rushing, dentist brothers who have done well at drilling for oil. Among other guests: Arkansas' Senators William Fulbright and John McClellan, Louisiana's Senator Russell Long, Arkansas' Governor Orval Faubus, and Alabama's Senator John Sparkman, who was Stevenson's 1952 running mate.

Up bright-eyed at 4:30 a.m., Stevenson cloaked himself in a down-filled hunting coat, pulled on waders, took lessons from Fulbright in the use of a duck call, and stood thigh-deep in the water, banging away at the ducks that flew thick overhead. After five hours, he had his limit of four mallards, returning to Rushing's five-story hunting lodge crying: "These ducks will never vote again." He refused, however, to pose for pictures holding his shotgun triumphantly aloft. Said he: "Some hunter might say, 'Look at that fool.' " That afternoon Stevenson went fishing, boated four bass. Next morning it was another go at the ducks, with less success (he had only three shots, missed with two, hit with the other). At week's end Stevenson returned to Chicago--and to a field where the shooting is strictly political.

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