Fight Talk

At Chicago's Blackstone Theater one evening last week, Adlai Stevenson appeared backstage to congratulate Actor Melvyn Douglas on his portrayal of the late Clarence Darrow in the "monkey trial" play, Inherit the Wind. Critic Stevenson had only one complaint about Douglas' performance. Chided he: "You didn't have to look straight at me when you delivered that line about William Jennings Bryan." The line: "I wonder how it feels to almost be President three times, with a skullful of undelivered inaugural speeches."

Later in the week Stevenson traveled east to Hartford, Conn., where a conclave of top New England Democrats gave him a welcome that warmed his heart. At lunch, with Governor Abraham Ribicoff (who in January pledged Connecticut's 20 Democratic votes to Adlai), Stevenson was assured that he had no cause for worry in New England. That evening, expanding in such a congenial atmosphere, he gave 1,500 guests at Connecticut's Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner a sample of the new-style Stevenson fight talk.

Brinksmanship. "The Soviet Union," he said, "is forging ahead of us in weapons of many kinds. And, worst of all, she has now challenged us to an economic duel for the great uncommitted peoples of the earth. Yet, at a time when our rigid, inflexible policy is the most precarious it has been in many years, what do we hear from our faltering Government? . . . We hear the Secretary of State boasting of his brinksmanship--the art of bringing us to the edge of the nuclear abyss."

Next came an attack on Ike, the most outspoken Stevenson has made during his pre-convention tours. Said Adlai: "We hear the President declare he hasn't read what his Secretary of State says . . . And from Washington, Gettysburg and Southern plantations we hear the President expressing renewed confidence in his team. To put it politely, I must say that the head coach seems to have missed some plays and not to be too sure of the score."

Essential Doctrine. Stevenson detoured his attack long enough to try to repair the damage that his zealously moderate stand on desegregation has done his cause (TIME, Feb. 20). Said he: "America is nothing unless it stands for equal treatment of all citizens under the law. And freedom is unfinished business until all citizens may vote and live and go to school and work without encountering . . . barriers which we reject in our law, our conscience and our religion. The Supreme Court has reaffirmed this essential doctrine . . . These decisions . . . recognize that a time for transition and compliance is necessary . . . but they do not recognize or permit repudiation or rejection of decisions of the court and of the people."

Next day, after motoring up to Cambridge, Mass., where he dropped sons John and Adlai Jr. off at Harvard, Stevenson turned back to New York for a private confab with influential Democrats. This week, looking forward to the big push in Minnesota, he heads out to Minneapolis to shake as many hands as possible before the March 20 primary.

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