The Last Mile

Clicking like a Geiger counter from his own political H-bomb test, toughened by 2 1/2 months of speeches, missed meals and one-night stands, striking out on his own after listening overlong to his managers, harried but gentle, angry but optimistic, Adlai Stevenson plunged last week into the homestretch of the 1956 campaign.

In his search for the magic kernel still missing from his campaign, Stevenson picked and shucked issues like a corn husker. His big try was the H-bomb, but as he ranged across the land from New York to Illinois to California he went from H-bomb to foreign policy, to economics, the farm problem, unemployment and corruption. Sometimes he put them all together to spell NIXON. His language was harsh. "I don't mind telling you," he snapped at highly successful Democratic rallies in the New York suburbs, "I am good and mad."

Professional Scowl. He turned his professional scowl on a big crowd in Manhattan's Madison Square Garden Tuesday night. There, before 18,000 whooping party faithful, he called Nixon "President Eisenhower's hand-picked heir," got a thunderous no from his audience when he asked if Nixon was the man to whom the U.S. wanted to entrust "the great decisions about the H-bomb." He challenged the Administration's handling of the Suez Canal crisis and the Middle East situation, asserting that Russia's influence there is at a peak, that "the rising fires of Arab nationalism" are a threat to world peace. And he won applause when he said that "Israel is not a cause to be cynically remembered by the Administration in late October" but is a "symbol of man's triumph over ... the attempt of Adolf Hitler to destroy a whole people."

The only blemish on an otherwise happy Democratic evening was the enthusiastic booing of Carmine De Sapio, Tammany Hall boss and National Committeeman, who was introduced for a brief talk before Stevenson arrived. The cause: a conviction among the nonprofessionals in the Stevenson camp that the Democratic organization in New York is doing little more than going through the motions of supporting the presidential candidate.

Safety for Capitalists. At a Manhattan luncheon next day, Stevenson relaxed somewhat to tell 600 businessmen (who brought joy to his heart by digging up $30,000 for Democratic campaign coffers) that "the Democratic Party is the best friend American business has." The New Deal, he went on, "made America safe for capitalism [and] made capitalism safe for America." But the Eisenhower Administration cannot meet the challenges of the dawning age of abundance because it "cannot command the confidence of all the groups in our diverse society."

Hopping the next day to Springfield, Ill., Stevenson had one of his rare campaign meetings with Running Mate Estes Kefauver, and between their assessments of the campaign ("Elated," said Adlai; "We are both very happy," said Estes), both pitched hard for the farm vote./- In language as plain as a silo on the skyline, Kefauver told a farmer-dominated audience of 5,000 that the Eisenhower-Benson farm program has been "one big flop from beginning to end." Stevenson then took over to charge Ike and the G.O.P. with "callous political perfidy," "self-righteous hypocrisy," "broken promises," and "duplicity" in dealing with the farm problem. Ike, he said, has been guilty of "transparent hypocrisy" or "just doesn't know what's going on."

Boos for Ike. The Springfield response was good enough to get him really steamed up for California. In San Francisco he poured on the sarcasm ("You've got to respect [Eisenhower's] clear and forthright opposition to inflation, deflation, fission, fusion and confusion, doubt, doom and gloom, fog and smog"). And once again he asked: "Are we seriously asked to trust . . . the decision over the hydrogen bomb to ... Nixon?" And once more, the crowd roared: "No!" In Los Angeles that night, 25,000 aggressive, confident Democrats caught the new spirit as Adlai carried on at Gilmore Field. They roared when he accused Ike of golfing, shooting quail or otherwise being out of touch during foreign and domestic crises. And there, for the first time, the crowd booed the President's name when Stevenson referred' to him as an honorable if misguided man ("Oh, he is an honorable man, my friends"). When Adlai flew out of Los Angeles for Phoenix, Ariz, (where a crowd of 1,500 waited until 2 a.m. to greet him at the airport), he left behind him a California Democratic organization crowing that he had a real chance to carry the state.

Final Swing. From Arizona Adlai headed eastward for one more look at the heavily unionized population centers of the East and Midwest: Baltimore, Camden, Philadelphia, New York, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Cleveland and Detroit. Then comes the grand climax of the whole tour: this Saturday the Chicago Democratic organization hopes to turn out half a million of the faithful for a homecoming parade, hopes to jam Chicago Stadium for a nationally televised rally and speech.

That, for all practical purposes, will be the campaign. On Election Day Adlai Stevenson will cast his own ballot in his home town of Libertyville, Ill., then retire to his farm to await the judgment of his fellow citizens.

/- So hard that they could not agree on some of the facts. Farm surpluses, said Stevenson, have skyrocketed under the Republicans--15 times as much cotton, 2 1/4 times as much oats, eight times as much barley. Kefauver's more expansive figures: 25 times as much cotton, 15 times as much oats, 21 times as much barley. Braced for an explanation, Stevenson said the figures would "have to be reconciled," but Estes blandly said he'd stand on his.

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