FAINT ECHOES OF '48

HUBERT HUMPHREY began swinging hard--at last, said his friends.

When antiwar hecklers interrupted him outside Cleveland, the Vice President dismissed them as "damn fools." He introduced Emmett Kelly, the clown, as "Nixon's campaign manager and economic adviser." Pointing to a nearby statue of William McKinley, he sniped: "That represents as much forward movement as the opposition's ever had." When Humphrey loosed a fusillade at Nixon during an A.F.L.-C.I.O. convention in Minneapolis, a happy worker bellowed: "Give 'em hell, Hubie!" Answered the Vice President: "What do you think I'm doing?"

Humphrey's tone is calculated to evoke memories of Harry Truman's bruising 1948 campaign against Thomas E. Dewey. Whatever ground Humphrey may have gained with it last week, however, was not quite enough to endanger his underdog status. The Vice President remained an astonishingly inconsistent campaigner. At times on the stump he could be inspiring and almost pithy--a quality at odds with his loquacious nature. Then, in the next paragraph, he could sound again like a political calliope, cliches ablast. "Government of the people, for the people and by the people," he told one audience, "is as American as apple pie."

Humphrey also suffered from some bizarre campaign scheduling. During a two-day swing through California, he spent fully four hours at conservative Pepperdine College in Los Angeles. "If we had gone to U.C.L.A.," explained an aide, "we would have been in for uncontrollable rudeness or total indifference." Thus he was spared the heckling of student militants, but he was also spared exposure to crowds of voters. He expended two valuable hours at Leisure World, a housing complex for the elderly in Seal Beach, where Comedian Jimmy Durante introduced him as "Hoi-but Humphrey." The residents were undoubtedly pleased when he advocated a 50% across-the-board increase in social security payments, but that gratification soon evaporated as he rambled garrulously on for nearly an hour under a broiling 98DEG sun.

Dry Sources. For all Humphrey's attempts at Trumanesque aggressiveness, his campaign still has an air of nervous uncertainty about it. Well it might. Grave problems of financing and organization persist. The Vice President's financial sources dried up after Robert Kennedy's assassination; many of his backers had contributed out of their fear of R.F.K.'s attitudes toward businessmen. Only recently have the funds begun to flow again, mostly from New York. While Nixon has jammed prime-time with television announcements, Humphrey plaintively told California students last week: "I haven't been able to afford a TV ad since last Aug. 20, so help me God."

Humphrey's organizational problems are symptomatic of the Democratic Party's disarray. With the Wallace faction and the antiwar wing sapping his strength from right to left, the Vice President has tried to create a centrist constituency of his own. Thus far, his principal positive support has come from leaders of organized labor. Their muscle, of course, is not inconsiderable. Last week a poll of 2,638 United Auto Workers representatives showed 87.8% favoring Humphrey. The executive board of the Teamsters Union urged its 1.9 million members to vote for the Vice President.

But rank-and-file workers, especially in the ethnic neighborhoods of the North, are deserting the Democrats for the Wallace cause. Many Northern Democratic Congressmen are planning to instruct these voters how to split their tickets on Nov. 5 so that they can support Wallace without forgetting to pull levers for local Democrats. In the South, numerous conservative Democrats are openly allied with Wallace. Others are deserting to the G.O.P. Last week six cronies of Georgia's Senator Herman Talmadge, including State Comptroller General James Bentley, renounced their Democratic credentials and joined the Republicans. There is speculation in Atlanta that if Nixon wins, Talmadge himself may follow them. At the same time, many Negroes and Mexican Americans who once supported Robert Kennedy may sit out the election. Says Theodore Brown, director of the American Negro Leadership Conference on Africa: "Most blacks are saying, 'This is not our year; there's nothing out there for us.' "

Without Enthusiasm. Recent polls give Humphrey a slight lead in Michigan, Minnesota and Missouri. But most of the polls show him trailing Nixon. In state after state, the Humphrey machine is in disrepair, or nonexistent. In Texas, Humphrey does not even have a campaign manager. The New York situation is so chaotic that Humphrey operatives are bypassing the state organization to set up an independent-citizens' committee. In California, Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh is serving as honorary co-chairman of the Humphrey campaign, but amazingly enough, is also endorsing a write-in effort in behalf of McCarthy. The effort is sponsored by the strongly antiwar California Democratic Council, the nation's largest grass-roots political organization, and Unruh needs the group's support if he hopes to run for Governor in 1970.

Unruh typifies scores of other Democrats who, for the sake of their own political careers, are wary of becoming too closely associated with the national ticket. Many partisans from the McCarthy-Robert Kennedy-George McGovern antiwar ranks have come over to the Vice President, but most have done so reluctantly and are supporting him without enthusiasm. Harvard Economist John Kenneth Galbraith, chairman of the Americans for Democratic Action, was less than passionate when he allowed: "I expect in the end that I will keep my franchise as a Democrat." Because he is in a tough campaign for re-election in South Dakota, McGovern, an old Senate friend of Humphrey's, is keeping the Vice President at arm's length.

A Sprig of Peace. Democrats with antiwar constituencies feel that Humphrey has no coattails--and might even drag them down. Strategically, their position resembles that of many G.O.P. liberals during Barry Goldwater's 1964 campaign. Thus, while Kennedy Operatives Stephen Smith and Theodore Sorensen have endorsed Humphrey, they are expending most of their energy on New York Democrat Paul O'Dwyer's effort to unseat Republican Senator Jacob Javits. When he returned last week from a three-week postconvention holiday on the French Riviera, Gene McCarthy said that he would now devote his efforts to raising funds for such antiwar Senate candidates as Oregon's Wayne Morse, Arkansas' J. William Fulbright, and Ohio's John Gilligan. McCarthy has requested half an hour on television next week, and conceivably may endorse Humphrey at that time. Yet his support, like that of other disenchanted dissidents, may be so tepid as to be valueless.

Humphrey would, of course, prefer to satisfy all of the party's rebellious factions and keep them in the fold, particularly the antiwar people. He took a significant step in that direction last week by enlisting two impressive public figures. George Ball resigned as U.S.

Ambassador to the U.N. to serve as a foreign policy adviser (see below). Ball's predecessor, Arthur Goldberg, signed on to help direct the Humphrey campaign in New York. Because both men were in varying degrees at odds with Lyndon Johnson over Viet Nam, their support helped put some daylight between Humphrey and the President. More will be needed before the Vice President can establish himself as his own man. But Humphrey is beginning to score some points by promoting himself as a man of peace. At almost every stop, he notes that the American eagle on the presidential seal clutches a large olive branch in its right claw. With some oratorical license, he laments that the eagle on the vice-presidential seal holds a mere sprig of olive. "You let me have a handful," he tells crowds, "and believe me, you'll have peace."

For all of Humphrey's desperate problems, there are a few signs that Nixon's lead is not unassailable. Nixon him self is losing votes to Wallace. He is particularly concerned because the Alabamian has become his "major competitor" in such Southern "perimeter" states as Kentucky, Virginia and Florida. "I'm getting 95% of the Republican vote," says Nixon, "but I'm not getting enough of the Democratic vote. That's where Wallace is hurting." To avoid building up the Alabamian, Nixon last week rejected a three-way debate among the major candidates. "I still think the best tactic is for us to ignore Wallace," Nixon told an aide. Besides, he added, "in a debate, he can kick the living bejesus out of us."

Humphrey aides profess to note a growing sense of disquiet in the nation over Nixon's above-the-battle posture. Moreover, the Vice President's emphasis on the old theme that the Democrats bring prosperity and the Republicans take it away may by paying off; bread and butter is still a tasty dish. Humphrey could find little consolation, however, in the 1948 Truman victory he is trying to emulate. According to a Gallup poll released this week, Humphrey trails Nixon by 15 points, 43 to 28. At roughly the same stage in 1948, a Roper poll showed Truman only 13 points behind the aloof and confident Dewey. Humphrey should know better than to trust the 1948 analogy anyhow. As an incumbent President, Truman commanded immense resources, as well as a strong and widespread, if quarrelsome, following. Humphrey has neither the resources nor a broad constituency that is truly his own.

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