Illinois' Adlai Stevenson

THERE is a portentous difference between Adlai Ewing ("Bear") Stevenson III and his famous father who affectionately gave him the animal nickname: the father, to many, had the look of a winner but lost, while the son often appears to plod through campaigns and wins.

There is also a startling contrast between what commentators say about the campaign style of Illinois' Senator-elect and the way voters respond to it. One sympathetic writer described Stevenson's speechmaking as "almost embarrassingly dull." A Chicago political editor called it dead. Personal and political intimates, recalling the father's grace, spontaneity and wit, find a range of positive adjectives for the son that begins with "deliberate" and ends with "concerned."

Clearly, the voters are more persuaded by Stevenson's solidity and record than his style. In his first try for office in 1964, an at-large race for the state's house of representatives, Stevenson received more votes than any other candidate and more than his father had ever been given in the state. Two years later he was elected treasurer of Illinois, the only statewide Democratic candidate to win in a Republican-dominated year.

Stevenson, 40, bears not only a politically advantageous name but a strong resemblance to his father (though he is somewhat taller), and he has always been conscious of the legacy. A family friend says: "He used to say to me, 'The name opens the door, but what I do when I get past the door is on my own.' " In the state legislature he did enough to be named that body's outstanding member, and as state treasurer he drew national attention by increasing revenues by millions of dollars and opening the account ledgers to the public.

He has also shown a decisiveness and political pragmatism that his father lacked, though he is willing to suffer for principle: he might have had a Senate nomination two years ago but refused to pledge support for Lyndon Johnson's Viet Nam policies. This time, Chicago's Mayor Daley and his invaluable political machine came to Stevenson.

He was educated at the best schools --including Harrow in England and Milton Academy near Boston, Harvard and its law school--and at home, where his parents spoke French at the dinner table in a largely vain effort to transfer their facility, and his father often read classics to the children. But if he was immune to another language, he caught his father's parsimony: he still turns off unused lights, and his wife once told an interviewer that "when we were married, all of Ad's friends wanted to bite my wedding ring to see if it was real." Mrs. Stevenson, the former Nancy Anderson whom he married in 1955, is clearly one of his acquired political assets. They have four children.

Stevenson spent 18 months in the Far East with the Marines and was a member of a prestigious Chicago law firm before entering politics. It was what he had been waiting for. He was the only one of his father's three sons who chose to follow him, and he made his decision early. In 1948, when he was 17, young Adlai chauffeured the older Stevenson--in a battered Chevrolet--along the campaign trail. In good political form, however, he now disclaims presidential ambitions for himself. But he adds: "I do have a son coming along. Adlai the Next we call him, and I wouldn't mind seeing him President."

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