DEMOCRATS: Under the Shadow

Hustling back to Illinois after his Washington safari, Adlai Stevenson discovered that even the 775 miles between Washington and Springfield did not get him out from under the large shadow of the little man in the White House.

Still unsatisfied was public curiosity about how much politicking Harry Truman would be encouraged to do. The day after the Illinois governor got home, his headquarters announced that one wrinkle of this problem had been ironed out. The difficulty: the President had been invited to make a speech in Milwaukee on Labor Day, the same day that Stevenson would launch his formal campaign with a speech in Detroit. The Solomon-like solution: both men would speak—but at different times of day. Beyond that point, however, no one in Springfield cared to attempt a precise definition of Truman’s campaign role. The likelihood was that his assignment would be too inactive to suit Harry Truman and too active to suit most Stevenson advisers.

Last week Adlai Stevenson also:

¶ Sat down with an eleven-man “advisory committee” to work out details of his campaign trips. Immediate prospects: a brief, pre-Labor Day foray into New York and New Jersey, an eight-to-ten-day tour of the Far West after Labor Day.

¶ Narrowly escaped a political setback when the Illinois Democratic State Central Committee reluctantly voted to give the Illinois gubernatorial nomination to Stevenson’s personal choice, 56-year-old Lieutenant Governor Sherwood Dixon.

¶ Released through Look Magazine a letter in which he said he did not consider his divorce a political hazard—”which is not to say that my misfortune is any easier to bear, or that I approve of divorce.”