What's New

This is the tenth installment of our NHPRC funded project to digitize Hubert H. Humphrey's speech texts. This month we focus on the last half of 1968 and the campaign that almost landed Humphrey the highest office in the country.

The Republican convention of 1968 was held in early August near the resort city of Miami Beach and "looked like a tranquil interlude in the chaos, riots, killings, fighting, crime, and war -- all identified with Democrats -- that filled the year 1968" (Education of a Public Man, p. 286).

A Gallup poll, taken right after the Republican convention, showed Richard Nixon leading Humphrey by sixteen points. Humphrey's staff was split on whether or not the candidate should break with the President's policies on Vietnam. Numerous drafts of statements were proposed to Humphrey, urging him to take his own stand on the issue.

President Johnson was attempting to set up peace talks with the Vietnamese in Paris. Humphrey was reticent to break with Johnson, especially if it would undermine the ongoing negotiations. He sought the President's consent on successive drafts of a compromise statement, however, and right up until the Democratic convention Humphrey thought that Johnson would give his consent to a compromise statement on Vietnam. Walking a tight rope of media scrutiny, Humphrey declared on Meet the Press the morning of his departure for the convention that "My position on the Vietnam War and our effort to gain peace is as it has been. I believe that we could and should stop the remaining bombing of the North if we receive indication that there is restraint and reasonable response from Hanoi."

Johnson picked the city of Chicago to hold the Democratic convention. Mayor Richard Daley fully supported this decision. Both men refused to change the venue even after numerous difficulties presented themselves. Humphrey later admitted that the city was the worst possible place for the convention. Striking electricians, telephone workers and taxi drivers made communication and transportation difficult. Mayor Daley and the police of Chicago were joined by Army troops and Illinois National Guardmen to handle thousands of anti-war protestors both before and during the convention.

Tensions rose during the convention. Mayor Daley refused permits to protestors. Television cameras picked up delegates protesting for peace inside the convention and demonstrators rioting outside in the streets and parks of Chicago. Innocent bystanders were threatened and beaten by police alongside protestors. Humphrey and his family received death threats. In the midst of this turmoil staff were preparing an acceptance speech for Humphrey who would inevitably win the nomination. When he saw the final draft, however, Humphrey felt it did not reflect the events unfolding around him. Assisted by two of his personal secretaries, he dictated a new draft right up until the time he had to leave for the convention hall to give his speech. Humphrey realized on the way to the hall that the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi had been deleted from the final draft of the speech by one of his staff members who thought it inappropriate. He called the Chicago Public Library on the car phone and had them dictate it to him, asserting that it was indeed an appropriate prayer for so violent and chaotic a time.

"I have never had a more difficult assignment," Humphrey recalled of his speech that night. "It tested every nerve in my body, and it tested my will, my courage, and my capacity to overcome crisis and difficulty, to try to sway an audience to my side, to at least calm the fears of some, fortify the hopes of others, and hold a party together that was on the verge of an explosion that would have fractured it for a long, long time" (Education of a Public Man, p. 296).

Humphrey received the Democratic presidential nomination, but he won it during one of the largest demonstrations of the century. He tried to pull the party together, but the protestors and young people of America found him old fashioned and out of touch, especially when he refused to join them in the parks and on the streets outside of the convention as his rival Eugene McCarthy had done and instead took the side of Mayor Daley and the police against the anti-war protestors. In an interview with Hugh Downs of the Today Show the last day of the convention Humphrey explained that the "tactics of rowdism do not add to a convention" and that history is "strewn with the wreckage of self-righteous militant minorities, who thought that they had a sort of a monopoly on truth."

Though he spoke strongly against the unrest, his own campaign was in shambles. His staffer Ted Van Dyke remembered: "we left Chicago fifteen points down, with blood in the streets, conflict in the convention hall, everything at rock bottom and not a penny in the bank by the way" (Hubert H. Humphrey: The Art of the Possible by Mick Caouette).

After the convention, Humphrey and his campaign floundered. The campaign kickoff officially began on September 9th in Philadelphia, the city where he first burst onto the national scene in 1948. The speech Humphrey gave that day focused on the choices Americans had to make in the conflict-ridden era of 1968. His organization, however, failed to provide buttons and pennants for the occasion and the crowd was all too eager to shout "Dump the Hump" at the candidate.

As the campaign went on, Humphrey's refusal to distinguish himself from the Johnson administration, of which he was still a part, remained a stumbling block. Protesters and critics met him at every stop. In a speech at the Western States Water and Power Conference in Sioux Falls, South Dakota after detailing a ten-point program for the revitalization of rural America, Humphrey told the crowd his life was "dedicated to works of peace, the Peace Corps, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, Food for Peace, The Disarmament Agency, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty." He stated: "I took as a top item on my agenda when I become your President on January 20, 1969, I put it at the top of my list to find a way to end this war and to make this country once again united." The crowd responded strongly when he mentioned peace and it became clear to Humphrey and his campaign managers that this was the issue above any other that resonated with his audiences.

By the end of September, Humphrey knew he needed to make his own statement on Vietnam despite what the President said or how the negotiations in Paris were going. In Seattle he faced the worst heckling of the campaign. The usual boos and shouts of the crowd were drowned out this time by one heckler with a bull horn. As the television cameras watched, Humphrey asked the man to "go ahead and make your speech." The man did, speaking about the scream of death, the wound of war, police brutality in Chicago, and of Humphrey's crimes against humanity by being complicit with the war in Vietnam. Though the police and Secret Service finally removed the protestors from the Civic Center and Humphrey was able to give his speech afterwards, the moment unnerved him and he resolved then to say what was on his mind and what he felt even if he lost the election.

On September 30th in Salt Lake City Humphrey gave this televised speech to the American people explaining his position on Vietnam. The speech had been hotly debated by his staff. They had argued for hours over wording and nuances of meaning. In the end Humphrey drafted a new speech and gave his trusted advisors a last look, then called Johnson fifteen minutes before he delivered it to tell him what he would say. After Humphrey assured him that it would not embarrass him or jeopardize Paris negotiations Johnson replied "I gather you're not asking my advice." Humphrey gave the speech in one take and afterwards felt that he had finally gotten to say what he wanted about the war. He had finally made his own stand.

After the televised Salt Lake City speech, Humphrey's campaign began to gain momentum. "Weeks of struggling, trying to catch up for lost time frantically putting together an organization, always short of finances, error compounded by error, led suddenly to a building momentum, to larger and larger crowds, to excitement and enthusiasm, to a feeling of possible success (Education of a Public Man, p. 303).

Eugene McCarthy finally gave Humphrey his endorsement in the last days of October. A few days before the election President Johnson announced a breakthrough in the negotiations in Paris, saying that the bombing of North Vietnam would stop and that peace talks were scheduled for days after the election.

By November 3rd Johnson himself actively campaigned with Humphrey, joining him for an event at the Houston Astrodome. Accompanied by Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle and surrounded by an enthusiastic crowd Humphrey and Johnson had put their differences aside for the good of the party. In his speech Humphrey proclaimed that he would always be Johnson's faithful friend and proud of it, and during the remaining months of his presidency, his loyal Vice President.

Humphrey and Nixon were in a dead heat in the polls. The hope of peace talks with the North Vietnamese and an end to the war may have handed Humphrey the presidency. Behind the scenes the Nixon campaign convinced the Vietnamese in Paris to stay away from the ongoing negotiations, promising that a Nixon administration would give them a better deal after the election. On election day the numbers showed that Nixon had beaten Humphrey by less than one-half of one percent of the popular vote.

In his concession speech Humphrey said that he "couldn't possibly be any happier than in the knowledge that we had done the right thing. We have said what we believed, we have spoken the hard facts of our country as we saw them. We have offered what we thought were the alternatives and the solutions. We placed our case before the American people. We did it in a short period of time against tremendous odds, and all I can say tonight to the American people is they have been mighty good to us. They have given us a great vote of confidence in this popular vote."

In his autobiography, however, Humphrey admitted that "my dreams and hopes were smashed in a year when so much more in America was destroyed" (Education of a Public Man, p. 305).

Humphrey gave only a handful of speeches during the remainder of 1968. Exhausted and depressed by the narrowness of his defeat he caught the flu for the third time that year and began to re-evaluate his life. It would be the first time in 25 years that he had not held an elective public office.

These speech texts, as well as all of Humphrey's speeches from 1941-1968 are linked to the inventory of his Speech Text Files. More of Humphrey's speeches will be made available each month throughout this project. Look for the years 1969-1972 of Humphrey's speeches in July!

This project was awarded the support of a $46,000 grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) administered by the National Archives.

Learn more about how the NHPRC helps preserve records of enduring national historical value and promotes their public access and interpretation through archival and documentary programs.