Hubert Horatio Humphrey
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- Vice President to:
Lyndon B. Johnson - Democrat
- Dates Served: Humphrey served as Vice President from 1965 - 1969.
- Political Party: Humphrey was a Democrat, from Minnesota.
- Born: 1911.
- Died: 1978, at the age of 67.
- The presidential opponent during the 1964 campaign was:
- Campaign issues in 1964:
- The main issue this year was Barry Goldwater. The Far-Right Senator from Arizona
steam-rolled onto the national stage with his reactionary resentment over all the
recent Civil Rights legislation. He represented the old-line Conservatives fighting
back against the rise of Liberalism in America. He preached a seperate-but-equal
message regarding the issue of racial integration, called for the dismantling of
much of the New Deal-spawned government programs, and for increased defense
spending. He managed to spook older Americans by proposing to make Social Security
voluntary, but maintained much of their support by calling for America to use all
means at its disposal to finish the job in Vietnam. This included such ideas as
"conventional nuclear weapons", which resulted in the Democrats airing one of the
most famous TV commercials ever: showing a little girl counting flower petals in
a garden while a mushroom-cloud rises ominously behind her, implying that this
awaited America if Goldwater was elected. Goldwater made it easy for Johnson to
appear as the candidate for peace, which he did. He had not sent many US troops to
Vietnam yet at this point, and he pledged to limit America's role there. Goldwater,
he argued, would send American boys overseas to fight a war that should be left to
Asian boys to fight themselves. Goldwater lost by a large margin, but his staunch
Conservative message would reappear some 16 years later through another Western
candidate - Ronald Reagan.
- Notable Facts about Hubert Humphrey:
- Religious affiliation: Hubert was raised in a Lutheran household, but was known to sneak into a Methodist church every now and then. His public comments on religion were almost soley related to his childhood, with rarely any comments that revealed his adult beliefs. He once said, "I attended church as a boy, primarily at mother's insistence, but also because I liked it and because Julian Hartt, the minister's son, was a close friend". Beyond that, religion was either absent from his adult concerns, or he was very good at keeping them secret.
- Humphrey originally held 2 jobs simultaneously, that of a Pharmacist and a teacher of
Political Science, holding college degrees in both subjects.
- He began his political career by organizing a new political party in 1944 called the
Democratic Farmer-Labor Party.
- In 1945 he was elected Mayor of Minneapolis, when he was 34 years old, serving from
1945 - 1949.
- During his term as Mayor, in 1947, he founded a group called the Americans for Democratic
Action. The following year he spoke at the Democratic National Convention, in 1948, giving an
impassioned speech on Civil Rights, saying "The time has arrived for the Democratic Party
to get out of the shadow of States' Rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine
of Human Rights!"
- In 1949 Humphrey was elected to the US Senate, representing Minnesota from 1949 - 1965,
serving as Senate Majority whip from 1961 - 1965.
- In 1960 he campaigned for the Democratic nomination for President but lost out to John F.
Kennedy.
- He was nominated for Vice President on President Johnson's 1964 ticket due to his strong
record of Civil Rights support and overall Party loyalty.
- As VP, Hubert was a staunch supporter of the Vietnam War, publicly defending the Administration
against the growing numbers of anti-War activists. After touring Southeast Asia in 1967,
Humphrey publicly supported the war, calling it "our great adventure", an adventure that would
make the world a far better place. Privately, however, he grew to have doubts as the war dragged
on and domestic support vanished.
- Johnson worried about Humphrey's vacillating support for the war effort and suspected he might
be sympathetic to the concerns of the anti-war demonstrators.
- During a visit to Berlin in 1967, several members of a German Commune were arrested for supposedly plotting to assasinate Humphrey. Their tools of assasination were apparently custard, yogurt, and flour. The so-called "Custard Assasination" plot involved 8 members of a commune in Munich called "Kommune 1", whose members were Socialist hippies trying to change the world through peace, love, and revolution. They were arrested on April 5, 1967, the day before Humphrey's arrival in Berlin and charged with plotting to assassinate the US Veep. The nature of their plot was never clear, since they had planned on simply throwing food at him, which indicated that they were only planning to make a statement of some kind. They were released from jail after one day, and Hubert safely avoided any incidents involving custard during his visit. (The job of Vice President involves many perils...)
- In 1968 Humphrey was named the Democratic candidate for President. He narrowly won
the Party's nomination against Eugene McCarthy, also from Minnesota, who had opposed the war
in Vietnam from Kennedy's initial commitments years earlier. Bobby Kennedy, brother of John F.
Kennedy, would also have been a serious contender for the nomination but he was killed that June
by an Iranian man named Sirhan Sirhan who was unhappy over America's support of Israel.
- The Presidential race of 1968 pitted Humphrey against a resurrected Richard Nixon, who had
previously retired from politics, and George Wallace, a third-party candidate from Alabama
who represented Southern resentment over all the recent Civil Rights legislation. Humphrey lost
to Nixon by a significant Electoral margin.
- After loosing, Humphrey took a teaching job at the University of Minnesota for a while. He then returned to political life in 1971 by being re-elected to the Senate, represending Minnesota till his death 7 years later.
- He tried to run for president again in 1972, but lost the Democratic nomination to George McGovern.
- Humphrey died of cancer in 1978, while still serving as Senator. His wife was appointed to complete his term.
- Of dubious relevance, during the 1980 Democratic Convention, when Jimmy Carter gave his acceptance-speech as the candidate for that year's presidential race, he gave a short tribute to Humphrey's past leadership in the party. However, he mispronounced his name, calling him Hubert Horatio Hornblower. Carter claimed it was a mistake. Humphrey had died 2 years earlier, so he missed his new name, but it was a mistake that the Media happily re-broadcast endlessly for several weeks.
Notable Events during his Vice Presidency:
- Medicare and Medicaid created, in 1965. Medicare was a program funded by Social Security which provided
health and medical insurance for people 65 and older. Medicaid was a program that guaranteed hospital
and medical assistance to impoverished people of any age.
- Environmental Protection initiatives, in 1965. These were a series of Clean Water and Air acts that required
states to abide by water and air quality standards defined by the Dept. of the Interior.
- The Voting Rights Act of 1965. This made it illegal to require literacy tests for black people before they
would be eligible to vote and called for the Federal government to promote voter registration.
- Astro Turf is invented, in 1965.
- US occupation of the Dominican Republic, April 28th, 1965. US Marines were sent to the Dominican Republic
in the Caribbean following a military coup in the country. Johnson justified the action by claiming US
residents in the country were in danger, but the real concern was the possibility of a second Cuba, since
the trouble in the country involved Socialist groups. The Marines remained until October of the following year.
- The television show "Green Acres" is thrust upon the free world, on September 15, 1965.
- Founding of the Black Panthers, in 1966. Despite President Johnson's flurry of Civil Rights Acts, the greatest
number of federal Civil Rights initiatives since the post-Civil War Reconstruction, many black people in the
inner cities still felt disenfranchised and became increasingly militant. The Black Panthers was one of the
more visible of these militant groups, founded in Oakland, California in 1966, calling for the armed resistance
of blacks against the white Establishment. They had several run-ins with the FBI, who viewed them as groups
involved in treason.
- The final episode of "Gilligan's Island" is aired, on April 17, 1967, in which Gilligan is mistaken
for a mythical "White Goddess" by visiting natives.
- The Civil Rights Act of 1968. This banned racial discrimination in housing and created harsher penalties
for violators or the Act.
- Martin Luther King Jr. killed, in April 1968.
- The Tet Offensive, 1968. On January 10th, 1968 the Viet Cong armies launched the Tet Offensive, a massive ground
attack against South Vietnam that took the US forces by surprise. The US fought hard and kept the Communists
at bay, but it sapped at the confidence of the US Administration that had been predicting a quick end to the
war. As Truman had feared a larger escalation with the Soviets if the US used all of it's military strength in
Korea, Johnson also feared a wider war if the US pulled out it's heavy guns, since some more hawkish politicians
were beginning to talk of using America's nuclear arsenal against the Viet Cong. Johnson appeared on national
television again and announced his decision to not run for re-election, and offered to initiate peace talks in
Paris with the North Vietnamese. The Viet Cong accepted and the US temporarily halted its air raids, but the
Paris Peace Talks went nowhere.
- The My Lai Massacre, on March 16, 1968. Unarmed South Vietnamese civilians are rounded up by
US troops and are slaughtered. News of the incident won't leak out in the US until several years later.
- During the 1968 Presidential election campaign Abbie Hoffman, spokesman for the Yippies
(politically-minded hippies), ran a pig as their candidate for president. Despite
getting several thousand votes the pig, named "Pigasus", lost. Its later career is
not known.
- On December 9th, 1968 the computer-mouse is born in its first-ever public demo. It was invented by Douglas Englebart at Stanford 4 years earlier, in 1964, when he built a device from a wooden box and 2 metal wheels that he called an "X-Y Position Indicator For A Display System". He received a patent for it in 1970. He said "It was nicknamed the mouse because the tail came out the end". The era of the GUI was officially born.
- The 25th Amendment
to the Constitution was ratified in 1967, which specifically defined the
transfer of power from President to Vice President in the event of the President's
death or resignation. It also allowed for the President to appoint his own Vice
President, instead of having him be nominated by the Party. This latter clause
was used twice in quick succession; by Nixon when he nominated Vice President Ford
and by Ford when he nominated Vice President Rockefeller. No more would the US
have a President without a Vice.