(ISSN 0043-6534) WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY The State Historical Society ofWisconsin • Vol. 75, No. 3 • Spring, 1992 fr»:g- •>. * i I'^^^^BRR' ^ 1 THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN H. NICHOLAS MULLER III, Director Officers FANNIE E. HICKLIN, President GERALD D. VISTE, Treasurer GLENN R. COATES, First Vice-President H. NICHOLAS MULLER III, Secretary JANE BERNHARDT, Second Vice-President THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WISCONSIN is both a state agency and a private membership organization. Founded in 1846—two years before statehood—and chartered in 1853, it is the oldest American historical society to receive continuous public funding. By statute, it is charged with collecting, advancing, and dissemi­ nating knowledge ofWisconsin and ofthe trans-Allegheny West The Society serves as the archive ofthe State ofWisconsin; it collects all manner of books, periodicals, maps, manuscripts, relics, newspapers, and aural and graphic materials as they relate to North America; it maintains a museum, library, and research facility in Madison as well as a statewide system of historic sites, school services, area research centers, and affiliated local societies; it administers a broad program of historic preservation; and publishes a wide variety of historical materials, both scholarly and popular. MEMBERSHIP in the Society is open to the public. Individual memhersh'ip (one per­ son) is $25. Senior Citizen Individual membership is $20. Family membership is $30. Senicrr Citizen Family membership is $25. Suppcrrting memhershvp is $100. Sustaining membership is $250. A Patron contributes $500 or more. Life membership (one person) is $1,000. MEMBERSHIP in the Friends of the SHSW is open to the public. Individual mem­ bership (one person) is $15. Family membership is $25. THE SOCIETY is governed by a Board of Curators which includes twenty-four elected members, the Governor or designee, three appointees of the Governor, a legislator from the majority and minority from each house, and ex officio, the President of the University ofWisconsin System, the President ofthe Friends ofthe State Historical Society, the President ofthe Wisconsin History Foundation, Inc., and the President of the Administrative Committee of the Wisconsin Council for Local History. A complete listing of the Curators appears inside the back cover. The Society is headquartered at 816 State Street, Madison, Wisconsin 5370(5-1488, at the juncture of Langdon and Park streets on the University ofWisconsin campus. The State Historical Museum is located at 30 North Carroll Street. A partial listing of phone numbers (Area Code 608) follows: General Administration 264-6400 Library circulation desk 264-6534 Affiliated local societies 264-6583 Maps 264-6458 Archives reading room 264-6460 Membership 264-6587 Contribution of manuscript materials 264-6477 Microforms reading room 264-6536 Editorial offices 264-6461 Museum tours 264-6555 Film collections 264-6466 Newspaper reference 264-6531 Genealogical and general reference inquiries . 264-6535 Picture and sound collections 264-6470 Government publications and reference 264-6525 Public information office 264-6586 Historic preservation 264-6500 Sales desk 264-6565 Historic sites 264-6586 School services 264-6567 Hours of operation 264-6588 Speakers bureau 264-6586 Institutional Advancement 264-6585 ON THE COVER: Dwight Eisenhower's partisans making their wishes known during the 1952 Democratic Convention in Philadelphia. An article on Adlai Stevenson, the party's eventual nominee, begins on page 163. From the Americans for Democratic Action Collec­ tion. Wtii{XS)468'7 4 Volume 75, Number 3 / Spring 1992 WISCONSIN MAGAZINE OF HISTORY Published quarterly by the State Historical Society ofWisconsin, Political Philosophy or Partisanship: 816 Stale Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706-1488. A Dilemma in Adlai Stevenson's Distributed to members as part of Published Writings, 1953-1956 163 their dues. Individual Douglas Slaybaugh membership, $25; senior citizen individual, $20; family, $30; senior citizen family, $25; supporting, "Set Free to Study": $100; sustaining, $250; patron, $500 or more; life (one person), A Student's Experimental $1,000. Single numbers from College Diary, 1927-1930 195 Volume 57 forward are $5 plus Edited by Ellen Paullin postage. Microfilmed copies available through University Microfilms, 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106; reprints of Volumes I through 20 Book Reviews 221 and most issues of Volumes 21 through 56 are available from Book Review Index 227 Kraus Reprint Company, Route 100, Millwood, New York 10546. Accessions 228 Commimications should be addressed to the editor. The Wisconsin History Checklist 234 Society does not assume responsibility for statements made Contributors 238 by contributors. Second-class postage paid at Madison, Wisconsin. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Wisconsin Magazine of History, Madison, Wisconsin 53706-1488. Copyright © 1992 by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. 'Che Wisconsin Magazine of History is indexed annually by the editors; cumulative indexes are assembled decennially. In addition, articles are abstracted and indexed in America: History and Life, Historical Abstracts, Index to Literature on the American Indian, and the Combined Retrospective Index to Journals in Editor History, 1838-1974. PAUL H. HASS Associate Fditors Photographs identified with WHi negative numbers are from the WILLIAM C. MARTEN Historical Society's collections. JOHN O. HOLZHUETER 161 WTli{X3)468,')7 Adlai Stevenson (center), with his administrative assistant, William McCormick Blair (left) and a body guard, on the streets of Springfield, Illinois, August, 1952. 162 Political Philosophy or Partisanship: A Dilemma in Adlai Stevenson's PubUshed Writings, 1953-1956 By Douglas Slaybaugh "N 1952, Adlai Stevenson of Illi­ twenty-second television "spots" ("Eisen­ r nois ran a high-minded and elo­ hower Answers America!"), created by a quent campaign for the presidency of the top-flight Madison Avenue advertising United States—and lost to Dwight D. Eisen­ agency, had revolutionized presidential hower, 442 electoral votes to 89 (55 per politics for all time. If Stevenson harbored cent to 44 per cent in the popular vote). any hope of unseating the president in Afterward, Stevenson and leaders of the 1956, he would plainly have to broaden the Democratic party drew several lessons from base of his .support' their defeat. One of the most important In the years leading up to his second was ofthe need not only to "talk sense" to presidential campaign, in a conscious America's better-educated minority but effort to remain in the public eye, Adlai also to communicate on a more basic level Stevenson cooperated in the writing and with its less-well-educated majority. The publication of books and articles under his support of columnists, pundits, and college name that were intended, in part, to reach professors—which at times had bordered that wider audience. This effort was not a on adulation—had no doubt been gratify­ complete success. In a sense, Stevenson was ing to the party and its candidate. But it caught in a dilemma of his own making. had proved woefully inadequate when run­ Personally, he wished to emphasize the ning against an enormously popular war complexity of the issues facing the nation hero who had hammered away relentlessly and the need for intelligent, well-informed at the scandals and other shortcomings of decision-making. Political realism, on the the Truman administration. General Eisen- other hand, said that he should simplify the hower's blunt, frequently simplistic speeches and slogans had been sniffed at by intellectuals and opinion-makers, but clearly he reached many voters that Gov­ ernor Stevenson did not. Eisenhower, ' "The coup de grace [in the 1952 election] was admin­ though a neophyte in electoral politics, istered to the hopes ofthe Democratic party... by the addi­ had surrounded himself with tough, smart tion to the Republican total of a substantial number of erst­ while Democrats. Had those Democrats stayed with professionals who believed in keeping Stevenson in 1952, . Eisenhower would not have gone to things simple. "I Like Ike" had proven to the White House." See Angus (jampbcll et al.. The Voter be one of the most potent political taglines Decides (Westport, Connecticut, 1971, reprint of 1954 edi­ in history, and Eisenhower's series of tion), 17; Samuel Lubell, Revolt ofthe Moderates (New York, 1956), 10.5-109. C'opyngtit © 1992 hy Ttie, Slate Histoncat Society of Wisconsin 163 Att rigtits of reproduction in any form reserved. WHi(X.S)468,>)8 Philleo Nash, Adlai Stevenson, Horace Wilkie, and Elliot Walstead at the state Democratic convention in Green Bay, October, 1955. Photo from the Green Bay Press-Gazette Col­ lection. issues as much as possible and present him­ figure had begun when he was drafted for self to the masses as a man of the people the 1952 nomination by a Democratic party with common-sense solutions to the great on the defensive. At the time, he was the national issues. This had worked well for successful and popular governor of Illinois, Eisenhower—but Stevenson was not com­ having won an unexpectedly substantial fortable with the role. He had another victory against an entrenched Republican problem as well. The urbane, highbrow opponent in 1948. Indeed, his coattails had opinion-makers who had grown so fond of probably helped Harry Truman to win nar­ him during the 1952 campaign expected a rowly in Illinois and thus pull off the steady flow of self-deprecating humor and greatest upset in the history of the Ameri­ lofty discourse from their candidate. His can presidency. Because Stevenson had political advisors, on the other hand, been a kingmaker in 1948, by 1952 he had wanted to bring him down closer to the evolved into his party's likeliest candidate grassroots—to remind him (in so many for king.'^ words) that he was running for the presi­ dency of the United States, not of Prince­ ton. '•* John Bartlow Martin, Adlai Stevenson of Illinois: The Life of Adlai E. Stevenson (Garden City, New York, 1976), 347, Stevenson's career as a national political 518-520.