Politicians with guts? How about this guy?

  There's a lot of talk today about this candidate or that candidate having "guts."

  Hmmm...

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  Yesterday (Friday) I had an early morning gig about an hour South of home. In the car I tuned into XM channel 124, POTUS, which is a fairly middle of the road, low drama political/news channel. All politics all the time. They cover everything from the daily press briefings at the White House, to weekly State Dept. briefings, various hearings, etc. The kind of stuff commercial television and radio won't use. The kind of stuff I love.

  During the morning programming, they do a five minute "This Day in Political History" type thing, which I enjoy. At the end, they close it out with a section called "cake and candles" to recognize a few birthdays of politicians born on this day. Former Minnesota Senator, Democratic Presidential candidate and Lyndon Johnson's Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey would have turned one hundred years old today. To mark Humphrey's birthdate, they played a short clip from a speech he gave to the 1948 Democratic Convention in Philadelphia.

   Humphrey felt the Democratic Party should endorse a stronger civil rights platform for their nominee, Harry Truman, than had been proposed. (This somewhat tepid civil rights platform had been floated at the 1944 Convention as well.) This angered a group of Southern Democrats, who felt this was purely a States rights issue. All of the Mississippi and half of the Alabama delegation walked out of Convention Hall on July 14th, 1948 because of what Hubert Humphrey decided needed to be said that day. So enraged where the southern Democrats that they formed their own party, called the Dixiecrats, which were led by the Governor of South Carolina, Strom Thurmond.

   Here is Humphrey's 1948 Convention Speech on Civil Rights:

  Nominee Truman did not want Humphrey to make this speech, for fear it would splinter the party and hurt his chances of winning the Presidency. While Humphrey lays out a cogent case for civil rights, there's a section that stood out above the rest. 


  "To those who say, my friends, to those who say, that we are rushing this issue of civil rights, I say to them we are 172 years (too) late! To those who say, this civil rights program is an infringement on states' rights, I say this: the time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states' rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights!"


  Think about it...That took guts...


  This wasn't the 1960's. It wasn't even the 1950's. It was 1948. Segregation was a way of life in the South. In 1963 Alabama Governor George Wallace said, "...segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!" For Humphrey to say what he said, at that time was groundbreaking. This wasn't baby steps anymore. It challenged an entire geographic section of our Country's population. 


  While it did become an official part of the Democratic platform for the election, which Truman famously won over Thomas Dewey, legislation protecting civil rights as the law of the land wouldn't become reality until 1964. Without Humphrey standing up that day, I wonder if we'd have seen the same timeline occur? I think it easily could have taken another decade with out his contribution. 


  So, as I hear of various politicians and presidential candidates today being described as "having guts," I think I will think of Humphrey and see if the label fits. Its one thing to say it, its another entirely to put a career on the line for it. 


  So, cake and candles to you, Mr. Humphrey, Happy 100th Birthday...


  Thank you...




Sources: 


http://www.mnhs.org/library/tips/history_topics/42humphreyspeech/transcript.htm


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Humphrey#The_1948_Democratic_National_Convention