The Nominating Ballot

At 9:30 a.m., some 500 Taft delegates met in the Hilton Hotel ballroom for a preballot pep rally. Cried Taft lieutenant Paul Walter: "Are we going to stand firm?" Shouted the crowd: "Yes!" Everett Dirksen was on hand, too. "We are gathered here together to hold up each other's hands," said he, recalling how Moses needed two men to hold up his hands so that the Israelites could go on winning. "All hands to the wheel, Bob!" cried Dirksen, in the mixed metaphor of the year. "I am in your corner to the last ditch." Bob himself told the delegates that he had been sitting up most of the night figuring, and he could not see how Eisenhower could get more than 560 votes on the first ballot. Said he: "They're shooting the works for a first-ballot nomination, and if they don't get it, Eisenhower is through."

Then the delegates climbed into their buses and drove to the convention hall. The roll call began. One by one, the voices spoke for the states of the Union: flat Midwestern twangs and Southern singsongs, quiet voices and hoarsely tense voices, defiant voices and triumphant voices, and voices that tried to cram a message into the simple business of voting. ("I vote for Eisenhower, the winner." "I proudly vote for Bob Taft." "Louisiana casts 13 hard-earned votes for Eisenhower.")

Politicians and reporters tensely compared the vote with the roll call that had been taken two days before on the question of seating Georgia (see above). Taft forces hoped that the delegates who then voted on the Eisenhower side would not necessarily do so now.

Ike was sure to get 68 new votes as a result of his convention victories in the Georgia, Louisiana and Texas contests. But these would be more than balanced by 68 Warren votes and 26 Stassen votes, which had been with him on the contests, and were now expected to return to their favorite sons.

As the roll was called, Ike's gains were minute. He picked up one vote each in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Maryland and Massachusetts, and three votes in Michigan. Meanwhile, Taft picked up one vote each in Colorado, Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky.

Then came Minnesota: Ike 9, Stassen 19. That was the break. Behind this vote was a dramatic story.

Early that morning, the Minnesota delegation had met in caucus with Harold Stassen, favorite-son candidate to whom 24 of its 28 members were pledged. The delegation's loyalties, going back to the days before 1948 when Stassen was still a Minnesota hero, had become strained. There was strong sentiment for Eisenhower, who had rolled up an impressive write-in vote of 106,946 in the Minnesota primary. It was clear to most delegates that Stassen had no chance for the nomination, but Stassen was sharply disappointed about what he considered defections. When one delegate told Stassen not to rely on him in a second ballot, Stassen said: "Then I don't want you on the first." In the morning caucus, sentimental loyalties to Stassen fought with political realities. Governor Elmer Anderson, Senator Edward Thye and Mrs. F. Peavey Heffel-finger, national committeewoman, asked Stassen to release them so that they could vote for Eisenhower. With tears in his eyes he agreed. Three more delegates asked to be released unconditionally, and again he reluctantly agreed, and added that the whole delegation could switch to Ike if he had more than 580 votes at the end of the first roll call. One of these (Kenneth Peterson, Republican state chairman) decided at the last minute to stick with Stassen after all. But the nine votes for Ike foreshadowed what Minnesota would do at the end of the roll call.

Ike picked up one more vote each from New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Washington and Alaska, two votes each in North Carolina, Virginia and Wyoming, three votes in Nevada.

This slow seepage of votes swelled Ike's total, but it was apparent before the end of the roll call that he would be short of 604. When it ended, Ike had 595 votes, nine short of the nomination, Taft had 500, Warren 81, Stassen 20, MacArthur 10. Watching the session on his TV set with his chief lieutenants, Robert Taft broke the grim silence in the hotel room and said quietly: "There will be some shifts."

The Big Switch. Minnesota's Walter Judd had gone up to the rostrum, tugged Chairman Martin's sleeve and asked him to recognize Minnesota as soon as the roll call was finished. Martin nodded.

When the roll call was over, Newell Weed, an alternate, began to wave the Minnesota standard. There was a tremendous cheer from people who knew what was coming. "Here we go," Tom Dewey was heard to say. Pennsylvania's Governor Fine was also trying to be recognized, crying to Chairman Martin: "Joe, look down here, hey Joe, Joe, look here!" But Minnesota got the floor first, and Senator Thye spoke into his delegation's floor microphone: "Mr. Chairman, Minnesota wishes to change its vote to Eisenhower."

For half an hour, the convention saw the familiar spectacle of delegates begging for a chance to abandon their former champion and join the winner. State chairmen jumped up & down like little boys who were out trying to catch the teacher's eye. Switch after switch was announced in the stampede. Finally, Joe Martin announced the result: Eisenhower 845, Taft 280, Warren. 77, MacArthur 4.

On the floor, jubilant Cabot Lodge, Ike's campaign manager, was being mobbed by photographers. Some Taft delegates still were stunned. Ohio's handsome John Bricker, white-haired and white-suited, appeared on the rostrum, sad but scarcely surprised. He had known that morning that Taft was, in all likelihood, beaten, and he had prepared himself for the painful duty that awaited him--the speech ending convention bitterness and calling for unity. In a low voice, in chill contrast to the thumping oratory of previous days, Bricker announced: "Senator Taft has communicated with me . . . He and General Eisenhower have already met . . . Senator Taft has pledged his unlimited and active support to elect Dwight D. Eisenhower . . ." Bricker asked the convention to make Ike's "nomination unanimous.

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