Fight Talk on Nob Hill

Last week about 500 California Democrats swarmed into San Francisco's Hotel Fairmont on Nob Hill for a $100-a-plate dinner. They got their money's worth: the featured speaker of the evening, Pennsylvania's bright young (37) Governor George Leader, gave the Californians just the sort of fighting talk that they wanted to hear and helped make the affair a boisterous success.

A string ensemble strummed Happy Days Are Here Again and, for a while, it almost seemed as though the Democrats had never fallen upon unhappy days. In the hotel lobby party workers raffled off a mink coat, while in the Fairmont's Cirque Room, Democrats clustered admiringly around James Heavey, a 30-year-old draftsman who won a place in the Democratic hagiology when he had a brush with Secret Service men last year after heckling Vice President Richard Nixon at a San Mateo rally.

Hasty Exit. The guests were, however, reminded of their party's recent ill fortunes by the unusual performance of Richard Graves, last year's unsuccessful nominee for governor of California. Soon after the dinner began, Graves breezed in through a side door. When the crowd applauded, Graves beamed, nodded, waved, and proceeded to the head table, where he had not been invited to sit. He made his way down its length, shaking each and every right hand, until, near the end of his tour, he slipped, tried desperately to balance himself, failed, and jammed his arm through a Venetian blind. Then he exited and was not seen again.

On hand to introduce Governor Leader was Democratic National Chairman Paul Butler. When Butler's talk seemed to be running a bit long, some of the guests grew impatient to hear Leader. "Where's that boy from Philadelphia?" cried a man at a corner table. Replied Butler: "He's from Harrisburg, and he'll be with you in a minute." Then, with a grin toward the corner table, he added: "That California wine is wonderful, isn't it?"

Back to the Farm. Pennsylvania's Leader was substituting for Harry Truman (who said he had been ordered by his doctor to withdraw from his scheduled appearance). But at times it seemed that Leader had merely picked up "Give-'Em-Hell Harry's" script.

"It should be made perfectly clear," said Leader, "that it is a matter of indifference to the Democratic Party whether Eisenhower runs again or not. We are very happy to take him on as the best the Republican Party has. To defeat a Richard Nixon for the presidency would be like taking candy from a baby's hot, sticky little hand . . .

"It is time that all Democrats, everywhere, make it clear to the President that the honeymoon is over; that he and no one else is responsible for the Administration which he heads; that Talbott and Hobby and Benson and Dixon-Yates are not individual failures--they are Eisenhower failures . . .

"The truth is that the Republican Party leadership has never hesitated to put politics first and America last . . . Eisenhower, Bricker, Dulles, Nixon--the whole lot of them--were shameless demagogues in 1952. They exploited the hardships and the losses of the Korean War as President Truman's private 'police action,' undertaken, by some strange quirk of logic, because Secretary Acheson was 'soft' on Communism . . . Then, as we all know, the Eisenhower Administration proceeded to make a peace in Korea on terms for which a Republican Congress would have undertaken the impeachment of Harry Truman."

Later he said: "The Geneva Conference, now shining as a star in the administration's crown, was only made possible by the shift in control of the Senate to the Democratic party. Dulles remained reluctant; the President was still bashful. It was Senator Walter George, Democratic chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, who gave them impetus--and it was a rather sharp kick in the right place." Leader's punch line brought howls of delight from his audience. "As Governor of Pennsylvania," he said, "a very real pleasure will come to me. I will have the honor of welcoming as a permanent resident of our state, for seven days a week and 52 weeks a year, a former President and a General of the Army of the U.S.--a man who longs, as we all know, for the comforts of a handsome farm stead on the fertile soil of Adams County, near Gettysburg, in Pennsylvania."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.