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McCarthy Speaks: The 1960 and 1964 Democratic National Conventions

Eugene McCarthy first reached national prominence at the 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. With Hubert Humphrey having withdrawn from the presidential race, the Minnesota delegation had divided loyalties. It was unclear if McCarthy would support Lyndon Johnson or Adlai Stevenson for the presidency, but he ultimately supported the latter, and instructed the delegates under his control to do the same. After being contacted by Senator Mike Monroney of Oklahoma (a Stevenson supporter), and Stevenson himself, McCarthy was chosen to nominate him before the convention. McCarthy's nominating speech for Stevenson is generally considered the best of his career.

There was some question on if McCarthy was secretly working behind the scenes for Johnson. Some of Stevenson's inner circle believed that McCarthy was only supporting him to split the liberal vote and throw the nomination to Johnson, who would then choose him as the vice presidential nominee. Indeed, McCarthy asked for Johnson's blessing before delivering Stevenson nominating speech, but there is no clear evidence that the secret Johnson-McCarthy alliance ever actually existed. Jack Kennedy would go on to beat out Johnson and Stevenson (and Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri) for the nomination on the first ballot, and would go on to beat Vice President Richard Nixon in the general election.

"Mr. Chairman, Democratic delegates at this great convention: we now approach the hour of all important decision. You are the chosen people out of 172,000,000 Americans, the chosen of the Democratic Party, to come here to Los Angeles to not only choose a man to lead this Democratic party in the campaign of this fall and this November, but to choose a man who we hope will lead this country and all of our friends and all of those peoples who look to us for help, who look to us for understanding, who look to us for leadership.

We are here participating in the great task of democratic society. As you know this way of life is being challenged today. There are those, the enemies of democracy, who say that free men and free women cannot exercise that measure of intellectual responsibility, cannot demonstrate that measure of moral responsibility, which is called for to make the kind of decisions that we free people are called upon to make in this year of 1960, and there are those, I remind you, who are the friends of democracy, who have expressed some doubt and reservation as to whether or not this ideology, this way of life, these institutions of ours, can survive.

Let me ask you at this time to put aside all of your prejudices, to put aside any kind of unwarranted regional loyalties, to put aside for the time being preferences which are based purely upon questions of personalities. Put aside, if you can, early decisions – decisions which were made before all of the candidates were in the race, decisions which were made when the issues were not as clear as they are today.

I say to those of you – candidates and spokesmen for candidates – who say you are confident of the strength you have at this convention, who say that you are confident and believe in democracy – let this go to a second ballot.

I say let this go to a second ballot, when every delegate who is here will be as free as he can be free to make a decision.

Let us strike off the fetters of instructed delegations. Let Governors say to their people: This is the moment of decision and we want to make it as free Americans, responsible to your own consciences and to the people of the state that sent you here, and to the people of this country.

This I say is the real test of democracy. Do you have confidence in the people at this convention to make a fair and responsible choice, or do you not have this confidence?

What has happened in this world and what has happened in this United States has been described to you here by great speakers. Each new headline every day that we have been here has been a shock to us; each new headline has been a shock.

These times, men say, are out of joint. They say that they are the worst of times without being the best of times – this may be true. But I say to you these external signs, these practical problems which face us are nothing compared to the problems of the mind and of the spirit which face the United States and the free world today.

If the mind is clouded and if the will is confused and uncertain, there can be no sound decision and no sound action.

There's demagoguery abroad in the land at all times, and demagoguery, I say to you, takes many forms. There's that which says "here is wealth, and here is material comfort." We suffer a little from that in the United States.

There's demagoguery which promises people power, which is used for improper purposes and ends. And we have seen in this century and in this generation what happens when power is abused.

I say to you, there's a subtle kind of demagoguery which erodes the spirit. And this is the demagoguery which has affected this United States in the last eight years.

What are we told? What have we been told? We've been told that we can be strong without sacrifice. This is what we've been told. We have been told that we can be good without any kind of discipline if we just say that we are humble and sincere – this is the nature of goodness. We have been told that we can be wise without reflection. We could be wise without studying, we've been told. I say this is the erosion of the spirit which has been taken place in this United States in the last eight years. And I say to you that the time has come to raise again the cry of the ancient prophet. What did he say? He said, the prophets prophesy falsely and the high priests, he said, ruled by their word, and my people who love to have it so. But what will be the end?

I say to you the political prophets have prophesied falsely in these eight years. And the high priests of Government have ruled by that false prophecy. And the people seemed to have loved it so.

But there was one man – there was one man who did not prophesy falsely, let me remind you. There was one man who said: Let's talk sense to the American people.

What did the scoffers say? The scoffers said: Nonsense. They said: Catastrophic nonsense. But we know it was the essential and the basic and the fundamental truth that he spoke to us.

There was a man who talked sense to the American people. There was one man who said: This is a time for self-examination. This is a time for us to take stock, he said. This is a time to decide where we are and where we're going.

This, he said, is a time for virtue. But what virtues did he say we needed? Oh yes, he said we need the heroic virtues – we always do. We need fortitude; we need courage; we need justice. Everyone cheers when you speak out for those virtues.

But what did he say in addition to that? He said we need the unheroic virtues in America. We need the virtue, he said, of patience. There were those who said we've had too much patience.

We need, he said, the virtue of tolerance. We need the virtue of forbearance. We need the virtues of patience and understanding.

This was what the prophet said. This is what he said to the American people. I ask you, did he prophesy falsely? Did he prophesy falsely?

He said this is a time for greatness. This is a time for greatness for America. He did not say he possessed it. He did not even say he was destined for it. He did say that the heritage of America is one of greatness.

And he described that heritage to us. And he said, the promise of America is a promise of greatness. And he said, this promise we must fulfill.

This was his call to greatness, and it was the call to greatness that was issued in 1952.

He did not seek power for himself in 1952. He did not seek power in 1956.

He is not seeking it for himself today.

This man knows – this man knows, as all of us do from history, that power often comes to those who seek it. But history does not prove that power is always well used by those who seek it.

On the contrary, the whole history of democratic politics is to this end, that power is best exercised by those who are sought out by the people, by those to whom power is given by a free people.

And so I say to you, Democrats here assembled: Do not turn away from this man. Do not reject this man. He has fought gallantly. He has fought courageously. He has fought honorably. In 1952 in the great battle. In 1956 he fought bravely. And between those years and since, he has stood off the guerrilla attacks of his enemies and the sniping attacks of those who should have been his friends. Do not reject this man who, his enemies said, spoke above the heads of the people, but they said it only because they didn't want the people to listen. He spoke to the people. He moved their minds and stirred their hearts, and this was what was objected to. Do not leave this prophet without honor in his own party. Do not reject this man.

I submit to you a man who is not the favorite son of any one state. I submit to you the man who is the favorite son of fifty states.

And not only of fifty states but the favorite son of every country in the world in which he is known – the favorite son in every country in which he is unknown but in which some spark, even though unexpressed, of desire for liberty and freedom still lives.

This favorite son I submit to you: Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois."

By 1964, Hubert Humphrey and Eugene McCarthy had become competitors for the vice presidential nomination on the ticket with Lyndon Johnson. Johnson played the two off of each other, but was always most inclined towards picking Humphrey, using McCarthy as a tool to present the illusion of competition in the lead-up to the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City. Unwilling to tolerate further manipulation by Johnson, McCarthy, in the middle of the convention, publicly announced he was removing himself from consideration for the vice presidency. Johnson reportedly "blew his top" when he heard the news.

Despite his withdrawal, McCarthy was forced to deliver the nominating speech for Humphrey after Johnson announced his choice, with the New York Times describing the performance as "barely perfunctory." It did not help that Johnson was intentionally distracting the audience out of spite, by wading through the crowd to shake hands. After the events of the convention, which McCarthy considered a betrayal against him by Johnson and Humphrey, McCarthy began making his first plans for a 1968 presidential run, though he did not seriously start considering it until December of 1966 at the earliest.


"Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, Distinguished Delegates and Visitors to this great Democratic convention, I assure you that the name which I shall give to you as I finish my speech will be the same as that which the President of the United States has just given to you.

At no time in the recent history of any political party has a party presented to its convention and beyond that to the people of this country two men who are so alike in energy, in ability, in experience, in dedication, and in compassion as the two men whom this Democratic party will present to the people of this nation for approval in November of 1964: one of them from the State of Texas, the Lone Star State, and one from the State of Minnesota, the North Star State.

Neither of these men has been proved in one shining hour, but each has been tested in the slow trials of time. They have known hardship and poverty and have seen the edge of despair. They know both the weaknesses and the strength of America. Both of them are qualified to provide leadership for the United States of America.

They have been leaders in the great Democratic party – our party – this, the party of war and the party of peace. We acknowledge this to be true; for when the safety of this nation and the honor of our country call for military action, we have been prepared to take such action and we prepared to take it today. We are also the party of peace. When we have been called upon as the party in power to make commitments to the future, to act in hope, and to act in trust that a better world may be established, we have not hesitated and we have not delayed in expressing that trust and in working to establish and strengthen the basis for peace.

We are the party of poverty when poverty calls for action, and it calls for action today in the midst of plenty. We are also the party of plenty and the party of progress. We are the party of promises, but we are also the party of fulfillment.

We, the Democratic party, are the party of history. We accept the traditions of America. We accept the history of the East – of the old and the new. We accept the history of the South – of the old and of the new and of the changing South. We accept the North and we accept the West. We accept all of this America as our America, and beyond that are willing to accept responsibility in every part of the world in which we have some power to influence people for good or to help them achieve the good and the full life.

What have the Republicans set against us in 1964: their spokesman and leader – a prophet of despair, their presidential candidate – the greatest 'no-sayer' in the recent history of this country; a man who has chosen to vote 'no' in the three great tests to which the Congress of this United States has been placed in the last four years. He has stood outside the conference room of discussion and outside the conference room of decision, shouting objections from the corridor of 'no commitment, refusing to come in and to take the responsibility for decision.

On the Test Ban Treaty in which we acknowledged, with trust in Providence, that the powers which men have developed can be brought under some kind of moral control, he said, 'No.' He stood aside.

In the test of civil rights, in which we were called upon to affirm our belief in the universality of human dignity and of human rights, again the man who leads and speaks for the Republican party excused himself. He stepped out of the scene. He refused responsibility.

And finally in the great effort to eliminate poverty and to make the economy of this country produce so as to meet the needs of our people and to make it possible for us to meet the obligations which we carry around the world – again his was the voice of fear and his was the vote of no confidence. At a time when we were given positive answers to every criticism which the Marxists have directed at our economy, proving that we can produce without depression, proving that we can prosper without exploitation, proving that we can progress without the class struggle and meet all of the needs of our people and meet our obligation in justice around the world, this man who now speaks for the Republican party, who now leads the Republican party, chose again to stay in a world of his own: a world in which the calendar has no years, in which the clock has no hands, and in which glasses have no lenses. In that strange world – in that strange world in which he lives – the pale horse of death and of destruction and the white horse of conquest and of victory are indistinguishable.

I call upon you here tonight, Democrats all, to affirm America. This is a time for all of us to enter into the fabric of our time and to accept the challenge of the history of the 20th Century, to declare and manifest our belief that the power of reason can give some direction to the movement of history itself.

I call upon you here tonight to dedicate yourselves to the efforts of our party, to dedicate yourselves again in support of Lyndon Johnson as President and to accept my colleague, the friend of the President and my friend, Hubert Humphrey as Vice President."