that so far as we knew, no discussion of our intention had been conducted by any newspaper or television pundits. Pondering the matter each to himself, Gouger and I had stumbled upon this plan of action individually, yet our conclusions had been practically identical.
Nevertheless, we did feel as though we were plotters against the established good when we spotted the chairman of our Democratic party in Pennsylvania, Thomas Z. Minehart, coming over to greet us. He was an amiable man, a good lawyer, a good public servant who had been in state government for several decades and who had directed party battles for quite a few years. He was an ardent Democrat, having been tempered in the job of checking on Republican operations when that party held control of the state. He had seen his Democrats win and lose in their brawls with the Republicans, but had gained most of his scars as a result of intramural fights within his own party. He was canny, tough, big in body and gesture, as typical a state chairman as you could find. The best single way to characterize him, I suppose, would be to say that when Democrats lost, Tom Minehart bled. I judged that I had been chosen president of the College largely because Tom wanted me.
When the greetings were over he sighed and confessed, “I’ll be very glad when this day is over.”
I supposed he was speaking of the job he faced in lining up the eight substitute delegates. “Nine,” he corrected. “One of the men from over the mountain just called in and said he couldn’t make it.”
“Did you find somebody?” I asked, for it was my duty to see that all ranks were filled.
“Yeah. We tagged Hugo Parente, the mayor of Monessen.” He stopped, looked at us, and volunteered, “This day could have been a miserable one. If Wallace had won the number of votes he promised to win in September, this would have been one hell of a day.”
“In what way?” Gouger asked in his Texas drawl, which seduces men into saying more than they had intended.
“I’ll tell you what way,” Minehart said. “You won’t believe this, but if this election had been tied up in the Electoral College, I was prepared as state chairman of the Democratic party to assemble the leaders of our party and ask them to get together with the Republicans to strike a deal between us to settle this thing honorably, for the welfare of the nation. If our side had lost heavily in the popular vote, I would have had to go to men like you and Michener, supposing Pennsylvania had gone Democratic, and ask you to vote Republican.”
It was Tom Minehart, the state chairman, as tough a Democrat as I have known, who was saying these words, and I asked him if I might write them down. He said, “Go ahead. We would have faced a national crisis, and at such a time we would all have had to act in strange new ways.”
I asked him why he had reached this extraordinary conclusion, and he said, “Any party which would have made a deal with Wallace would have been destroyed for two generations. I don’t want to see the Republican party destroyed, and God knows I don’t want to see my own go down the drain.”
At this point a secretary hurried up with the news that another of the delegates wasn’t going to be able to make it, which meant that we were ten short. We had no more names of easily available Democrats, so we put in a few rush calls, with no success. The secretary said, “We’ve only a few minutes.” She suggested one or two Democrats who might be staying at one of the Harrisburg hotels, but we couldn’t locate them, so finally she said, “Mr. Minehart, you’ll just have to be a delegate.” It was agreed that Minehart would serve in this emergency although he would have preferred not to. “I’ll be the tenth man,” he said, and a Jewish bystander cracked, “Minehart the minyan,” referring to the ancient synagogue rule that no religious service may be held therein without the presence of a minyan, or ten men, so
Nevertheless, we did feel as though we were plotters against the established good when we spotted the chairman of our Democratic party in Pennsylvania, Thomas Z. Minehart, coming over to greet us. He was an amiable man, a good lawyer, a good public servant who had been in state government for several decades and who had directed party battles for quite a few years. He was an ardent Democrat, having been tempered in the job of checking on Republican operations when that party held control of the state. He had seen his Democrats win and lose in their brawls with the Republicans, but had gained most of his scars as a result of intramural fights within his own party. He was canny, tough, big in body and gesture, as typical a state chairman as you could find. The best single way to characterize him, I suppose, would be to say that when Democrats lost, Tom Minehart bled. I judged that I had been chosen president of the College largely because Tom wanted me.
When the greetings were over he sighed and confessed, “I’ll be very glad when this day is over.”
I supposed he was speaking of the job he faced in lining up the eight substitute delegates. “Nine,” he corrected. “One of the men from over the mountain just called in and said he couldn’t make it.”
“Did you find somebody?” I asked, for it was my duty to see that all ranks were filled.
“Yeah. We tagged Hugo Parente, the mayor of Monessen.” He stopped, looked at us, and volunteered, “This day could have been a miserable one. If Wallace had won the number of votes he promised to win in September, this would have been one hell of a day.”
“In what way?” Gouger asked in his Texas drawl, which seduces men into saying more than they had intended.
“I’ll tell you what way,” Minehart said. “You won’t believe this, but if this election had been tied up in the Electoral College, I was prepared as state chairman of the Democratic party to assemble the leaders of our party and ask them to get together with the Republicans to strike a deal between us to settle this thing honorably, for the welfare of the nation. If our side had lost heavily in the popular vote, I would have had to go to men like you and Michener, supposing Pennsylvania had gone Democratic, and ask you to vote Republican.”
It was Tom Minehart, the state chairman, as tough a Democrat as I have known, who was saying these words, and I asked him if I might write them down. He said, “Go ahead. We would have faced a national crisis, and at such a time we would all have had to act in strange new ways.”
I asked him why he had reached this extraordinary conclusion, and he said, “Any party which would have made a deal with Wallace would have been destroyed for two generations. I don’t want to see the Republican party destroyed, and God knows I don’t want to see my own go down the drain.”
At this point a secretary hurried up with the news that another of the delegates wasn’t going to be able to make it, which meant that we were ten short. We had no more names of easily available Democrats, so we put in a few rush calls, with no success. The secretary said, “We’ve only a few minutes.” She suggested one or two Democrats who might be staying at one of the Harrisburg hotels, but we couldn’t locate them, so finally she said, “Mr. Minehart, you’ll just have to be a delegate.” It was agreed that Minehart would serve in this emergency although he would have preferred not to. “I’ll be the tenth man,” he said, and a Jewish bystander cracked, “Minehart the minyan,” referring to the ancient synagogue rule that no religious service may be held therein without the presence of a minyan, or ten men, so
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