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Military strategists, they say, are always prepared for the last war. Political strategists think they are more forward-looking. This year, believing that Dewey lost in 1948 because he did not make enough speeches, they have worked out punishing schedules for both candidates. On his Western tour, Stevenson made 21 speeches in eight days, and before it was over he was showing the strain.

He made a well-received speech in Seattle favoring government development of resources not developed by private industry, then made his foreign-policy speech in San Francisco (see above).

From San Francisco the Stevenson party proceeded by train down the lush San Joaquin Valley toward Los Angeles, making eight whistle stops on the way. The governor’s fatigue was evident, and he stumbled repeatedly. The crowds listened attentively as Stevenson angrily replied to Republican concentration on the corruption issue (“I am getting a little tired of having to go around the country telling people that I, too, am an honest man.”), and they laughed regularly at the repeated Stevenson wisecrack: “I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends … If they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.”

In Los Angeles, though he had stayed up till 2 a.m. working on forthcoming speeches, Stevenson had perhaps the most successful day of his trip. Speaking to an audience of business and professional men at the Biltmore Hotel, he made an effective plea for greater and more intelligent popular participation in government. Once again he denounced legislative pandering to special interests, terming it closely akin to corruption. “Sound government,” said Stevenson, “ends when the leaders of special groups call the tune, whether they represent capital, labor or farmers, veterans, pensioners or anyone else.”

Stevenson wound up his day in Los Angeles with a speech in the Shrine Auditorium. Then he set off on the final leg of his Western trip, a hasty one-day swing through Arizona and New Mexico. In Phoenix he complained that Republicans would not debate some of “the solemn questions” facing the U.S. “Their whole campaign,” he gibed, “reminds me of a phonograph record that monotonously repeats ‘I love you, I love you, I love you’ —and adds ‘honey chile’ and a rebel yell when the caravan moves South.” In Albuquerque he warned against “the Communist conspiracy within the U.S.,” and promised: “Under me as President of the United States, federal agencies will deal sternly . . . with all who would betray their country and their freedom.”

Next day the candidate flew home to

Springfield, weary but pleased.The friendliness of Western crowds toward him had “even surprised local political leaders,” he asserted.

As this week began, Stevenson held his first press conference in more than three weeks, told reporters that, unlike Ike, he would not give blanket endorsement to all candidates running on his party’s ticket. (He did not name any Democrats whom he did not intend to endorse.) Derisively, Stevenson described the Taft-Eisenhower meeting (see above) as “the first time that the vanquished has dictated the peace terms to the victor.” Said he: “I gather that the Republican progressives who fought so hard for the general at Chicago are wondering what has become of the ‘great crusade.’ So am I.”

Then the governor settled down to Illinois state business and to preparations for his next campaign trip—a swing into New England, Maryland and Virginia.

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