DEMOCRATS: Strictly for the Bird

O, tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest

each, That bright and fierce and fickle is

the South, And dark and true and tender is the

North.

—Tennyson

Into Harrisburg, Pa. one evening last week fluttered a particular swallow known among political ornithologists as Lyndon Baines Johnson. Ostensibly, the Senate majority leader had flown to Pennsylvania's capital for a victory dinner saluting the new Democratic Governor, David Leo Lawrence. But the northward migration served a serious second purpose. Lyndon Johnson has been banded as a possible compromise 1960 presidential nominee. Even as he protests, he recognizes the danger of too much Southern identification; smoothly, in recent months, Texan Lyndon has changed to Western plumage.* Now, with a speech in Pennsylvania and two more at week's end in Boston, he was in position to determine how true and tender might be the North toward a presidential bird named Lyndon Johnson.

In Harrisburg's barn-big Zembo Temple, where 6,000 Democrats had shelled out $100 each for Johnson, roast beef, ice cream and the 48-piece Hegeman String Band, the reception was sweetly tender. The Hegeman String Band strummed Deep in the Heart of Texas. During the preliminaries, beaming Lyndon table-hopped through the hall and on through the two tents pitched to handle overflow diners, shook hands, cracked jokes ("You discovered oil here in Pennsylvania, but we get all the blame"). Boss Lawrence courteously introduced his guest as "the man who guided through the Congress the programs upon which the Democratic Party rests its case wfth the people."

Triumphant Boom. When time came for L.B.J. to speak, his refurbished oratorical style surprised even his friends. Gone was the perfunctory, toneless reading; he spoke slowly, ran the scale from a confidential whisper to a triumphant boom (for future reference, an aide in the audience noted where he talked too fast and where too slowly). But more redolent of candidacy was his message. Lyndon demanded (triumphant boom) Democratic leadership and action in 1960 to save America. Then he offered (confidential whisper) examples of such action: "Hawaiian statehood had been on the calendar for 40 years—and a Democratic Senate passed it in four hours. Limiting debate had been on the calendar for nearly 30 years—and a Democratic Senate acted in three days. And it was a Democratic Senate that gave the nation the first civil rights bill in 82 years." Left to the audience to grasp for itself: leadership in each case was Lyndon Baines Johnson's.