Nation: Death of an American Original

For Hubert Humphrey, politics was joy, and better days were always coming

Six a.m. in front of a factory gate in Miami, March 1972. A gaggle of droopy-eyed campaign aides and reporters. The somnolent scene suddenly springs to life. The candidate appears, Hubert Horatio Humphrey, once again running for the presidency. Smiles, handshakes, banter—only the voters are missing, since no one has shown up for work yet. No voters? Humphrey will find them. He sprints into the street, waving and calling out to passing cars: "Hi, I'm Hubert Humphrey." Drivers slow down, gaping. Humphrey thrusts a hand through the window for a hurried shake. Dodging the traffic as nimbly as a matador, he blurts out to nobody in particular: "I love it. I really love it."

He truly did, and the scene was repeated endlessly throughout one of the richest and most remarkable American political careers of this century. Humphrey was sheer political drive: unquenchable, unstoppable, irrepressible. He never stopped talking because he never stopped politicking. Politics was his life, his breath, his inspiration, his entertainment. The public and private Humphrey were indivisible; he was what he appeared to be. There were no dark patches of mystery. He kept so little distance from the voters that he suffered from what was called a "mystique gap." But when some of the hidden flaws of more heroic figures came to light, Humphrey's old-shoe familiarity shone by contrast.

He preached not only the politics of joy but the politics of plenty. He was the quintessential, unrepentant New Dealer. Government existed to serve the people, and the more of everything it served the better. He was easily moved to tears over the plight of others, and figured he was put in this world to do something about it. If he was always on the attack, it was seldom against people but against what he considered to be injustice and deprivation. Malice was not in his bones.

Bursting with ideas, he had a hand in more major legislation than any other public figure of his time. He was a driving force behind the civil rights bills of the 1960s, federal aid to education, the Peace Corps, Medicare and the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Humphrey, in fact, kept going at full liberal throttle when others were beginning to slow down and wonder if they had not gone too fast with programs that were not working out. But to reconsider, to calculate, to calibrate was not to be Hubert Humphrey. When he died last week at 66 at his Lakeside home in Waverly, Minn., after a long and agonizing bout with cancer, his liberal boots were still firmly on.