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ALMOST PRESIDENT: HUBERT HORATIO HUMPHREY, PART I

© John S. Cooper

Hubert Horatio Humphrey made public service his life, servicing his community and his country from 1940 until his death from cancer in 1978, with the exception of a two-year period from 1969 to 1971.

Humphrey was a unique combination of talents. From his election as Mayor of Minneapolis to his days in the Senate and as a presidential candidate, Humphrey was known for his speaking abilities. It was his speaking abilities that first drew him to national attention. It was also his traits as a public speaker that made him the target of many jokes.

Humphrey was always a fast and long-winded speaker. Barry Goldwater, Humphrey’s political opposite but a close friend, once said that as a child, Humphrey must have been vaccinated with a phonograph needle. He also said, “Hubert Humphrey talks so fast that listening to him is like trying to read Playboy with your wife turning the pages.” Hubert even joked about his own tendency to talk too much. Once, when informed that he would have only three minutes to speak at a dinner, he complained that it took him more than three minutes to clear his throat

Gerald Ford once told people that the first time he heard Hubert Humphrey speak, Humphrey was “in the second hour of a five minute speech. I didn’t have a program, so I asked the fellow next to me what followed Senator Humphrey. The fellow looked at his watch and said, ‘Christmas.’” Even Lyndon Johnson had trouble in getting Hubert to shut up. Using a Texas cattle-breeding expression, Lyndon Johnson said he could develop a pretty good hybrid politician “if I could just breed Hubert to Calvin Coolidge.” Johnny Carson called Humphrey “Minnesota Chats.” Even his wife Muriel tried to get him to keep it short. Once, when he had been speaking for quite a while, Muriel sent a note to him on the podium that read, “Remember that for a speech to be immortal it need not be eternal.”

Hubert Humphrey was born on May 27, 1911 in Wallace, South Dakota. He was born in the family home above his father’s drug store. His father was a pharmacist and a Democratic politician in the very Republican South Dakota. Fairly well off economically, they nonetheless moved often as his father sought better opportunities. Humphrey’s mother was a Norwegian immigrant who came to the United States as a teenager.

Humphrey’s childhood friends remembered him as a leader from the earliest days playing sandlot baseball. In high school and college, Humphrey won various honors in academics and debate. He was the valedictorian of his high school graduating class.