In 1960, Senate Majority Leader Johnson was elected Vice President. Senator Mike Mansfield was uncontested in his bid to move from Majority Whip to Majority Leader. But filling the now-vacant Majority Whip position was not a sure thing for anyone. But with the combined support of Mike Mansfield, Bobby Kennedy and Vice President Johnson, Humphrey won the second spot in the Senate.
As the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, Humphrey’s power and influence continued to grow. He came to work very closely with President Kennedy, in spite of his opposition to Kennedy at the convention in 1960. They could even joke about the election. Once, during a leadership meeting at the White House to discuss the legislative agenda, Kennedy exclaimed to Humphrey, “Hubert, if I’d known it was going to be like this, I would have let you win.” Humphrey responded by saying, “Well, Mr. President, I knew it might be like this and that’s why I let you win.”
Humphrey was also appointed to the powerful Appropriations Committee. Over the next four years, Humphrey became a key figure in the Senate, and was largely instrumental in passing legislation concerning the Job Corps, the Peace Corps, the extension for the Food for Peace program, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and many other pieces of progressive legislation concerning health, education and welfare.
Humphrey had been a leading proponent of disarmament since the early 1950s. Humphrey had been a key factor in President Eisenhower’s decision to join Russia in a voluntary atomic testing moratorium. President Kennedy recognized Humphrey’s long years of effort in the cause of disarmament at the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty when he jokingly said to Humphrey, “Hubert, this is your treaty---and it had better work.”
Humphrey’s organizational skills, as well as his ability to gently convince others in behind-the-scenes negotiations, were largely responsible for a great deal of the Democratic agenda being passed. Perhaps his greatest achievement was the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which he managed to steer through a Senate with numerous Southern opponents who conducted numerous filibusters (long speeches designed to prevent action being taken on a measure before the Senate). Humphrey also helped get other measures passed, such as federal aid to farmers and rural areas, the food stamp program, foreign-aid food exports, scholarships, scientific research grants, aid to schools, rehabilitation of dropouts, and vocational guidance programs. Other programs he helped guide through the Senate involved power projects, public transportation, public housing and greater unemployment benefits.
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