Subseries: Gaylord Nelson

1985 March 25
Note: Access online.

INTRODUCTION

BIOGRAPHICAL BACKGROUND
Scope and Content Note: Born and raised in Clear Lake, Wisconsin. Father a country doctor and strong La Follette supporter. Mother politically active at a time when a few women were. Father chairman of Polk County Progressive Party; supported Democrats nationally, including Woodrow Wilson.

ANECDOTE ABOUT ATTENDING A SPEECH BY BOB LA FOLLETTE JR., AT AMERY WHEN HE WAS TEN YEARS OLD
Scope and Content Note: On the way home his father asked him if he thought he would get into politics. He responded that he would like to, “but I was afraid that Bob La Follette would solve all the problems before I got old enough; and then there wouldn't be anything for me to do.” In 1958, his father, just days before his death, asked, “'Do you think that Bob La Follette left enough problems behind for you to tackle now that you're running for governor?'”

PASSED NOMINATION PAPERS FOR PROGRESSIVE CANDIDATES WHEN IN HIGH SCHOOL
Scope and Content Note: Also passed literature, etc.

PARENTS SUPPORTED AL SMITH FOR PRESIDENT
Scope and Content Note: Always Democrats at the national level.

COMPARISON OF WISCONSIN'S ONE-PARTY SYSTEM WITH THE SOUTH'S
Scope and Content Note: The La Follettes picked the progressive Republican slate to run against the Stalwarts. The Republican primary winners were virtually assured of winning the general election, except in a few heavily Democratic areas in Milwaukee.

LA FOLLETTE ATTACKS ON NATIONAL AND STATE REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP
Scope and Content Note: “They never were Republicans.” In 1932, the La Follettes endorsed Democratic gubernatorial candidate Albert Schmedeman, as did Nelson's father.

NELSON DID NOT JOIN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IN 1946 WHEN HE RAN IN THE REPUBLICAN PRIMARY
Scope and Content Note: “I was with the La Follette progressives.”

DISSOLUTION OF THE PROGRESSIVE PARTY IN 1946
Scope and Content Note: The Progressives had done so poorly in 1944, “they barely got on the ballot.... So they had to do something.” Nelson's father was chairman of the Polk County delegation to the 1946 Progressive convention. The delegation was instructed first, to keep the Progressive Party; second, that failing, to go to the Democrats; and “thirdly and most importantly, do whatever young Bob La Follette says.”

MORE ON NELSON'S 1946 RACE FOR THE ASSEMBLY
Scope and Content Note: Had not really spent much time in Polk County for eleven years, because of college and the army, but “I still came very close in that election.... By the time the election came, I didn't care whether I won or not because the Beggs and Lawton law firm had invited me to come down to Madison. That's where I wanted to go anyway.”

MORE ON THE 1946 PROGRESSIVE PARTY CONVENTION
Scope and Content Note: Some have speculated that the Progressives would have joined the Democrats if Bob La Follette had remained silent.

COLLEGE YEARS
Scope and Content Note: Went to college at Eau Claire for a short time on a basketball “athletic scholarship” and lived with the coach. Switched to River Falls during his first semester and stayed there only a few weeks. Returned home. Worked on WPA projects the rest of that school year. Then went to San Jose State where his sister had gone and where his aunt taught. Returned home each summer. Graduated 1939. Other than some peace activities, very little politics at San Jose State. “But when I went to Madison, there sure was.” On the Madison campus, the Young Progressive Club was the largest, followed by the Young Democrats, and then the Young Communist League. Nelson was president of the Young Progressive Club in 1940. Had maybe 350 members. Monthly speakers. Remembers Andy Biemiller speaking once on health insurance, “socialized medicine.” Got involved in campaigns. With Miles McMillin, Roland Day, and John Lawton, he campaigned for Bob La Follette and Paul Alfonsi in 1940.

ANECDOTE ABOUT VICE PRESIDENT HENRY WALLACE'S APPEARANCE AT THE STOCK PAVILLION DURING THE 1940 CAMPAIGN
Scope and Content Note: Wallace's son was an officer of the Young Democrats and also a member of the Young Progressive Club. “When Wallace was coming, we wanted to be sure that that big showing for him had a good La Follette input.” Young Progressive Club handled the literature for the event; put La Follette literature inside all the Wallace literature and placed it on every seat in the Stock Pavillion. State Democratic ticket walked off the platform when they could not convince Wallace to delete praise of the “great La Follette tradition.” Young Democrats Nelson knew were “Roosevelt Democrats” but they did not like La Follette because his presence prevented a strong Democratic party in the state.

LA FOLLETTE DOMINANCE OF THE PROGRESSIVE PARTY
Scope and Content Note: Old Bob's widow had a role in stopping Sol Levitan's ambitions for the Progressive gubernatorial nomination, according to Levitan's biography.

END OF TAPE 50, SIDE 1

INTRODUCTION

MORE ON LA FOLLETTE CONTROL OF THE PROGRESSIVE PARTY
Scope and Content Note: People other than the La Follettes' hand-picked candidates would run in the Progressive primary. “But they did have a very powerful voice and their support was very important.”

NELSON'S FATHER ATTENDED THE 1938 FOUNDING OF THE NATIONAL PROGRESSIVES OF AMERICA (NPA)
Scope and Content Note: Gaylord not in attendence, but did sell some NPA buttons.

EVERYONE SURPRISED HOW CLOSE CARL THOMPSON CAME TO WINNING HIS RACE IN THE 1947 SPECIAL CONGRESSIONAL ELECTION

NELSON'S ELECTION AS STATE SENATOR, 1948
Scope and Content Note: Floyd Wheeler was the presumed candidate; but he and his law partner, Norris Maloney, decided that would constitute a conflict of interest since they represented all the Rural Electric Cooperatives in the state and there was a lot of legislation pertaining to them. Nelson, with several of his friends, drew up petitions asking him (Nelson) to run. “A fairly transparent proposition.”

TOM FAIRCHILD'S ELECTION IN 1948
Scope and Content Note: Defeated his opponent for attorney general because of the latter's public intoxication.

MORE ON NELSON'S 1948 ELECTION
Scope and Content Note: Progressives ran in the Republican primary in 1946 in Dane County and won. Democrats tried to get state senator Fred Risser to run as a Democrat in 1948, but he stayed with the Republicans since his fellow Progressives had won as Republicans two years previous. Bill Evjue, editor of the Capital Times, repudiated Risser because he would not run as a Democrat, even though Risser's record in the Capital Times roll call was excellent. Miles McMillin wrote Nelson's news releases, then wrote stories based on the news releases, “and then he'd write an editorial endorsing what I said.” Narrowly won on the coattails of gubernatorial candidate Carl Thompson and presidential candidate Harry Truman. Did not expect to win. In Dane County the Democratic slate in 1948 wiped out the Republican slate of former Progressives who had been elected in 1946, except for the clerk of courts. Nelson ran in 1948 because “It was an opportunity. I was interested in running for office.” Also, “a lot of the key people in pane County who really counted were friends of mine, who were active--Lawton and McMillin and Esther Kaplan and my sister Janet Lee....” No one else was very interested because Risser looked unbeatable.

DECLINE OF THE PROGRESSIVE PARTY
Scope and Content Note: “Roosevelt was doing everything the Progressives were advocating. And the national issues were so dominant.” Weakened by not having a presidential candidate to head the ticket every other election.

NELSON SUSPECTS HE VOTED FOR THE DEMOCRATIC TICKET IN THE 1946 GENERAL ELECTION

FOUNDING OF THE DOC, 1948
Scope and Content Note: Nelson served as co-chair because chairman Jerry Fox “didn't want to be out organizing. I wasn't interested in patronage.” Fox and Bob Tehan “were trying to get rid of the influence of the old conversative Democrats. So they made me co-chairman with Jerry Fox, and he'd handle patronage and me organization.” Apparently Henry Maier was also considered for co-chair. DOC was formed “to organize the state.”

SELECTION OF THE 1948 DOC SLATE FOR STATE OFFICES
Scope and Content Note: Nelson recalls a meeting at the home of Julia Boegholt with Tehan, McMillin, and probably Fairchild also in attendence. Tehan was calling long distance to come up with “prestigeful names” to fill the slate. “And then I heard Tehan say, 'Yes, yes. I can guarantee you you won't win.'”

CHARLES GREENE ATTEMPTED TO WITHHOLD FROM THE DOC THE RECORDS OF THE STATUTORY PARTY

END OF TAPE 50, SIDE 2

INTRODUCTION

WISCONSIN DEMOCRATS PRIOR TO 1948
Scope and Content Note: Generally were only interested in partonage. President Roosevelt allotted half the patronage jobs to Democrats and half to Progressives, and the Democrats did not like that. Most remained inactive after 1948, but most liked what was happening in the party “because for the first time they were becoming a credible party.”

ORGANIZING LOCAL DOC UNITS
Scope and Content Note: Nelson very active in this. Party paid for his gasoline. “...For all practical purposes, Dane county ran the organizing of the state.” “The women in Dane county were a vital part of it all.... They got out the mail. They did all the nitty-gritty work.” There were people outstate who were active in their own areas, but the people who were organizing things statewide were from Dane County. For the most part, the local contacts were former Progressives. Nelson estimates he visited half of Wisconsin's counties doing this organizing work.

SELECTION OF NATIONAL COMMITTEEMEN AND COMMITTEEWOMEN
Scope and Content Note: Selected by the delegates to the national convention. Later changed so that they were elected by the state convention.

FIRST DOC CONVENTION, 1949
Scope and Content Note: The enthusiasm stands out in Nelson's mind. “A whale of a convention.” Nelson knew almost every person there. Twenty years later he only knew about twenty percent of the delegates to a convention.

VOLUNTEERISM OF DOC
Scope and Content Note: “Wisconsin is a volunteer state. Patronage is of no consequence.” This is better than states where the governor makes many appointments. “Volunteers are there because they believed and they philosophically shared a viewpoint of the party. And therefore they organize and work and are enthusiastic. And you can no way buy that.”

DEMOCRATIC LEGISLATORS AFTER THE 1948 ELECTION
Scope and Content Note: When Nelson was first elected to the state senate, there were so few Democrats, sometimes there was no Democrat available to second his motion for a roll call. Proposed legislation, debated the issues. “If something good came along, that was good politics, the Republicans would take it, steal it, of course, because they had every committee chair.”

DURING WORLD WAR II NELSON WAS COMPANY COMMANDER OF A BLACK COMPANY
Scope and Content Note: Discussion of and anecdotes about the Army's segregation.

REPUBLICANS STOLE NELSON'S BILL TO DESEGREGATE THE WISCONSIN NATIONAL GUARD

MORE ON DEMOCRATS IN THE LEGISLATURE IN THE LATE 1940s AND EARLY 1950s
Scope and Content Note: Would introduce bills which Republicans would bottle up in committee, thereby giving the Democrats campaign issues. “That kind of trench warfare went on for a long time.”

1950 DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY FOR U.S. SENATE
Scope and Content Note: Four people ran. “A gambler's chance--Wiley's up, the party's growing, and a crack at the U.S. Senate.” “Dan Hoan was a good old warhorse who just liked to get into campaigns, talk his philosophy.”

1952 SENATE RACE
Scope and Content Note: Nelson did not want to run because he was up for election as state senator and did not think a Democrat could win the U.S. Senate seat. There was a poll of the party to determine a preferred candidate. Eddie Mesheski in Milwaukee had the ballot box and “for some reason or another, nobody could get him to open it up.”

END OF TAPE 51, SIDE 1

INTRODUCTION

MORE ON THE 1952 SENATE RACE
Scope and Content Note: Eventually the results of the poll leaked, with Nelson or Fairchild as the winner. Dane County people favored Fairchild over Henry Reuss, who had announced his candidacy. Fairchild finally announced at the last minute and there was a furious effort to get his nomination papers signed. There were only about four days in which to get the papers printed, circulated, and filed. In the general election, Nelson was surprised that Fairchild beat McCarthy so strongly in the.heavily Catholic south side of Milwaukee. Nelson preferred Fairchild over Reuss because Reuss at that time “didn't have any reputation statewide.... We were looking for prestigeful people and names.” Fairchild was obviously the strongest candidate. Anecdote about a compaign fundraising event in Milwaukee. “I counted it up. It was tremendous. Jerry Fox says, '...I've been around a long time. Just cut it in half.' And he was right.... We got half of what everybody promised.”

JIM CORCORAN AND DOC FINANCES
Scope and Content Note: Corcoran, a lumberman in Burnett County, seemed to be the only prominent Democrat at the time who had a lot of money. Nelson was visiting Corcoran once when Bob Tehan called and Corcoran agreed over the phone to give one thousand dollars to pay a particular party bill. Corcoran “appointed all the precinct people in his county. Just appointed them. Everyone of them then was a woman on the grounds that they'd do some work and their husbands wouldn't.” For the state convention, Corcoran would rent a bus for them and also pay for their rooms. Corcoran had Nelson speak to a dinner he had for the party workers in his county. He took over a steak house for the evening; dinner and all drinks were on him. Nelson was impressed with the check for six hundred fifty dollars that Corcoran wrote out to pay for the evening. He gave ten thousand dollars to the 1932 Roosevelt campaign. “A very intelligent and a very gracious gentleman.” Never finished high school.

OTHER LARGE DONORS TO THE DOC
Scope and Content Note: Ben Saltzstein of Milwaukee, “an active, interested Democrat and a man of considerable means.” John Reynold's father-in-law, the founder of Thorp Finance.

THE McCARTHY “TRUTH SQUAD”
Scope and Content Note: Warren Sawall, Horace Wilkie, Miles McMillin, Jim Doyle, and Nelson “would kind of follow Joe as a 'Truth Squad.'” Anecdote about McCarthy speaking in La Crosse and the “Truth Squad” stationed outside with a loudspeaker “exposing McCarthy's record. And the only thing that ever happened is people came up there who were on McCatrthy's side to denounce us.” Nelson was not involved in the “Joe Must Go” movement.

PRE-PRIMARY ENDORSEMENTS AND ALEXANDER WILEY'S 1956 ELECTION
Scope and Content Note: Nelson opposed pre-primary endorsements. Wiley was re-elected in 1956 in large part because his party had repudiated him by endorsing Glenn Davis. The party preferred Davis because he was more conservative. Famous photograph of Wiley and his wife dejectedly leaving the Republican convention after the endorsement of Davis. That photo, which appeared on the front page of the Milwaukee Journal, won Wiley many votes. Also, Davis made some mistakes, like attacking Wiley for promoting the purchase of Israel bonds. This outraged many Jews so much that Democrats crossed over and voted in the Republican primary in order to defeat Davis; Esther Kaplan is an example of this. “That was one of the arguments against endorsement.... Who is the party to tell the public who the candidates should be?” Example of the Democratic Farmer Labor Party in Minnesota attempting to repudiate an incumbent by endorsing someone else; backfired. Nelson also had a practical reason for opposing endorsements. “The Capital Times was just wild against endorsement and they were my best supporters. So I wasn't going to take them on.... There was never a serious possibility that the Democrats would engage in pre-primary endorsements.”

END OF TAPE 51, SIDE 2

1985 March 28
Note: Access online.

INTRODUCTION

NELSON'S ROLE IN THE WISCONSIN DEMOCRATIC PARTY, 1952-1958
Scope and Content Note: Did a lot of speaking around the state. Ran for Congress in 1954. Served on the Administrative Committee.

NELSON'S CONGRESSIONAL RACE, 1954; REFUSAL TO RUN IN 1956
Scope and Content Note: Did not expect to win. “I ran just to get my name around.” Horace Wilkie, who had made the race three times, had done a tremendous amount of door to door campaigning in one of the district's eastern counties, “and never changed a single vote. So I didn't campaign at all there and got the same vote he did.” “I ran to put on a race and get some experience and to get my name known.” It was an off year for his state senate seat. “I wasn't taking on any losing races when my own office was up.” In 1956, when his senate seat was up, he refused to run for Congress. Pat Lucey “was pretty upset, thought I owed it to the party or some such nonsense as that.”

WISCONSIN'S SECOND CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT
Scope and Content Note: Had a Progressive Congressman for some time, then reelected conservative Glenn Davis several times, then reelected liberal Bob Kastenmeier many times. One of the reasons the conservative could win consistently in this supposedly liberal district was that many local officials who had been Progressives had gone into the Republican Party and continued as Republicans to draw votes which helped the entire ticket.

TENDENCY FOR CONGRESSMEN TO GET REELECTED
Scope and Content Note: Melvin Laird, a conservative, had held his congressional seat for many years. When he vacated that seat to join the Nixon administration, liberal David Obey won the seat in a special election and was soon being reelected by the same substantial margins by which Laird had won. Once Congressmen get known in their districts, “they carry a lot of personal strength that's unrelated to partisan politics.”

LESTER JOHNSON'S CONGRESSIONAL VICTORY, 1953
Scope and Content Note: Nelson and many others campaigned for Johnson. The race attracked national attention, since it was the first one after President Eisenhower's big victory. Anecdote about Johnson not returning a call to the New York Times because “they don't have any circulation in my district.” Miles McMillin told this to the Times, and the Times replied with the number of subscribers in the district. the Republicans took Johnson too lightly. “It's a special election and in special elections with a relatively small turnout, the one who's best organized has a good chance of winning.”

NELSON'S FRIENDSHIP WITH MELVIN LAIRD
Scope and Content Note: “Mel was the best debater the Republicans had.... And I loved to debate; and he did too.... We'd spend all day long fighting on the floor of the senate. And then he'd come on out to my place for dinner or we'd go on over to the Park Hotel and have a beer and bat the breeze.... So we were very good friends from the first time I met him in the legislature.”

NELSON'S 1958 GUBERNATORIAL RACE
Scope and Content Note: As always, had hope of winning, “but I was really aiming at getting a statewide notice and constituency and so forth.” In June 1958 Lou Harris did a poll for the Steelworkers and in that poll Nelson had a seven percent name recognition and incumbent Governor Vernon Thomson had about a ninety percent name recognition. In the same poll Thomson had fifty percent of the vote and Nelson had thirty percent. Nelson was never able to get a copy of the poll; the Harris people claimed it was lost. Nelson won the election because of the Democratic trend and because he ran a better campaign. Lou Harris' advice was to talk about national issues, not state issues during the campaign, and not to attack Thomson because he was popular. Nelson ignored this advice. Because he had been in the legislature so long he knew a lot about state issues and talked a lot about state issues until the press began to see that these were substantive issues. His campaign used television and the television spots were much better than Thomson's. While he felt a trend developing, right up to the day of the election he thought it looked like Proxmire would win, but he would not. Nelson did his own campaign strategy. Anecdote about a statement against Orville Faubus which Nelson made during the campaign. A southerner called Nelson's wife to berate Nelson; Nelson's wife, a southerner herself, disarmed the fellow by the end of the conversation. Hit at least one plant gate every morning of the campaign. Campaigned from about five in the morning to about ten at night. Spent $76,000 in the 1958 campaign and $124,000 in the 1960 campaign.

END OF TAPE 52, SIDE 1

INTRODUCTION

MORE ON THE 1958 GUBERNATORIAL CAMPAIGN
Scope and Content Note: Twenty-five dollar fundraising dinners. Spent more than any Democrat had ever spent in a campaign in Wisconsin. Edmund Muskie campaigned for Nelson, as did Estes Kefauver, Hubert Humphrey, and Orville Freeman.

EXPLANATION OF THE 1958 DEMOCRATIC VICTORY IN WISCONSIN AT LAST
Scope and Content Note: “It took ten years to establish our credentials as the progressive party, taking over where the La Follettes left off.” Anecdote about going to New London for a breakfast meeting to which many people were invited. Only one couple showed up. During the rest of the day Nelson kept running into people who claimed to be secret Democrats. One small businessman told Nelson the bank would deny him his next loan if he had showed up for the break-fast. When leafletting at the local papermill, “about half the workers would look at it and see 'Democrat' and throw it on the ground. So afterwards Jimmie Wimmer and I would go around picking up our literature and wiping the dust off it to pass out some place else.... It wasn't popular to be a Democrat and it turned around when the Democrats established their credentials as progressives.... It took that long just to build up. Then, of course, we developed a lot of good candidates.”

NELSON'S SUCCESS AS GOVERNOR, EVEN WITH A REPUBLICAN LEGISLATURE
Scope and Content Note: “For one thing, I had served in the legislature for ten years.... I knew everybody and I was a good friend to lots of Republicans.... So I had lots of Republicans who were friends who, although they played some very tough partisan politics, at least could be reasoned with.” Nelson attacked the Republicans as “caretakers” who had “swept under the rug” problems that had been around for years. “So I was making proposals that were good proposals and to vote'm all down would put them in trouble.”

GETTING HIS APPOINTMENTS THROUGH THE REPUBLICAN SENATE
Scope and Content Note: The Republicans felt Nelson's election was an accident and that a Republican administration would win in 1960. They had a caucus and determined not to comfirm any of Nelson's appointments. Assemblyman Earl Leverich, then a Republican, but previously a Progressive, told Nelson about this plan. In order to deal with that Nelson appointed people who were in positions that various Republicans simply could not vote against, thereby undermining the Republican strategy. “I made a whole series of appointments which were good appointments, but they had as their purpose to put the Republicans in a bind. Finally Earl Leverich came into my office and said, 'They're having a tough time down there in the caucus because a couple of the Republicans are saying, “I can't vote against this fellow” and somebody else is saying, “I can't vote against him”' and pretty soon the whole thing fell apart.”

THE SALES TAX ISSUE
Scope and Content Note: Nelson had stated his opposition to the sales tax once or twice during his campaign. He felt he could not afford, politically, to pass any kind of tax increase during his first term. “The Democratic Party was dead against it. But we faced a situation that we had to have the money.... I proposed an income tax proposal. The Republicans refused to go along. They passed a sales tax. I vetoed it. So we went through all the exercise. And then I had a blue ribbon tax committee headed up by Harold Groves.” The Republicans demanded to see his tax plan before the 1960 election. Nelson arranged with the tax committee to stall until after the election. After the election the fight continued in the legislature. Finally worked out a compromise--limited sales tax, withholding of income taxes, and use of sales tax revenue to relieve the property tax, which was even more regressive. Throughout the state, after passage of the sales tax, proprietors and clerks would say to customers, “And three cents for Gaylord.” “It was just really knocking the hell out of me.” Anecdote about a trip north of Chippewa Falls with Louis Hanson. Stopped for a beer “and the bartender said, And three cents for Gaylord. And I reached right in his hand and I said, Thank you very much, I'm Gaylord.” The embarassed bartender bought the next two rounds of beer. Nelson in 1962 was running for U.S. senator with the burden of the sales tax, plus his attorney general, John Reynolds, running for governor and “repudiating my tax.” The sales tax went into effect in February 1962; but by November the issue had faded away and Nelson was elected to the senate. “If they'd held the election any time between February and August, I'd have gotten beat on that issue alone.”

DECISION TO RUN FOR THE U.S. SENATE: ACHIEVEMENTS AS GOVERNOR
Scope and Content Note: Decided to run for the senate because “number one, I had achieved about everything I could get done.” Had proposed nearly all of the things he had thought about as a member of the legislature reorganization of state government, reformation of the tax system, increasing of university salaries by twenty-four percent, the “ORAP” bill (a one cent tax on cigarettes to purchase wildlife habitat), a five million dollar student loan program, a big building program on the university campuses, reorganization of the county forest law. “I think I got about ninety percent of what I had in mind during that four years. So should I run for reelection which would have,...I think at that time been a more certain shot than beating the incumbent Wiley? But so, I'd spend two years there and have very little more that I could achieve that I'd had in mind anyway and then be out of politics.” Anecdote about John Reynolds, who was interested in running for the senate, asking Nelson about it and finding out that Nelson wanted to run for it himself.

DEFEAT OF WILEY IN 1962
Scope and Content Note: By 1962, Nelson was better known than Wiley because in general the governor is better known than the senator. Wiley did not run a very good campaign. “He was a kind of a friendly, gentle, pleasant bumbler.” He did not use media well. As the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Wiley was called to Washington during the Cuban Missle Crisis in October. He received lots of good publicity for that, but “he gets out there and he decides thathe was doing so badly--or his people did anyway--in his campaigning that he'd stay there for a while.” Nelson made much of this. Then Wiley returned to Wisconsin and campaigned “away from the press, mostly out in the rural areas.... His time had passed him by; so that helped anyway.”

END OF TAPE 52, SIDE 2

INTRODUCTION

DEMOCRATIC PARTY FACTIONALISM IN THE 1950s; THE NELSON-LUCEY SPLIT
Scope and Content Note: Everyone was a New Deal Democrat, so there were no significant philosophical differences. “Lucey's method of management was that if you weren't all out on his side--sort of the Kennedy concept, anybody that wasn't on their side to knock'm off one way or the other. That was not the philosophy of anybody else prior to that. So there was a Lucey clique. And that group was fighting me on the sales tax.” At the time of Nelson's election as governor, Lucey told him, “'If you are not satisfied with me as state chairman, I'd get out.' Well, there was a lot of stuff going on within the party I wasn't happy with and I asked him to get out and he wouldn't do it.” Nelson then got Frank Nikolay to run against Lucey for party chair, but Nikolay's National Guard unit was called up, thereby preventing his candidacy. When President Kennedy came to speak in Wisconsin “by every standard tradition in he world the governor introduces the president when he comes to speak. And I intended to introduce him. Pat says, 'No, I'm going to introduce him.' Well, I could have raised a great big fuss and embarassed everybody, but I wasn't about to do that. But it was quite presumptious of the state chairman to insist that he introduce it when the governor is present.” Nelson's theory was to try to win over opposition rather than to fight with them. Anecdote about an internal fight on the Administrative Committee in which a postmaster who owed his job to Nelson took Lucey's side. Nelson asked him why, and the fellow answered, “Lucey would never forget me; he'd get me; and I knew you wouldn't.” One of Nelson's complaints about how the party was being run was that it did not raise any money for his campaign. Towards the end of the campaign Nelson visited Bruno Bitker to get some money for television spots, and Bitker said Lucey had been in the day previous raising money to pay the party campaign debt. “So here you have the state chairman--I'm running for governor and he's written me off and is raising money to pay off the debt before the election. Well I considered that pretty outrageous. No other party in the United States would do that.... That was sabotaging my campaign.”

DECLINE OF THE PARTY'S IMPORTANCE AS ITS CANDIDATES BEGAN TO WIN OFFICE
Scope and Content Note: The party ought to get stronger once it wins the governorship. One of the reasons it did not is because the governor has very little patronage. Because it was a volunteer organization, it was not always easy to replace leadership with the same quality of people. Another thing that has happened is that legislators played less and less of a role in forming the party's platform. “Elected officials who had an honest-to-God constituency were the people who were the most influential in designing the platform” in the party's early years. By 1968, when Nelson was running for reelection, “they had provisions in that '68 platform...that you couldn't run on politically. They were designed by people who have no constituency, except each other. And they were putting stuff in the platform that would be totally unacceptable to the public. So, I can still remember being asked about the '68 platform--I was running for reelection. I said, 'I'll be damned if I know. I haven't read it. I quit reading platforms a long time ago. I've got a record. I run on my own record and that's it.' ...Because I wasn't going to repudiate the platform. I wasn't going to endorse it, because I couldn't do either.... What's happened is that the elected officials with...their own constituency have been kind of effectively driven out of the process.” The same is true on the national level. All the interest groups push for the most extreme positions they represent and this results in a platform that cannot appeal to a broader public. “So I think it became a disaster.”

NELSON'S PLAN FOR REFORMING THE PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY SYSTEM
Scope and Content Note: Currently it takes too much time and money to receive a presidential nomination. Should get rid of all but about eight primaries, randomly selected but representative of geography and state size. Do not announce which states will have primaries until March 1 and then have the primary elections in April.

NELSON DOWNPLAYS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SPLITS IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IN WISCONSIN CAUSED BY THE 1960 PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY
Scope and Content Note: He endorsed no one, although he leaned toward Hubert Humphrey. An endorsement would have done his reelection bid no good. Nelson served as arbitrator of the various campaigns.

NELSON'S PROUDEST ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS U.S. SENATOR
Scope and Content Note: His opposition to the Vietnam War. Creation of “Earth Day” in 1970. He organized “Earth Day” because he realized the politicians were way behind the public in their concern for the environment, and this “helped escalate the issue and brought it into the political dialogue.” Getting the Apostles Islands into the national park system and the St. Croix and Namekagon Rivers into the wild rivers system.

DISAPPOINTMENTS AS U.S. SENATOR
Scope and Content Note: Would like to have accomplished more reforms in the field of prescription drugs. Would like to have accomplished more for small businesses. “I think we've overlooked entrepreneurship in this country and addressed ourselves to the big corporations and their problems rather than to the entrepreneur who hires three or four or five or fifty or a hundred or two hundred employees. That's the cutting edge of the system.”

MORE ON ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Scope and Content Note: “Basically I don't have any real complaints about it.” Involved in passage of legislation on Manpower, Youth Camps, Job Corps, Teacher Corps.

NELSON'S DEFEAT IN 1980
Scope and Content Note: “I don't think I ran a very good campaign for one thing.” Also, the mood of the country was very bad. Iran. Inflation. “Any reasonable campaign would have beat me in 1980. Although, I must say, even given what we could have done, I didn't do a very good job in that campaign.” Anecdote about AFL-CIO election organizers in Wisconsin telling him that the union membership liked Nelson but did not want to hear about President Carter.

END OF INTERVIEW