The lead up to the general election to be held in November 1968 was chaotic for the Democratic Party. (After his lost to JFK in 1960, Nixon was a foregone conclusion for the Republicans.) The opposition to the war was growing daily on the campuses across the country.
I was in my second year of teaching at Lakeland College located near Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Surrounded as it is by miles of cornfields and with the nearest town 20 miles away, Lakeland College would not be expected to be fertile soil for the strikes, sit-ins, rabble-risers, protest signs which had become the daily fair at the Berkeley campus of the University of California and the Madison campus of the University of Wisconsin. And, it was not fertile or even tolerant toward such “in-appropriate” activities on it’s campus.
The first significant anti-war candidate to emerge was Eugene McCarthy, a Democratic member of the U.S. Senate from the neighboring state, Minnesota. Significant, yes but serious, maybe. More of an enigma than anything else. Known in the Senate as an odd duck, aloof and a loner, given to citing obscure poetry to support whatever position he was taking on issues coming up for a vote.
When I learned that Sheboygan would be one of his first campaign stops, I was both surprised and excited. This was a “must see” event. The night of his scheduled appearance found the town of Sheboygan under a fresh 6” blanket of snow and temperatures in the mid-twenties and falling.
I am not sure what surprised me the most: the large number of Sheboyganites heading to the HS Gym or the report that candidate McCarthy was plowing through the snow and was still expected to attend the event. The size of the crowd owing perhaps more to the fact that excitement was not a regular occurrence among the predominately German-American population. A pretty and well cared for town on the banks of Lake Michigan, Sheboygan had, or so it seemed to me, a very large number of churches; all carefully trimmed and showing signs of large, active congregations.
The fact that the candidate would leave his large, comfortable, office with real fireplaces burning real logs providing both heat and that ephemeral glow of make-believe stories for 6’” of new snow turning to ice as fast as the temperature was falling was a conundrum befitting this candidacy.
Surreal is an apt description of the scene as my wife and I joined the townsfolk and the local farmers in a crunching march across the snow turned to ice landscape. The freezing cold air speeding our march as if we already had collectedly decided there was a purpose to be served here. What that purpose might be remained elusive.
Entering the Gym only intensified the vertigo among the attendees. It was very warm; the warmth being generated from all the bodies stuffed inside. And bright as in an interrogation room. And silence. As if in a church. No southern Baptist church to be sure. Were these mostly German/Dutch, town folk/farmers the forerunners of what would later be known as the “Silent Majority”?
When the dour candidate stepped forward, the awaiting microphone would not be needed. His naturally low voice could, without amplification, be easily heard in the most remote parts of the Gym.
I do not recall anything he said. For me, it conjured up attending Mass in Latin. Even today it takes my intense concentration to follow a Mass in English. It would surprise none of his colleagues in the US Senate if he had delivered his whole campaign speech in Latin.
Looking back on that evening, I become nostalgic about that evening. Maybe it is this: I prefer an authentic sermon delivered in Latin where I don’t understand the words but have no trouble hearing the message to a campaign speech perfectly understood and knowing that every word spoken is a lie.
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