Assignment America; 102; Alf Landon at 87

[tone and beeping] [music playing] [Announcer]: According to the Republican candidate Landon, our financial and political institutions were in danger. [Landon]: I am dedicated to this proposition that henceforth no American citizens shall ever again be put in a position where he has to sell his vote for bread. [crowd cheering] [Alf Landon]: The public is gonna be lucky if they only have the ice cream taken out of life with the problems facin' us, I tell ya that. [music playing] [George Will]: This is Kansas on the outskirts of Topeka.

Kansas to many Americans is the land of unrestless Americans. It is the geographical center of the United States. The fixed stable center of a nation that is perhaps too restless for its own good. That house there, that not so Little House on the Prairie, is the home of Alfred M. Landon. He built it in 1937, the year after he ran for but failed to win the big White House on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C. In 1936, Alf Landon was the Republican nominee against President Franklin Roosevelt. Landon lost. He lost big. He lost 46 of the 48 states. He carried just Maine and Vermont, but he took politics seriously. And yet he took his loss gracefully. Maybe that is why America which is said to love winners perhaps too much

has always had a warm spot in it's heart for Alf Landon. He is after all a very nice man who just happens to be one of the big losers in American political history. He is 87 years old now and still vigorous. He often rises at 6 A.M. and goes horseback riding. Then he devotes a full day to his business interests, including some modest oil holdings. He was born during President Grover Cleveland's first administration. As Governor of Kansas for two terms and as a leader of the Republican Party Alf Landon was a central figure in the 1930s, one of the most difficult decades in American history. After he lost the 1936 presidential election he was encouraged to run for the Senate from Kansas. He certainly could have won but he decided not to run. He wanted to live here, not in Washington. Like little Dorothy in The Wizard of

Oz. Alf Landon didn't want to live in our political Oz. He didn't want to live in Washington with all the political wizards. Like little Dorothy, he just wanted to come home to Kansas. [Will]: Did you ever think in 1936 that you could win that election? [Landon]: Running against FDR was ah, like running against a stone wall! [Franklin D. Roosevelt]: I accept the commission you have tended me. I join with you. [Crowd cheering]. I am enlisted for the duration. [Landon]: Well, I might say, ah trying to catch a train that was going off down the tracks about time you got the depot. [Song lyrics] Landon, oh Landon, will lead to victory with the dear old Constitution and it's good enough for me. Our ship of state is on the rocks. Soon it will be sunk

It has no pilot at the wheel, but regimented folk I didn't know "Old Sussana" from Adam's old box. I betcha I don't know one line of it. I didn't like him very well. I wasn't particularly interested in the song. That shows how little I knew about ah politics in those days. Of course, ah Roosevelt's song "Happy Days Are Here Again" was a great song. Ah, fitted the, ah, political climate. "Oh Susanna" didn't particularly, it was just a catchy song. To me, I- I- I didn't pay any attention to it. Well, the sunflower developed as quite a campaign item. And today it's still quite a collector's item because it's considered most, the most colorful of all the campaign buttons. I think uh some of 'em was what I've

been told er by collectors or Mrs. Landon picks up some of 'em selling $10, $12 dollars. [Will]: Governor for a long time Maine seem to vote with the winner in presidential elections, and they grew up a kind of slogan, "As Maine goes, so goes the nation." After your defeat in 1936, people made a kind of joke out of that slogan they said, "As Maine goes, so goes Vermont." [Landon]: I don't know whether I'm responsible for,for ending, ending it all, but I haven't heard that slogan since then. [Will]: The Literary Digest, a leading magazine of the 30s who ran a poll that said Alf Landon would win the election. [Landon]: They, uh, were the first to, uh, start polls and uh had considerable prestige to what was going to happen in the election. Of course, uh, they missed the poll. And, uh that was the end of The Literary Digest.

They're the one's that were responsible for the poll. All I know is that I only paid attention to it maybe for 1,1 hour goin' to sleep. I started to pick my cabinet, but I didn't get any farther than the Secretary of State. Went to sleep. The next morning I didn't finish. I woke up, knew what was gonna to happen. Well, I knew what was going to happen. That Roosevelt was going to be elected. [Will]: We have documentary proof in the form of a newspaper story that sa- [Landon]: What do you mean documentary proof [Will]: Doesn't the newspaper [Landon]: in the form of a newspaper story? [Will]: Well, that may be [Landon]: That's not documentary proof. [Will]: That may be a contradiction to you but the newspapers say you went duck hunting the morning after the '36 election as though nothin' had happened. [Landon]: They [Will]: Is that not true? [Will]: That is not true. I went to the office where my job to get, take care of state affairs. [Will]: Governor, when you're taking care of state affairs you've been frugal Alf Landon, you've always been known as frugal Alf Landon as far back as 1904.

70 years ago when you were at the University of Kansas, frugal Alf Landon, the college student, agitated in his fraternity house to abolish the ice cream course at the meal. [Landon]: I didn't agitate. I abolished it as head of the fraternity, of the chapter. [Will]: Call it what you will, the ice cream was gone and what's worse, what's worse some of the the record show that frugal Alf Landon tried to cut down the number of orchestras at the spring lawn party from two to one. [Landon]: Yes. [Will]: Why'd you do that? [Landon]: Because we were in debt, and we had,had to pay our bills. [Will]: It seems that Alf Landon's against pleasure. You're trying to take the ice cream [Landon]: Yes. [Will]: out of life, orchestras out [Landon]: and culture out of the dance [both laughing] [Will]: Well pleasure at any rate. [Landon]: All right. [Will]: What made you so frugal? Where did you get this? [Landon]: Well, I guess it was my frugal ancestors at, the training I got and the clean plate, so I, so the President’s reference to a clean plate

had a, had a family training that’s the way I was brought up. [Will]: I understand the government is, is never frugal, but what fascinates me is that you personally are so frugal. [Landon]: Well, I [Will]: You’ve been, you’ve been walking around the house turning the lights off. [Will]: Well, you might say I belong to that old lost tribe. (laughing) [Will]:What lost tribe is that? [Landon]: Well, frugality. [Will]: Okay. [Landon]: Now, now here's another illustration of what you're talking about. It became uh fashionable and customary uh, for executives of all size of corporation to run up a big expense bill so they could charge it off. Uncle Sam was paying for it. Now you heard that right and left. Uncle Sam is paying for it. Go ahead. [Will]: Ok. You, you, you're business man. Do you do you have an expense account? Do you take, you have expense account lunches? [Landon]: No! [Will]: No? [Landon]: Never did. [Will]: You must be the only businessman in America who doesn't. [Landon]: Well, alright. [Will]: Do youhave credit cards?

[Landon]: No! [Will]: No credit? [Will]: No credit card. Mrs. Landon has no credit card and I don't have any credit card. I don't believe in a credit card. [Will]: Why not? [Landon]: There they TV and radio and newspaper all advertising people are to go start spendin' money; it don't cost you anything. [Will]: Well, [Landon]: Credit cards is an incentive to people to spend more money than they should. [Will]: You don't, you think people ought to save more and spend less. [Landon]: Sure. [Will]: At all times? [Landon]: At all times [Will]: Well that's un-American. [Will]: Well, maybe, but it is not. It's not on Landon, anyhow. [laughing] [Will]: That's sort of the trouble isn't it. Trying to make America more Landon-ish. You almost seem to be saying that a little depression now and again is good for people. Teaches them a lesson. [Landon]: Well, if you emphasize the little, I'd agree (laughing) providing it don’t get outta hand. [Will]: A little [Landon]: bit run away. [Will]: A little control depression. [Landon]: Yeah, I don’t know whether there is such a thing as a controlled depression, but a little touch isn't going to be too armful. [Mrs. Landon]: I picked up a package at the store yesterday, and the woman said. I

said," I can't see what the price on that is", and she told me, and I said, "Oh my", and she said, "We're going to have to go out tricks and treats pretty soon, the price these things are". [Landon]: You’re always comin’ back tellin’ me about prices, so go ahead. [Mrs. Landon]: That's all right. It's mostly what you eat that cost so much. You don't like to give up things. [Landon]: Well, I don't eat very much. [Mrs. Landon laughing] make it up, that make it up in other ways. [Mrs. Landon]: Well, every week you go, it’s more than it was the week before, and I cut coupons and I read the ads, and I make lists. I do everything that I am told to do, and I can't cut it down. Well, there’s been a lot of that kind of tryin’ to sell phony things on the phone. [Landon]: Uh-huh, these high-pressure New York salesmen Like these high pressure New York politicians. You have to be careful of the New Yorkers.

[Will]: Governor, when we arrived here tonight you were watching as about 20 million other Americans were watching at that same moment, Walter Cronkite on the evening news. You think it's been a good thing for American politics - television? [Landon]: Yeah I think it's more objective today than it was a few years ago. [Will]: Do you think, ah, Vice President Agnew's criticism helped make it [Landon]: I do, [Will]: more objective? very definitely. [Will]: Do you think the Vice President had a point? [Landon]: Yes, I do, and I think, I, uh the business itself, radio and TV recognize that very definitely. There's a lot of support for the Agnew criticism. Television does this, of course. It reaches more audience than the President did prior to radio in his speeches. [Will]: But that's exactly what worries people. They say Abraham Lincoln would have looked bad on television.

[Landon]: I'm not so sure that he would've. I'm not sure that Abraham Lincoln wouldn't look better on television than Seward, who was ?inaubile? thought he knew more about being Preisdent than Abraham Lincoln did. He, Abraham Lincoln knew how to win the juries, the country juries. [Will]: That's true. [Landon]: That's where, that's where he learned his politics. [Will]: Governor, evaluate our Presidents beginning with Franklin Roosevelt. [Landon]: I had more conferences and more visits and talks with Mr. Roosevelt than I did with any other President. The first four years, uh, I was Governor of Kansas, and I had many matters of interest to take up with him. Particularly the drought in Kansas which was changing not only the economy, it was changing the lives of thousands of people permanently. And I uh, found, uh, Mr. Roosevelt very cooperative.

One time I remember he saw me in the White House instead of the executive offices, and he kept Mrs. Roosevelt and General Marshall waiting. The President had great charm. He was uh not only personally but politically. He was the greatest politician probably of modern times at least. He tried to get me to go in the cabinet one time in 1940, but by and large, was just simply a master politician. I knew Harry Truman well enough by being as close as we are to Independence, Missoura and Topeka that I was pretty sure he’d make a, gonna make a pretty good President. I remember very shortly within a few days, the New York Times wrote an editorial that all he had to do was to follow the course chartered at Yalta.

I said he didn't have any course chartered at Yalta to follow. Uh, he was like a general who liked to make his decisions on the field of battle. And as I consider Mr. Truman's record with all the handicaps of not having anything to guide him as to what the President had actually agreed in his conference with Churchill and Stalin. So, with his own party leaders, he, ah, did a very remarkable job in meeting with the very dangerous international situation that was confronting him. The difference between Truman and Roosevelt was very marked. In Roosevelt, uh, he was accused of being an art, the artful dodger, but I always said that, uh, later on as I became well better acquainted with Mr. Truman and his

administration, that he threw his policies all out, as it were, family style, on the table. Take it or leave it. [Will]: I remember a lot of Republicans, as you know, thought after Roosevelt and after Truman when Eisenhower of Kansas finally came in, that maybe they'd get a little bit of Landon of Kansas kind of government, that they'd get some of this restraint. But there doesn't seem to have been much of a difference. Eisenhower didn't really break with the New Deal approach to government. Did he? Did you think Eisenhower was a disappointment in this regard? [Landon]: Yeah, but I wasn’t particularly surprised though. [Will]: You don't-, you didn't have a high opinion of Dwight Eisenhower? [Landon]: I don't think we should ever dip into the professional military field for our presidents, and I did not think that President Eisenhower's military education and the qualifications for being a good president. And as I review his record I

don't see any reason for changing my mind. Their education does not fit them for the job at all. Any other job except being a, a, a military commander. To a graduate of West Point, ?inaudible? just one prime objective in these training that is how much that hill out there is worth in terms of casualties to hold or to capture. [Will]: Governor, have you voted for the Republican presidential candidate every year since 1936? [Landon]: Yes, sir. [Will]: Did you vote for Barry Goldwater? [Landon]: Yes, sir. [Will]: Were you pleased to vote for Barry Goldwater? [Landon]: Well I wasn't entirely enthusiastic about Barry Goldwater. I think maybe as I said at the time, I've been reminded of it once in a while, I voted for him with about the same enthusiasm as that Jim Farley did for Roosevelt in

1940 for a third term. As far as Lyndon Johnson is concerned, his amplification of the planned economy was wrecked by trying to have guns and butter at the same time, and that's impossible. That isn't what I call a great society, and it wrecked whatever uh, he might have had in mind accomplishing, which is a very laudable objective in his so-called war on the poor. I wasn't for Mr. Nixon's nomination in 1960 or in 1968. I voted for him with considerable reservations. Later on, February 1969, when he made the first gesture toward establishing more normal relations with China, I promptly supported it two weeks later. The soundness of establishing

more normal relations with China, I've advocated that for some back in the 50s. I became an enthusiastic supporter of Mr. Nixon's foreign policies more than I did with his domestic policies. I'll never be able to understand Mr. Nixon, and I expect he'll be the subject of many, many books for years to come, attempting to analyze the confused personality that he reveals. I can best sum up Mr. Nixon, I guess by, by and large, his appointments were more, much more disastrous, uh,than anything else he did.

Red, come on boy. You know I said to him the other morning, "Red, you're getting pretty well along in years, too. If you could just last about 3 or 4 years, maybe I can make that 90 that I'm aiming for." Red’s about 20. That’s getting’ fairly well up for a horse. There’s more chance of him makin’ that three years than there is for me. [Landon laughing] Whoa, boy. I'm not as spry as I used to. But I still can get on him. Come on. Come on. Come on. Whoa, whoa, steady. Come on. Come on, boy. (kissing sounds) Here’s your friends are waiting for you. Come on, come on; let's go. Come on. Come on, Shep, come on, come on, [dog barking] yeah. They're coming out [Man, singing]: Alf Landon learned a thing or two, he knows the great solution.

Got in the White House he will stay within the Constitution. Landon, Landon we'll lead to victory, with the dear old Constitution and that's good enough for me. In this new deal of alphabets that runs from to A to Z, you only had experiments all full of lunacy. And if at first they don't succeed they try and try again. While out of work you still can find about 12 million men. So it's Landon, oh Landon we'll lead to victory, with the dear old Consittution and that's good enough for me. [singing ends] [Will]: Governor, one of the things that came out of the Depression was of course Social Security. [Landon]: Yes. [Will]: And you're a beneficiary of Franklin Roosevelt's Social Security program. [Landon]: Yes. [Will]: A check comes every month. [Landon]: Yes, sir. Absolutely ridiculous, most ridiculous thing that I know of. [Will, laughing]: Why is it ridiculous? [Landon]: Well, why should they be paying me Social

Security. [Man, sining]: The alphabet we'll always have, but one thing sure is true. With Landon in, the raw deals out, and that means ?pdq? [Landon]: Social Security, in the end, can only be built upon character, and religion, and industry. But our natural humanity and the employment problem of a great industrial civilization require the community through its government to protect those who by reason of age, or other misfortune may have claims upon us. If they would make an,ar- an attempt to restore the vigor and the energy of people that do need some financial assistance. Take it away from me, and spend more for them, and get them out of it. Get them goin’ on a constructive uh base of their own, uh, relying on their own resource.

[Will]: Have you ever thought of [Landon]: started once again. [Will]: Have you ever thought of taking a Social Security check and sending it back to the President? [Landon]: Well, what good would that do? I never did believe in making useless gestures. [Will laughing] [Will]: Governor, you still turn up. Your name turns up in political cartoons of various sorts. [Landon]: Oh there's a couple of fellows talkin', having a soft drink. [Will]: Are you sure of that? [Landon]: Don't blame me for the mess we're in. I voted for Landon. [Will]: I don't know what it is about you, but people seem to talk about you in bars. Here's another cartoon. [Landon]: I agree with you some of what you say, but you're over simplifying when you trace all our ills back to our failure to elect Alf Landon. [Will]: If you had to sum up in just a few words your 87 years, what would you say about the career and the life of Alf Landon?

[Landon]: I've had the experience that comes to few men. I'm a member of the Kansas Bar that never had a client, except the public. I'm an oil man that never made his proverbial million dollars. I'm a politician that carried only Maine and Vermont. [Man, singing]: Alf Landon learned a thing or two, he knows the great solution. Got in the White House he will stay within the Constitution. Landon, Landon we'll lead to victory with dear old Constitution, and that's good enough for me. [music fades] [Will]: That's Alf Landon. The 1930s was a passionate, difficult decade. And it had its share of large and

colorful figures. Franklin Roosevelt, John L. Lewis, Huey Long, Father Kaufman. But Alf Landon was different. He was not a passionate politician. After two successful terms as Governor of Kansas, in 1936 he made a brief almost decorous appearance on the stage of national politics. Then abruptly he left the stage. He just walked away from political ambition. He came home to Kansas to build a house and raise his children. Today our presidential campaigns never seem to end. They blend into one another. The presidential candidates of this age who are willing to campaign for four years to get to the White House must seem strange to Alf Landon, and Alf Landon must seem strange to them. That's probably is to his credit. I'm George Will. [music playing]

[music playing] [Jerry Della Femina]: Most politicians are dishonest and most politicians are corrupt. And I blame all the problems that we have right now on politicians. I will not take on, as I said before, I will not take on a politician or advertise a politician. I don't know, they turn a change. They're not like a product. Even feminique. You may hate feminique, but if you hated it, it was an investment of 59 cents and if it didn't turn out the way you expected it to turn out, you threw it away. When you buy, when you, you know when I get you to turn down that lever and you and the name is Nixon, and I just sold you something for four years. I don't want to be the man who, who did it. I don't want to sit back and say to myself, "OK, I just sold someone who started a war. I just sold someone who you know, was dishonest". [Doris Kearns]: Yet don't you think that is possible now that people can package candidates? [Femina]: Yes. Uh, you can pack-

Well, I believe you can package Hilter. [Man, singing]: Landon, oh Landon, we'll lead to victory with the dear Old Constitution and that's good enough for me. Our Ship of State is on the rocks, soon it will be sunk. It has no pilot at the wheel, but regimented folk. It wonders to the right and left, flounders all around it needs a captain on the bridge who's reckoning is sound. Landon, oh Landon, we'll lead to victory with the dear old Constitution, and that's good enough for me. The alphabet we'll always have but one thing sure is true with Landon in, the raw deals out, and that means ?pdq? Landon, Landon, we'll lead to victory with the dear old Constitution, and that's good enough for me.