Official Report of the Proceedings of the Democratic National Convention and Committee John F Kennedy Memorial Edition With History of Democratic Party

Smith, Dr. Paul A., editor & Richard E. May, Associate Editor

Published by National Document Publishers Inc., Washington DC, 1964

About this Item

63 & 833 pages; Publisher's red cloth, lettered in white and black -- incorporating color portraits of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. A special copy, with the lower corner of the front cover lettered in white: HONORABLE W. WILLARD WIRTZ. This copy of the Memorial edition of the proceedings of the Democrats' 1960 Convention in Los Angeles prepared and presented to one of the members of President Kennedy's Cabinet -- Secretary of Labor W. Willard Wirtz. Unlike most subsequent iterations of the National party's nominating conventions, the Democrats' 1960 Los Angeles Convention had both suspense and substance. While then-Senator John F. Kennedy did bring to the Convention the largest contingent of Delegates committed to his nomination, there were other candidates considered to have a real shot at obtaining the nomination, including Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, former two-time Presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson, Senators Hubert Humphrey, George A. Smathers and Stuart Symington -- and an especially large contingent of "Favorite Son" contenders. After the tabulation of the first ballots showed that Senator Kennedy had 806 volumes (and thus had more than the 761 votes necessary) -- Kennedy's nomination was declaired "by acclimation." The selection of Senator Johnson as the candidate for the Vice Presidency was genuinely not fixed until after this moment. And even the Presidential candidate's acceptance speech continued in this now-unusual path of making news. Kennedy first gave the public a phrase which would come to name his Administration in the public mind: "We stand today on the edge of a New Frontier the frontier of the 1960s, the frontier of unknown opportunities and perils, the frontier of unfilled hopes and unfilled threats." Kennedy's New Frontier was terminated by an assassin's bullets in November, 1963. It was more than early nostalgia which prompted the Democratic National Committee to publish this volume, in hopes of continuing the association in popular support for the martyred President with Lyndon Johnson, who would arrive at the next Democratic convention as the sitting 36th President of the U.S. Willard Wirtz was appointed by President Kennedy as Secretary of Labor in 1962, replacing Arthur Goldberg (who was nominated to be an Associate Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court). Wirtz remained as Labor Secretary for the remainder of the Kennedy Administration, and through the entirety of the Johnson Aministration. He was a key architect of Johnson's War on Poverty, but his relationship with his second President was said to have been somewhat compromised when he sent a private memorandum to the President expressing concerns about the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War. At the time of his death in 2010 at the age of 98, Willard Wirtz was the oldest living former Presidential Cabinet member and the last surviving Cabinet member of the Kennedy administration. Ten years before his death the "Wirtz Labor Library" was named in his honor -- the 181,000 thousand volume main library of the U.S. Department of Labor in the Frances Perkins Building in Washington. It is interesting to note that he was both a friend, becomming a key aide to Adlai Stevenson, and eventually a law-partner. Papers relating to his work on behalf of the Stevenson campaign are preserved in the JFK Library.

Seller Inventory # 43691

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Official Report of the Proceedings of the Democratic National Convention and Committee John F Kennedy Memorial Edition With History of Democratic Party
• Publisher: National Document Publishers Inc., Washington DC
• Publication Date: 1964
• Binding: Hard Cover
• Edition: First Edition; First Printing.
• Condition: Very Good+