July 19, 1971
Page 25970
TOWARD A MORE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
(Remarks by Senator EDMUND S. MUSKIE to the Wisconsin State Democratic Convention, Madison, Wis., June 19, 1971)
I have come to your convention today to speak about another convention a year away. But I have not come here to discuss who will be nominated in 1972 or what the platform will promise – though I have a very real interest in both questions. Instead, I want to talk with you now about how the Democratic Party will conduct democracy's most vital business at our next national convention.
Will our reality equal our promise and permit Democrats on every side to make their voices heard and their views count?
Will we dispel the suspicions and the charges of unfairness – which can cripple our cause in the summer and kill our hopes in the fall campaign?
Because we want to win and because we want to be right, we Democrats know what our answers must say. We know that the only party worthy of leading America in 1973 will be a party that listens to Americans in 1972.
For more than half a century, Wisconsin has worked for a responsive political system – in this state and in our country. From Robert La Follette to Pat Lucey, Bill Proxmire, and Gaylord Nelson – from the passage of the direct primary in 1903 to your delegation's demand for convention reform in 1968 – the men and women of Wisconsin have fought to give our party to the people. That goal is so easy to say so hard to reach. But I believe it is now within our grasp.
In the last two years, citizens and politicians like you have reshaped the rule of the Democratic Party. The O'Hara Commission has told us how to run national conventions that are in order – in fact as well as in theory. And the McGovern Commission has told us how to assure delegate credentials that are in order – in truth as well as in law. What it all adds up to is a peaceful revolution of popular participation in writing our next platform and naming the next President. Your efforts and the efforts of others have made it possible to make the Democratic Party more democratic than any party has even been.
Our challenge now is to seize that chance. It is a challenge for individuals and organizations in every state. And it is also a challenge for every potential presidential candidate.
The candidates have a special responsibility. Those to whom much may be given owe something in return. Those who stand at the center of the contest cannot justify a retreat to the sidelines, when the issue is the rights of people, even at the price of personal gain.
So what we face now is not just a battle each candidate must wage for himself, but a battle all candidates must win together for the Democratic Party.
I am convinced that we can succeed. There is already strong precedent for candidate cooperation
on questions of party-wide concern. Last fall, we met in Washington to agree on common ground rules for our separate campaigns. Last week, I asked Democratic National Chairman Lawrence O'Brien to call another meeting to ban paid television spots prior to the convention. If we fracture our unity and drain our scarce wealth before the main event, we will not have the strength or the resources to defeat Richard Nixon. We must have enough left to do enough for victory in 1972.
And we must do more. The precedent of cooperation cannot be limited to the preservation of dollars. The nomination must be worth winning, not only financially, but also in principle. Our candidates must not be chosen by a few powerful politicians in private backrooms. Our candidate must be chosen fairly and freely by all the people of our party.
So I am proposing today a joint attempt at the highest level to enforce the recent rules for reform. Larry O'Brien should bring the potential nominees together with Congressman Don Fraser, now the Chairman of the Commission on Party Structure. The outcome should be a genuine and common commitment to reject the support of delegates from states which have made inadequate efforts to comply with the Commission's requirements. In 1972, no candidate should seek an advantage from undemocratic delegations to the Democratic Convention. And every candidate should seek a more democratic party.
Together, the candidates can make change happen. But there is one barrier that they and other Democrats cannot remove. In New York and Indiana, in Wyoming and the Dakotas and elsewhere, Republican legislatures have blocked the bills which are necessary for reform. As a result, some state Democratic organizations are stuck with outmoded procedures and unresponsive systems – procedures and systems they may not want, but cannot undo.
Surely, we should expect more than this obstruction from what President Nixon likes to label the "party of the open door." But perhaps that is all we can get from a Republican Party so closed that it has not even discussed reform – a party with few young Americans, few blue collar workers, and even fewer blacks. Perhaps it was predictable that the party which purged one of its own Senators would try to prevent Democrats from taking a different and more responsive path.
But despite Republican resistance, you can see the signs of progress everywhere in the Democratic Party. The reaction of the South is proof that those who were the scapegoats of 1968 will not be the offenders of 1972. And across the country, eight states are fully in compliance with the McGovern requirements. Fourteen others are very near full compliance. Only four states still lag very far behind. We are on our way to a nominating process open to the public, advertised to the public, and controlled by the public.
And the potential nominees can make sure our party goes all the way. What we want and what we must have are delegates at the 1972 convention who represent a constituency and reflect its viewpoint. Across the whole range of issues – from credentials to rules and the platform – the Democrats who select the delegates must know where they stand. A convention whose official call commands reform must not turn to covert candidacies or hidden policies the people have had no chance to review.
For longer than any of us have lived, the Democratic Party has worked for peaceful, progressive change. Now in 1971, we are renewing ourselves. In 1971, we are telling women and blacks and the young that they can secure a just place in our party. And if we convert our good words into good deeds, we will be more than ready for 1972. Then, next year, the self-appointed leaders who are today clamoring for a new party or the antipolitics of the streets will find themselves without followers or a cause to fight.
That is why potential candidates must speak up for reform – because it is necessary and because it is right. And no candidate can escape a larger obligation that goes beyond his own fate to the future of our party. No candidate should seek the chance to lead next year unless he is willing to lead the struggle for reform now.
The heart of the matter is the purpose of a political party. And any Democrat who looks to his heritage and his history knows what a party worthy of the name is really all about. It is not a neutral, selfish, self-perpetuating organization for the benefit of politicians. It is a device to permit a free people to determine their lives and the life of society.
The Democratic Party is farmers outside Wausau and machinists in Milwaukee and professors in Madison. They understand what is happening to their own land and on their own campus. They see the everyday problems in their neighborhoods which add up to constant problems for the nation. And they have the right to decide how their party will respond.
Ultimately, of course, it is up to them to exercise that right. The 70% of Americans who think the Indochina war is wrong – the bread-winners in every city and every state who are angry about lost jobs and more welfare – the millions who are convinced that President Nixon has failed in civil rights and law enforcement – those Americans have both an obligation and an opportunity to change policy through politics.
The Democratic Party must finish the work of reform in the weeks and months ahead. But reform will mean nothing unless people use the resulting power to push and prod our party and our country in a new direction.
Seventeen years ago, when I announced for Governor of Maine, I told the voters something I deeply believe – that "the success of a political party is not an end in itself. It is merely a means of service."
That belief has always been the faith of the Wisconsin Democratic Party.
It is the tradition of the National Democratic Party.
It is the reason for reform in 1971 – and the only way to victory in 1972.