Word: stevensonism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Twice he sought his nation's highest office; yet he always thought of the presidency as a "dread responsibility." He was a politician without a politician's ways; instead of grinning gamely when, during one of his campaigns, a little girl handed him a stuffed baby alligator, Stevenson could only gape and exclaim, "For Christ's sake, what's this?" He was a man of rare humor, often expressed in self-deprecating terms. Responding to criticism that he was too intellectual, that he talked over the heads of the voters, he tossed out a Latinism...
Trauma. Adlai Stevenson was born to affluence and influence. His paternal grandfather, after whom he was named, was Vice President during Grover Cleveland's second term. His maternal great grandfather, Jesse Fell, was a close friend of Abraham Lincoln, helped arrange the Lincoln-Douglas debates. His mother's family owned the prosperous Bloomington, Ill., Daily Pantagraph, and his father managed the Stevenson family's vast farm lands, later became Illinois' secretary of state...
When Adlai was twelve, he suffered one of the most traumatic experiences that could befall any boy-an experience which, according to some friends, was to affect him for the rest of his life. Among several guests in the Stevenson home one night was a military-school student who offered to perform the manual of arms. Excited, young Adlai ran to get a .22-cal. pump rifle, watched wide-eyed while the cadet went through the ritual. When it was over, Adlai took the rifle, began to mimic the performance. The weapon accidentally fired, killing Adlai's 15-year...
Reluctance. Educated at Choate, Princeton and Northwestern University Law School, Stevenson joined one of Chicago's top law firms. In 1928 he married Heiress Ellen Borden, whose family made a fortune in oil and taxicabs. Adlai and Ellen had three sons: Adlai III, now 34, Borden, 32, and John Fell...
...Stevenson's true calling was public service, and Ellen detested the political life. In 1949, while he was Governor of Illinois, she insisted on a divorce. It was a bitter blow to Stevenson, who, as recently as 1960, said wistfully: "I would rather be married than President." To day, Ellen Borden Stevenson, 56, lives as a recluse in a dingy greystone Chicago house on which the mortgage was recently foreclosed; she has gone through most of her family fortune, and her three sons have filed suit to supervise her financial affairs, charging that she is incapable of managing them...