The Democratic high command passed up a chance to do some political back-scratching when it picked the convention keynoter for 1956, instead settled on a man judged to be the party's liveliest young speaker: Tennessee's 36-year-old Governor Frank Clement. Frank Clement, student of the great orators, youthful master of the spread-eagle style of public speaking, clutched the assignment like a vice-presidential nomination, checked out his ideas with party leaders, e.g., Missouri's Harry Truman, Georgia's Richard Russell and Texas' Lyndon Johnson, as he whipped up his speech. He made dry runs on Kinescope film to test his delivery, buffed and polished...
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