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For all of that, he has, like most of his fellow freshmen, already made his mark in the rough & tumble of practical politics. He Was twice mayor of Minneapolis, the man who helped put together Minnesota's humpty-dumpty Democratic-Farmer-Labor ticket, the clever and determined tactician who led and won the civil rights fight at the Democratic Convention last summer. One thing, above all, explains his way of thinking: all of his adult life has been spent in the era of Franklin Roosevelt. His dad, and the Dust Bowl taught him most of what he knows.
Boy Orator. His father, a big, kindly, stoop-shouldered man, was a druggist who became a Democrat in Republican South Dakota when he heard William Jennings Bryan speak. By the time young Hubert was seven, his father was already reading Tom Paine and the life of Jefferson to him. Before he was out of grammar school, Hubert Jr. went along to Democratic rallies and conventions, saw his father become first alderman, then mayor of Doland, S. Dak. (pop. 550).
A spindly, freckle-faced kid with a wide grin, Hubert Jr. was his high school's prize debater, came out second in the state's regional tournament. That was in 1929 and Hubert was 18.
The depression brought him back from the University of Minnesota at the end of his sophomore year. The family had moved to Huron, where Hubert worked in the drugstore, slept in the basement, and ate at the fountain to save money.
Dust Bowl. One November day in 1933 the sun turned pink, then red, then grey. Dust swirled up from the drought-ridden plains, rolled over the town in a black, gritty cloud. That winter and spring there were 90 such daylight blackouts. Dust stood an inch and a half deep on the window sills. Grasshoppers and locusts moved in as cattlemen and farmers moved out.
To keep his family going, Hubert Sr. toured the state in a battered Ford, peddling a pig serum he had developed. That left the store without a pharmacist. Hubert Jr. hustled through a six months' course at the Denver School of Pharmacy, moved in behind the prescription counter (where his certificate still hangs).
Through the next three years he saw many a hard-working Dakotan come to poverty through no fault of his own. Merchants and farmers, caught in the same trap together, turned to the Government. Relief checks saved the town and the family business. Said Humphrey later: "I learned more about economics from one South Dakota dust storm than I did in all my years at college."
Don't Laugh at Me. By 1935, Huron was on its way back, and Hubert, who had shown little interest in girls, had met a brunette named Muriel Buck, the daughter of a produce and feed dealer whose business had gone to dust. Hubert took a bus trip to Washington, and wrote a letter back to his fiancée: