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He flashes no sharp edge of wit, nor has he even much sense of humor to lighten his heavy sense of destiny. Yet he has the homely touch that spawns humorous, kindly anecdotes. On one campaign trip Kefauver discovered that his wife had packed only his light tan shoes, when he was due at a formal dinner in black shoes. He went to the hotel elevator, took a look at the elevator boy's black shoes, and promptly traded his tans for the blacks. It made a good story, but Kefauver didn't think it was funny. When he got home he coldly announced that he would do his own packing thereafter. Next time he packed two black shoes, both for the right foot, and grimly wore them at a party all evening without cracking a smile. ("He looked," says his wife, "like he was coming around the corner all the time.")
In Lebanon, N.H., Kefauver stopped at the movie theater to shake hands with the ticket seller. When he stuck his hand through the loophole in the box office, the hand stuck fast. A small crowd laughed and giggled while he wrenched and twisted, trying to get loose. Kefauver himself didn't crack a smile until, a few minutes later, he finally freed himself.
A Simple Soul. Since the start of the campaign he has studiously avoided putting together anything that sounds like a platform. Nowhere does he make it clear that, in his twelve-plus years in the House and the Senate, he has been one of the most regular of party men; he voted pro-New Deal and pro-Fair Deal nine times out of ten. Kefauver is against organized sin. He is in favor of good government, peace, kindness, vision and purity. The U.S. budget of $85.4 billion "would stagger the imagination of a mathematical genius—let alone the mind of a simple soul like mine," he says. But he offers few concrete ideas for cuts. In practice, he supports the Administration's present foreign policy, but in theory, preaches the doctrine of Clarence Streit's visionary plan for Atlantic Union. On China he still agrees with Dean Acheson's "Wait until the dust settles" policy. Said Kefauver in New Hampshire: "We must now wait and see what revolutionary spirit becomes paramount in China before giving support."
He drew anti-Truman headlines by hitting at the lack of "healthy public morals," by challenging, inferentially, Truman's Pendergast background, and by announcing that he—Kefauver—did not think primaries were "eyewash." But as soon as the New Hampshire votes were counted Kefauver went on the air to say that New Hampshire was certainly no verdict against Harry Truman. He is against compulsory FEPC, but promises he will carry out any FEPC platform voted in the Democratic platform. When questioning about his views gets too warm for him, he is likely to pick up a book from his desk and say: "Have you ever seen these pictures of early automobiles?"
Reluctance to discuss the issues does not mean that there is anything shady about Kefauver's background. There isn't. It simply means that if the shadows of the television screen have made him a conquering legend, Kefauver is not the one who is going to spoil the picture by turning on too many lights.