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Adlai Ewing Stevenson II was an American politician and diplomat who was the United States ambassador to the United Nations from 1961 until his death in 1965. He served as the 31st governor of Illinois from 1949 to 1953 and was the Democratic Party nominee for president of the United States in 1952 and 1956, losing both elections to Dwight D. Eisenhower.
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politics · American politician and diplomat (1900–1965) · politician · diplomat · lawyer · also Adlai Stevenson II, Adlai Ewing Stevenson II, Adlai E. Stevenson II, Adlai Stevenson, Adlai Ewing Stevenson, Adlai E. Stevenson
Born 5 February 1900 · Died 14 July 1965 · Q311719
68 published statements · 0 followers
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Someone asked me...how I felt, and I was reminded of a story that a fellow townsman of ours used to tell – Abraham Lincoln. He said he felt like the little boy who had stubbed his toe in the dark. He said that he was too old to cry, but it hurt too much to laugh.
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“I know that most of those fellows will consider me a coward for the rest of my life for what I said today, but perhaps we need a coward in the room when we are talking about nuclear war.”
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“Someone asked me...how I felt, and I was reminded of a story that a fellow townsman of ours used to tell – Abraham Lincoln. He said he felt like the little boy who had stubbed his toe in the dark. He said that he was too old to cry, but it hurt too much to laugh.”
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Four years after his death, the goal was achieved
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“The Home Book of American Quotations”
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Died 1965-07-14.
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Awarded Order of Lincoln (1965).
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“Laws are never as effective as habits.”
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“The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live, and fear breeds repression. Too often sinister threats to the bill of rights, to freedom of the mind, are concealed under the patriotic cloak, of anti-communism.”
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“Public confidence in the integrity of the Government is indispensable to faith in democracy; and when we lose faith in the system, we have lost faith in everything we fight and spend for.”
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“The time to stop a revolution is at the beginning, not the end.”
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“A hungry man is not a free man.”
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“Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them.”
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“The sound of tireless voices is the price we pay for the right to hear the music of our own opinions. But there is also, it seems to me, a moment at which democracy must prove its capacity to act. Every man has a right to be heard; but no man has the right to strangle democracy with a single set of vocal cords.”
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“If we value the pursuit of knowledge, we must be free to follow wherever that search may lead us. The free mind is not a barking dog, to be tethered on a ten-foot chain.”
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“Nothing so dates a man as to decry the younger generation.”
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“My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.”
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“The Republicans have a "me too" candidate running on a "yes but" platform, advised by a "has been" staff.”
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“Understanding human needs is half the job of meeting them.”
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“As citizens of this democracy, you are the rulers and the ruled, the law-givers and the law-abiding, the beginning and the end. Democracy is a high privilege, but it is also a heavy responsibility whose shadow stalks, although you may never walk in the sun.”
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“In America any boy may become President, and I suppose it's just one of the risks he takes.”
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“Communism is the corruption of a dream of justice.”
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“We can chart our future clearly and wisely only when we know the path which has led to the present.”
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“There is no evil in the atom, only in men's souls.”
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“True Patriotism, it seems to me, is based on tolerance and a large measure of humility.”
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“In the tragic days of Mussolini, the trains in Italy ran on time as never before and I am told in their way, their horrible way, that the Nazi concentration-camp system in Germany was a model of horrible efficiency. The really basic thing in government is policy. Bad administration, to be sure, can destroy good policy, but good administration can never save bad policy.”
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Stevenson spoke in Dallas, Texas, where he was heckled and spat upon by unruly protestors led by retired General Edwin Walker's "National Indignation Convention"
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– Pantagraph (Bloomington, Illinois, newspaper)
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Career landmark: United States Ambassador to the United Nations (1961–1965).
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Unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination for a third time at the Democratic National Convention
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Campaign: 1960 presidential election.
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President Kennedy would sign the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty into law in 1963, and President Nixon would end the military draft in 1973
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Stevenson resumed law practice and allied himself with Judge Simon H
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Election lost: 1956 presidential election.
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Urged the government to "proceed gradually" on school desegregation in deference to the South's long-held "traditions"
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Campaign: 1956 presidential election.
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And campaigned in the Minnesota, Florida, and California primaries
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Eisenhower suffered a serious heart attack
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Stevenson heard about a woman whose son had experienced a similar tragedy
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Made a well-publicized world tour through Asia, the Middle East and Europe, writing about his travels for Look magazine
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Election lost: 1952 presidential election.
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Was speculated to potentially fill similar hostess duties held by the first lady of the United States if Stevenson were elected president
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“Major Campaign Speeches of Adlai E. Stevenson”
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And 1956, losing both elections to Dwight D
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And 1956, Stevenson was chosen as the Democratic nominee for president but was defeated in a landslide by Eisenhower both times, campaigning on themes of diplomatic engagement, moderate economic management, and the prese
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Campaign: 1952 presidential election.
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While Stevenson was still governor of Illinois, President Harry S
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"Stevenson reinvigorated [the Democratic Party] and made it seem an open and exciting place for a generation of younger Americans who might otherwise never have thought of working for a political candidate
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At the height of the Korean War and McCarthyism, with the [Democratic] party already decaying from the scandals of twenty years in power
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Hiss was found guilty of perjury on the spying charges
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Kefauver had chaired a Senate committee that traveled to several large cities and held televised hearings into organized crime
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Adlai and Ellen were divorced; their son Adlai III later recalled that "There hadn't been a good relationship for a long time
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Stevenson privately gave a sworn deposition as a character witness for Alger Hiss, a former State Department official who was later found to be a spy for the Soviet Union
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Career landmark: Governor of Illinois (1949–1953).
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Stevenson was elected governor of Illinois, defeating incumbent governor Dwight H
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Stevenson was chosen by Jacob Arvey, leader of the powerful Chicago Democratic political organization, to be the Democratic candidate in the Illinois gubernatorial race against the incumbent Republican, Dwight H
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Stevenson took a temporary position in the State Department, as special assistant to US Secretary of State Edward Stettinius to work with Assistant Secretary of State Archibald MacLeish on a proposed world organization
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Served on the committee that created the United Nations, and was a member of the initial U
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Which causes World War II to drag on until 1947
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Major Frank Knox, newly appointed by President Franklin D
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Adlai inherited one-quarter of the Pantagraph's stock, providing him with a large, dependable source of income for the rest of his life
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Stevenson returned to Chicago to practice law
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Adlai and Ellen purchased a 70-acre (28 ha) tract of land along the Des Plaines River near Libertyville, Illinois, a wealthy suburb of Chicago
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And then in 1945, 1946, and 1947 on various United Nations projects, but he was not a close friend or associate of him
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Stevenson married Ellen Borden, a well-to-do socialite
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And passed the Illinois state bar examination the same year
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Enlisted in the United States Naval Reserve for World War I
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At the age of twelve, Stevenson accidentally killed Ruth Merwin, a 16-year-old friend, while demonstrating drill technique with a rifle, inadvertently left loaded, during a party at the Stevenson home
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Born 1900-02-05.
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