Swingin1 on the polden Gate

Striding buoyantly along San Francisco's Eddy Street on a corner-to-corner, hand-kneading, quip-crackling campaign tour, Candidate Adlai Stevenson passed the California College of Chiropody and laughed at the yell from students: "Hi Adlai, how's your feet?" Shouted Stevenson: "I'm going to come over there and lay down." A member of Stevenson's entourage murmured: "That's the first time I ever heard you make a grammatical error." Grinned Stevenson, whose Ivy League diction has been counted a political debit by his advisers: "I've got orders to make one grammatical error a day." Orders or no orders, Stevenson was acting like a candidate who enjoyed his role--and his day in San Francisco was one to remember.

Teetering on the Border. With the regularity of the rollers on nearby Stinson Beach, good news came pouring in to Stevenson that day. In the District of Columbia primary he had clobbered Estes Kefauver by a two-to-one margin and won all six convention votes. In the Alabama primary he had won at least 20 of the 52 half-vote delegates (with 20 others uncommitted and the rest facing runoffs), and thus indicated that he can hold his own in the Deep South. In the Florida panhandle, Campaigner Kefauver, acting as though his shoes were really pinching as the critical May 29 primary drew closer, complained that he had been smeared by a spreading rumor that he favored calling out federal troops to enforce desegregation.

Prospecting in San Francisco for California's June 5 primary. Stevenson stood on the kitchen balcony in the apartment of an unemployed Negro and spoke to a crowd in a parking lot. He perched on the rear platform of a cable car and shouted: "You have more happiness and gaiety here than any place in the world." He teetered on the concrete border of a Union Square flower bed and praised "one of the greatest civilizations of the world, here on the rim of the Pacific by the Golden Gate." He shook hands in a mixed Negro and Japanese neighborhood, wore a sombrero and scrape and cried "Viva" in a Latin American community, sat at a green-topped table with 16 Chinatown moguls.

Beyond Deserts. That night, in a little Italian restaurant called La Pantera, he had the bubblingest, headiest experience of all. Outside La Pantera, a full block at the foot of Telegraph Hill had been roped off and was jammed with jostling, laughing, folk-singing Italians, who drank free wine from paper cups and made the night ring with their cheers at Stevenson's simple statement: "I have come here to ask for your vote." While four cops wrestled to hold back the crowd. Stevenson struggled into La Pantera for dinner with Owner Rena Nicolai and her employees. They pushed two bottles of Bardolino wine into his arms, then grabbed them back and started pouring. While a tenor sang La Donna e mobile, Stevenson ate spaghetti and joined in a dozen toasts (to Adlai, to Rena, to good times, etc.).

Returning to the outdoor platform, Stevenson was obviously touched. "I have been blessed far beyond my deserts," he said emotionally. "I have often wondered why I went into politics. Now I know part of the answer. I never remember anything quite equal to the night on this street."

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