A Touch of Class in the Heartland

Kansas City turned itself inside out to prove that it is a big-time place with small-town friendliness. Giving a party became a civic obligation. Hospitality was evangelical in its fervor. Kansas Citians greeted arriving Republicans, journalists and celebrities with simulated parchment scrolls entitling "the Bearer to see Missouri in all its Grandeur" and signed by Republican Governor Christopher Bond. To the 4,518 delegates and alternates, merchants and town leaders contributed burlap tote bags stuffed with gifts and guidebooks and stamped with elephants encircled by large hearts (symbolizing, naturally, the nation's heartland).

Some 2,800 volunteers of the Kansas City Host Committee (including many Democrats) arranged for 200 families to put up reporters and visitors who were unable to find hotel space. The committee also set up booths in big hotels to help visitors find their way around and provided tours of the city. One of the biggest attractions for the Republican delegates: the Harry S. Truman Library and gravesite in nearby Independence, which drew 2,700 sightseers on the first day of the convention. Other features of the tourist route: the Nelson Gallery of Art (also the scene of an enormous 1,500-guest reception attended by Vice President Nelson Rockefeller the evening before the convention began); the Mission Hills district, straddling the Missouri-Kansas border, where $250,000 mansions abound, built with fortunes based on grain, livestock, chemicals, candy, banking and real estate; and the dozens of magnificent fountains which dot the city like diamond studs.

There were parties for every state delegation, though the outlanders' tastes occasionally caught local hostesses unprepared. "I thought we had stocked the bar with everything," said Mrs. Joseph Bruening, who invited 200 Arizonans to a poolside party, "but the first drink request was for Scotch and milk. There wasn't a drop of milk in the house, so we gave her Scotch and half-and-half and hoped she didn't notice."

The most lavish affair was thrown by Candy Tycoon Charles H. Price II and his wife Carol, whose own fortune is based on holdings in Pepperidge Farm, Campbell Soup and Swanson. The Prices opened up their richly furnished two-story penthouse "The Walnuts," in the Country Club Plaza section of Kansas City, to 210 guests, including many of the town's leading citizens. Hallmark Card Owners Joyce Hall and his son Donald were there, as were civic-minded Banker R. Crosby Kemper Jr., for whose father the convention arena is named, and Henry Block, head of H & R Block, Inc., the firm that offers first aid to people faced with income tax forms. So were a number of Eastern sophisticates who were visibly impressed by the Price pad. Said Georgetown Columnist Rowland Evans: "Their place is so sumptuous that you'd have to have a party there every night to justify it."

Most parties were less spectacular, often featuring barbecue and corned-beef sandwiches and beer. The affairs bore little resemblance to the celebrity-studded shindigs staged in New York during the Democratic Convention. About the only celebrities on hand were Singers Pat Boone and Gordon MacRae, Musician Lionel Hampton, Actors Efrem Zimbalist Jr. and Cary Grant, Sexpot Elizabeth Ray (who was barred from one reception by the Secret Service), and an array of TV stars like CBS's Walter Cronkite, NBC'S David Brinkley, and especially ABC-bound Barbara Walters. Another star at the convention was Singer Sonny Bono, who upset local society by turning down the loan of a Kansas City home as his residence because it did not have enough bathrooms. In any case, most parties fizzled by 6:30 or so when guests began heading for Kemper Arena, site of the real action.

As in New York, there were few demonstrations. One reason for this was that while 5,000 protesters had been expected, only 400 or so had materialized. Another reason was the presence of WATCH, Inc., a group of 460 religious and civic volunteers who kept close track of the assorted Yippies, gays, other protesters and police. Working 24 hours a day, these specially trained intermediaries acted to avert confrontations by letting both the activists and the cops know what everybody was up to.

Probably the most theatrical demonstrations--pure ham--took place around the elegant lobby of the Crown Center Hotel. There, a group of motley protesters tried to put on display their presidential candidate, an immense hog named Larrimore Hustle who was running on the slogan, "Revive pork-barrel politics." When the Yippies tried to drag Hustle into the lobby, he got stuck in the glass door. As police poured into the place, Hustle panicked and soiled the elegant red carpet on which Gerald Ford was scheduled to walk.

The gays had an only slightly larger contingent of followers and an equally edifying chant for their cause: "Ho, ho, homosexual, sodomy laws are ineffectual." There was also a smattering of anarchists, fundamentalist preachers and animal lovers (opposing leg traps) scattered throughout the city. COYOTE (Come Off Your Old, Tired Ethics), the national organization for hookers, was on hand too, and a few locals put out a twelve-page tabloid called Hump cataloguing the local delights. A police threat to slap $500 bonds on both the hustlers and their customers helped to clean out the downtown area. For the most part, however, the police made only a few arrests (which included one nude man who said he was a presidential candidate running on the platform "I have nothing to hide").

If there was little disorder, there was plenty of disgruntlement about some of the city's shortcomings. Many visitors complained bitterly about their hotel accommodations. Foreign journalists, assigned the least desirable hotels, griped about uncomfortable, small or unclean rooms--though, as one staffer at the foreign press center put it, "These guys are used to the Hilton, and can't stand the thought of anything less." Others found the food generally bad and pretentious, and had to endure long lines to savor the deep-fried catfish at the Savoy Grill, the barbecued ribs at Arthur Bryant's or the Kansas City strip steaks at the Golden Ox. Cabs were usually as scarce as ocean breezes.

Still nobody who visits the city's Nelson Gallery, one of the great collections of Oriental works, is likely to think of Kansas City as a mere cow town. Some of the Republican gallery goers must have been particularly struck by the fragment of a Khmer sandstone lintel from the 10th century. It depicts the Hindu rain god Indra riding a three-headed elephant named Airavata. Indra is clearly nimble-footed and his face is ineffably serene--though why it should be, given the fellow's precarious position, is not clear. The religious significance of this artwork doubtless escaped most visitors, but the political symbolism was obvious.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.