On January 24, 1958, in her Washington office, Senator Smith was asked a very direct question by a writer for Scholastic Teacher magazine, and she gave a typically direct answer. The question was: “Would you ever consider running for either president or vice president?” Her answer: “No, I wouldn't . . . for the
simple reason that I know I haven't a ghost of a chance.”
Six years and three days later, on January 27, 1964, Margaret Chase Smith had obviously changed her mind.
Rumors of a possible Smith bid for the presidential nomination had been all over Washington and in newsrooms around the country for nearly a year
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When Smith was scheduled to give a speech to the Women’s National Press Club, the buzz intensified. Requests for an advance copy of her speech came from many of the major media, but they were all given the same response: No early release of the speech would be available.
The TV networks had even indicated that unless they received the requested copy of her speech, they probably wouldn't even cover it. The senator’s reaction to that kind of pressure was very typical: “That’s entirely up to you,” she told them.
Dressed in a blue suit with the trademark rose on her lapel, Margaret devoted nearly two-thirds of her speech to other topics. She recalled her own early career as a newspaperwoman in her hometown of Skowhegan, and her five years of writing a daily column for a major news syndicate. She spoke about the conditions prevailing in the country, particularly the decline of bigotry, hate, and fear that she had so eloquently denounced in her famous “Declaration of Conscience” speech on the Senate floor on June 1, 1950. (That was the speech which most observers at the time said was the beginning of the end for Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s demagogic witch-hunt for “communists in government.”) She recalled how she had been attacked as “too liberal” by conservatives, and “too conservative” by liberals—then reaffirmed her conviction that America was not a nation of extremists. Finally, she came to the part of the speech everyone had been waiting to hear.
“For more than a year . . . I have been receiving a steady flow of mail urging me to run for president of the United States. I was pleased and flattered with such expressions of confidence in me but did not take the suggestion seriously. I was sure the trend would be short-lived and would end. But instead of fading away, the mail increased and by mid-November of last year reached a new peak . . . and I concluded that I should make my decision before the end of January, and I have done so.”
The atmosphere in the room became palpably electric as Senator Smith reviewed the arguments in favor of her running for the presidential nomination. She had “more national office experience than any of the other announced candidates.” Her running would “break the barrier against women being considered seriously for the presidency.” Her candidacy would “give the voters a wider range of choice than that of conservative or liberal.” She, unlike her opponents, could claim “independence from any political machine or the party bosses . . . ”
By now Margaret Chase Smith was sounding very much like a candidate. So, in classic form, she began to speak about the reasons she should not run.
“First,” she said, “there are those who contend that a woman should never dare to aspire to the White House because this is a ‘man’s world.' A woman on the national ticket of a major political party would be a handicap . . .
“Second . . . the odds are too heavily against me for even the most remote chance of victory . . .
“Third, it is contended that, as a woman, I would not have the strength or stamina
to run . . .
“Fourth, I should not run, because I do not have the financial resources to wage the campaign that others have . . .
“Fifth, I should not run because I do not have the professional political organization that others have.”
She then alluded to the fact that to run for president would require that she end her record of consecutive roll call votes in the Senate, which now stood at 1,590.
At five feet, four inches, and a trim 128 pounds, with silvery hair and a soft voice tinged with the accent of her native state of Maine, Smith paused, removed her reading glasses, smiled benignly at her audience, and said:
“As compelling as are the reasons in favor of my running, I find the reasons that I should not run even more impelling. And so, because of these very impelling reasons against my running, I have decided that I shall enter the New Hampshire and Illinois primaries.”
The audience (and remember, it was the Women’s National Press Club) erupted in prolonged cheers and applause, and on that evening’s network newscasts and the front pages of most of the nation’s newspapers the next morning, one of the lead stories was that the lady senator from the state of Maine was a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.
Margaret Chase Smith was not the first woman to run for the presidency. In 1872, Victoria Woodhull was the candidate of the small “Equal Rights” Party, and in 1884, Belva Lockwood was that same party’s candidate for the White House. That was many years before women could even vote and, except for the novelty of it all, these two women aroused very little enthusiasm among the voters. But Margaret Chase Smith was not running for the “novelty” of it. She was after the nomination of one of the two major political parties in the United States.
Still, a lot of people, both at home and from around the country, needed convincing that she was in dead earnest. During one of her campaign visits to New Hampshire, a young political reporter for the Washington Post, David Broder, asked her whom she would support if her New Hampshire bid failed. “I don't intend to fail,” she said.
She visited New Hampshire several times over the winter, while maintaining her unblemished record of Senate roll call votes. On those bitterly cold mornings she would be up and about as early as 4 a.m. to meet and chat with the voters. She didn't even ask people to vote for her.
“They all know why I'm here,” she said. “I just want to give them a chance to look me over and know that I'm interested in what interests them.”
She was confronted by many, especially men, who thought she had no business running for president, but one 70-year-old man had a different opinion. “Why not have a woman president?” he said. “I was married to one!”
There were the usual “photo-ops,” including one in which a photographer tried to get a picture of Margaret standing beside a farmer’s cow, but the skittish animal refused to go near her.
“That cow doesn't like me,” she said. “She must be thinking of running for office herself.”
In a speech in Plymouth, New Hampshire, Smith declared that her first priority as president would be peace, and foreshadowed the now-famous challenge by Ronald Reagan to Russian president Mikhail Gorbachev when she said she would ask Soviet premier Khrushchev to “prove his peaceful intentions by tearing down the Berlin Wall.” It was another example of how often she would be ahead of the times in what she thought and said during her 32-year political career.
According to the records at the Margaret Chase Smith Library in Skowhegan, she traveled to 50 towns in New Hampshire, covered about 5,000 miles, and met 10,000 people. Yet her total campaign expenses were a mere $250!
Despite her hard work, the results of the New Hampshire primary were far below Smith’s hopes and expectations. She received only 2,812 votes. Yet even the Republican front-runner for the nomination, Sen. Barry Goldwater, came in second to UN ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, who could not even campaign personally because of his official position in government. It seemed that Margaret’s attempt to prove that one didn't need a million dollars to run for president (she had returned all campaign contributions she received) was a failure. But she had no intention to quit.
The next stop was the Illinois primary. Smith and Goldwater were the only candidates on the Illinois ballot. Unlike her New Hampshire campaign, which she conducted almost single-handedly, she had a vigorous organization of Illinois supporters, mostly women, working their hearts out for her. Though she spent only $85, and despite several times canceling speaking engagements because of a Senate roll call, she thrilled and surprised everyone, including herself, by racking up 208,000 votes—26% of the total! Not even Bill Lewis, her principal campaign advisor, had thought she would get more than 100,000 votes. She called it “a victory for every woman in the United States.” In truth, it was also a victory for her folksy campaign style.
Smith didn't campaign in the Oregon primary. Nelson Rockefeller was clearly unbeatable in that contest after Goldwater pulled out, but a determined women’s organization in Eugene, the Business and Professional Women’s (BPW) Club, gathered enough signatures to put her name on the ballot. The BPW then proceeded to finance a campaign on her behalf using their books of “green stamps” that many merchants of the 1950s and '60s gave with purchases and would redeem as cash for future purchases. NBC News anchor David Brinkley took note of this unique method of campaign financing on one of his nightly newscasts, saying that “the Smith campaign in Oregon is probably the first and only one ever financed by trading stamps.”
Except for occasional news stories about her and some random flurries of campaigning by her supporters, Smith’s hunt for delegates was really over. She would go to the Republican National Convention in San Francisco with little more than the satisfaction of having tried for the nomination in every way she could. There was, no doubt, another motive behind her candidacy. In one campaign stop in New Hampshire, she had told a young schoolgirl, “What I am doing may just make you president of the United States some day.”
Margaret Chase Smith’s name was placed in nomination by her close friend in the Senate, George Aiken of Vermont.
“I find myself in a most peculiar position,” Aiken said to the Republican delegates as he began his nominating speech. “I am severely restricted in what I can offer you for your support. Not a cabinet job, an ambassador’s appointment, or even a government contract. I can't even invite you all out for coffee, because my candidate sent every big check, every little check, every $10 bill, every $1 bill, and every penny [contributed to her campaign] straight back where they came from. My candidate wants the nomination solely on her record and her qualifications for the job. The only thing in the world left for me to offer you for your support is the best-managed government the United States ever had, headed by the most qualified person you ever voted for.”
As Senator Aiken formally placed Smith’s name in nomination, calling her “ace-high in integrity, ability, common sense, and courage . . . and one of the most capable persons I have ever known . . . ,” the convention band swung into “Everything’s Coming Up Roses,” all 14 members of the Maine delegation sported red roses on their lapels, and a dozen cheerleaders danced through the aisles waving more roses in the air.
During the brief but rousing floor demonstration for her, Senator Smith looked on with glistening eyes, and then quietly slipped out of the convention hall. She received 27 votes to Goldwater’s 883, but she had made history.
This was 42 years ago—a mere snapshot in the time line of the nation’s history—but when the first woman is elected to the office of president of the United States, and it is certain to happen, that woman will owe much to Margaret Chase Smith, the lady senator from the state of Maine.
