1956 Democratic National Convention

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The 1956 National Convention of the Democratic Party nominated former Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois for President and Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee for Vice President. It was held in the International Amphitheatre on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois August 13–17, 1956. Unsuccessful candidates for the presidential nomination included Gov. W. Averell Harriman of New York, Sen. Lyndon Baines Johnson of Texas, and Sen. Stuart Symington of Missouri.

As the unsuccessful 1952 Democratic Party presidential nominee, Stevenson had the highest stature of the active candidates and was easily renominated. Former President Harry Truman, whose support for Stevenson in '52 helped secure him the nomination, was opposed to his renomination in 1956, instead favoring Harriman. It did no good, as Truman was no longer a sitting President, and Stevenson was nominated on the first ballot.

The convention was marked by a "free vote" for the vice-presidential nomination in which the winner, Kefauver, defeated Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts. The vice-presidential vote, which required three separate ballots, was one of the last multi-ballot contests held at the quadrennial political convention of any major U.S. political party.

The Democratic convention preceded the Republican convention in the Cow Palace, San Francisco, California. At the GOP gathering, incumbent Dwight D. Eisenhower was nominated for a second term.

NBC-TV assigned two of its reporters, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, to co-anchor their 1956 convention television coverage. The two men were so successful at this assignment that the network promoted them to anchor their evening news broadcast, the Huntley-Brinkley Report (1956-1970).

[edit] The 1956 Democratic Platform

The Democrats favored greater reliance on the United Nations, multilateral disarmament, more spending for programs relating to social welfare and agriculture, "a full and integrated program of development, protection, management and conservation of natural resources" and the use of peaceful atomic energy

With regard to the growing issue of civil rights, the platform called for voting rights, equal employment opportunities, and the desegregation of public schools.