Robert F. Kennedy and the 1968 Indiana Primary

7. The Train

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 The Train The call came to the home of Anthony M. Boysa, a fireman for the Penn Central Railroad, at eight o’clock the morning of Friday, June 8, 1968, from a crew dispatcher in Newark, New Jersey. Boysa had been assigned to a twenty-onecar train pulled by two black electric locomotives scheduled to leave New York on Saturday from Pennsylvania Station for a 226-mile journey to Union Station in Washington, D.C. “They told us when they called us up to dress special—but I didn’t stay clean long,” Boysa said. “When you walk through the aisles in the engine, you brush past all the motor casings.” He remembered that the train’s engineer came to work that day in a suit with a white shirt and tie. “That was unusual,” said Boysa. Supervisors and laborers worked most of the day Friday at the Sunnyside Yards loading the train with provisions for its trip, including steaks, hamburgers, and cheesecake. The train, with an observation car at the rear draped in black bunting, finally left Pennsylvania Station at 1:02 pm Saturday. Onboard were nearly a thousand people—the family and 122 · Robert F. Kennedy and the 1968 Indiana Primary friends of U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who had died two days earlier, another victim that violent year of an assassin’s bullets.1 When Senator Kennedy stepped off the stage at the ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles early the morning of June 5, he had just declared victory over Eugene McCarthy in the crucial California primary. “We are a great country, an unselfish country, and a compassionate country,” Kennedy told his cheering supporters. “I intend to make that the basis for running.” Much had happened in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination since Kennedy had won his first primary, Indiana, nearly two months earlier. In Nebraska, the contest immediately following his triumph in the Hoosier State, Kennedy had an easy time. McCarthy campaigned in Nebraska for only four days. Instead, he concentrated his efforts on the May 28 Oregon primary. “Although I hoped that I would not do too badly in Nebraska,” said McCarthy, “I had no real reason to expect that I would run very well.” His assessment proved accurate. Kennedy continued to connect with rural audiences as he had done in Indiana. At one campaign stop a gust of wind blew a single piece of paper from his hands, prompting the candidate to joke, “Give me that back. That’s my farm program.” In another community, he told the farmers gathered to hear him that he represented the best friend they had in the campaign. “I’m already doing more for the farmer than any of them, and if you don’t believe me, just look down at my breakfast table,” Kennedy said. “We are consuming more milk and more bread and more eggs, doing more for farm consumption— than the family of any other candidate.” The farmers, according to Kennedy aide Peter Edelman, represented “his kind of people.” On May 14 Kennedy won with 51.5 percent of the vote to 31 percent for McCarthy. The combined figures for the two antiwar candidates showed that the country stood ready to move in a new direction, Kennedy told reporters. In a direct swipe at the candidacy of Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Kennedy said, “We can’t have the politics of happiness and joy when we have so many problems in our own country.”2 With two primary victories in a row under its belt, the Kennedy campaign appeared poised to sweep the McCarthy threat aside once and for all in Oregon . The northwestern state, however, proved to be inhospitable territory for Kennedy. McCarthy had been able to establish a solid presence in the state over the past six months. “In Oregon we had a better organization than we had in any other state,” said McCarthy. “It was also the best financed of our efforts because we had money well enough in advance to plan the spending The Train · 1 23 effectively.” Meanwhile, Kennedy’s campaign in the state floundered under the direction of Oregon congresswoman Edith Green. Just a month before the May 28 primary, Kennedy’s headquarters had just three people and only two desks. The mostly middle-class, suburban, well-educated, prosperous citizens of the state responded favorably...