RFK and Humphrey Are Headliners at Liberal Party Rally

Oct. 29, 1964 - Tens of thousands of persons poured into Seventh Avenue today for one of the quadrennial rituals of American politics — the Liberal party rally in the garment district.

They were there to lionize Hubert Humphrey, the Democratic‐Liberal nominee for Vice President, and Robert F. Kennedy, the Democratic‐Liberal nominee for the Senate, and to hear the candidates heap praise upon each other.

Waving a copy of a brochure damning Kennedy's record on civil rights, Humphrey shouted: “This morning when I arrived in New York, I found a new low in politics. Someone handed me one of these pamphlets.”

The pamphlet, published by a “Committee of Democrats for Keating‐Johnson ‐Humphrey,” was reportedly financed by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, who are led by Kennedy’s enemy, James R. Hoffa. Copies of it have been widely distributed in Harlem and other neighborhoods.

“Let me make it crystal clear,” Humphrey declared, “that President Johnson and his Vice‐Presidential running mate repudiate this document.

“I know we would never have had a civil rights bill if it had not been for Mr. Kennedy and his staff. You know what you should do with this kind of material? Tear it up! Throw it away! It’s no good!”

With that, Humphrey shredded the leaflet he was holding and threw the confetti‐sized pieces into the crowd of political and labor leaders sitting behind him.

The big crowd roared when Humphrey and Kennedy, riding in an open car, pulled up to the speakers’ platform at 12:31 p.m. Ticker tape fell from the windows of nearby buildings and a misdirected salvo of confetti hit the former Attorney General full in the face.

Someone waved a sign that said: “Sew it up for Lyndon.”

Along Seventh Avenue, the people were packed together as tightly as the threads in a sharkskin suit. Only one lane was kept open for the Humphrey‐Kennedy motorcade, and that was almost blocked, too.

Kennedy, standing where his brother had stood just before the 1960 election, said that Barry Goldwater had visited New York City only briefly “because he was afraid someone would saw off the Eastern Seaboard while he was still here.”

When that remark evoked laughter, the former Attorney General added another: “I understand that he [Mr. Goldwater] has come up with a solution for the crime problem in Central Park. He would use nuclear weapons to defoliate it.”

Later, in a more serious mood, Kennedy told a group of reporters that the Teamsters Union was not only spreading “scurrilous” literature about him but had sent members of its staff into the state to work for his defeat.

He denounced a pamphlet headed “Nasser for Kennedy,” which was signed “Citizens for Keating, 521 Fifth Avenue” — the address of the campaign headquarters of Senator Keating, Kennedy’s Republican opponent.

That leaflet had been attacked at an early‐morning press conference by a group of Jewish leaders who described it as “offensive in its rank ethnic appeal” and “deplorable in its use of fear psychology.”

The Jewish leaders were Dore Schary, the writer; former Federal Judge Simon Rifkind; Monroe Goldwater, lawyer; Abraham Feinberg, president of Israeli Bonds, and Irving Engel, former president of the American Jewish Committee. All said they were for Kennedy.

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