CLINTON VISITS MICHIGAN CITY

Photo/N-D files

Robert Kennedy greets a crowd in frontof the Michigan City Courthouse on April 15, 1968.

Robert Kennedy's 1968 visit memorable

By Henry Lange

News-Dispatch staff writer

He might have been president, this young man with theshock of long hair, a jaunty demeanor, friendly, as easy with a joke aswith the depth of serious issues he discussed in Michigan City 28 yearsago.

For days in advance, Michigan City buzzed with anticipationfollowing the announcement that U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, brother ofthe late President John F. Kennedy, would be in Michigan City on Monday,April 15.

It was primary time in Indiana, and Kennedy was in athree-way race with Eugene McCarthy and favorite-son candidate Gov. RogerBranigan for Indiana's Democratic primary votes.

It was Michigan City's opportunity for a touch of Camelot.It had almost happened eight years earlier when JFK himself was scheduledto speak in the city, but remained in Washington for an important vote oncivil rights legislation.

The city learned the week before that a local committeehad successfully garnered the candidate's attention after he began to stumpthe state following an Indiana Primary kickoff in Indianapolis.

Local industrialist Phillip Sprague joined with RobertMiller, school principal and Democratic party leader; Michael Brennan, presidentof the Young Democrats; Thomas Brennan of Purdue University; and WilliamKenefick, local attorney and one of Indiana's most influential Democratsto form the committee.

SEN. KENNEDY WILL MAKE SPEECH IN CITY MONDAY, The News-Dispatchblazed across its front page in advance of the candidate's appearance. Theplan called for the Kennedy entourage to travel from South Bend along U.S.20 to U.S. 35, and down Michigan Boulevard to the Courthouse. A flatbedtruck was rigged with a speaker's stand and the Kennedy speech scheduledfor 2:30 p.m.

The day before the visit telephone crews were busy settingup communications lines for the Kennedy press corps, who would use a vacantbuilding just east and across the alley from the courthouse.

Reports on the Kennedy visit placed crowd estimatesthat day at between 2,500 and 5,000 people, the crowd starting to gatherabout 1 p.m., with the entire block cordoned off.

Kennedy arrived in a convertible, with his wife, Ethel,and Mrs. Scott Carpenter, wife of the famed astronaut. Hundreds of balloonswere sent skyward to a chant of "Up, Up With RFK." Signs wereraised across the audience, even a few for Eugene McCarthy.

At one point, national television tended to block thecrowd's view of Kennedy, and the candidate chided the media. "If youdon't move, someone ruthless might come down and make you move," hejoked.

Introduced by Mayor Conrad Kominiarek, Kennedy spokeabout the need for law and order in the nation. He encouraged private enterpriseto do all it could to get people out of the ghettos, off the welfare rollsand into the workplace, and called for an end to corruption in Vietnam.

The crowd was a mixture of the party faithful, someRepublicans and the curious. They disbursed when Kennedy got into the convertibleand the entourage headed downtown for a brief stop at Kennedy headquarters.There, Doug Adams, coach of the 1966 Red Devil state champion basketballteam, presented the senator with a basketball.

The car caravan then headed south on Franklin Streetto pick up the Northern Indiana Toll Road for the trip to Gary, where hespoke again.

However, there was a hitch. A very important lady wasleft behind: Ethel Kennedy, the candidate's wife. In the rush to get intothe car after the speech, she failed to climb aboard.

Two cars from the caravan were sent back, preceded bya police motorcycle escort. Mrs. Kennedy was picked up and, with sirensscreaming, was taken down Franklin Street. She finally caught up with herhusband and the rest of the Kennedy party at Otis.

Six weeks after the Kennedy visit, the senator was struckdown by an assassin's bullet in California, the same fate that had claimedhis brother, the president.

Several residents of area have met many presidents

By Dan Rosenberg

News-Dispatch staff writer

President Clinton's visit to Michigan City this weekoffered many area residents their first chance to see a chief executivein the flesh.

But for some Michigan City and LaPorte County residents,seeing a president was old hat. Quite a few city and county residents havemet presidents, presidential candidates, former or future presidents andfirst ladies in the past.

One of those residents is former Mayor Randy Miller.Before Clinton's visit, he already had seen six different presidents, datingall the way back to Franklin Roosevelt.

On a Boy Scout visit to Washington in 1937, Miller shookRoosevelt's hand.

"His motorcade stopped and he got out and I shookhands with him," said Miller, who obviously still relishes the memoryeven though FDR was a Democrat and Miller grew up to be a Republican mayorand city councilman.

Other presidents Miller has met include John F. Kennedy,Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.

"I met Kennedy as a naval officer on reserve trainingin New York," Miller said. "I saw LBJ when he spoke in Indianapolis,and I saw Ford when I was at a reception in Indianapolis.

"I saw Reagan in 1974 before he was president.The most remarkable thing was that I met Reagan again in 1976 and he rememberedme. He's lost it now, but he used to have a really sharp mind."

Miller still treasures two photographs -- one of himwith Ford, and the other of him with Reagan.

Another local resident who has met presidents is Henry"Bud" Kintzele, who has long been involved as a Democrat in areapolitics.

Kintzele's favorite memory of a presidential encounteris his 1959 lunch with Kennedy in Washington.

Kintzele had come to Washington to brief congressmenon a labor/management relations bill, and met with then Sen. Kennedy alongwith several other labor officials.

"We had a very enjoyable time," Kintzele said."He was very easy to talk to, and he gave the impression that he enjoyedwhat you were discussing with him. He seemed sincere when he thanked mefor coming to talk."

Kintzele said Kennedy was as handsome a man in personas he appeared to be on television. "He wasn't different than his pictures,"Kintzele said. "I was impressed with his youthful looks."

Another Michigan City resident who saw Kennedy in personis Sylvia Bankoff, co-founder of the Sinai Forum.

Bankoff was in Washington on Jan. 20, 1961, for Kennedy'sinauguration, and she heard him make his famous "Ask not what yourcountry can do for you" speech.

She doesn't remember much about the speech. Mostly,Bankoff just remembers how cold it was in Washington that day.

"It was bitter cold, freezing cold," saidBankoff, who attended the inauguration with her husband, Dr. Milton Bankoff,who died several years ago. "They'd had a bad snowstorm, and we arrivedat Baltimore Airport three hours late. I still have the gown that I wore.It was a memorable occasion, and Kennedy got tremendous applause."

Another memorable occasion for Bankoff was meeting EleanorRoosevelt many years after she had been first lady.

Roosevelt was in Michigan City in the 1950s to speakat the Sinai Forum, and Bankoff found plenty of time to talk to her.

"I was tremendously impressed with her," Bankoffsaid. "She was in her mid-70s, and she still could run rings aroundthe rest of us. When I wondered about where she got all her energy, shesaid, 'I just close my eyes for 10 minutes and then I come back all readyto go on to the next thing.' The forum was packed to the rafters, and shewas very much admired."

City Council President Evelyn Baker has seen severalpresidents up close, including Kennedy and Reagan.

But one of her favorite memories is of meeting a manwho never would be president.

Baker was one of many Michigan City residents who shookSen. Robert F. Kennedy's hand when he made a campaign speech here in 1968.Six weeks later, he was assassinated in Los Angeles.

"I got to shake his hand and say hello to him infront of the courthouse," Baker said.

"I was so surprised. He looked so different inperson, like a little kid. His hair kept falling in his eyes, and he keptpushing it back up."

Though Baker is a lifelong Democrat, she still has fondmemories of the time she saw Reagan, who was unsuccessfully campaigningfor president when she saw him in 1976.

Baker was told that Reagan would be having lunch atTinker's Dam, now Hacienda Mexican Restaurant. A friend dared her to go

Even though he was a Republican, Baker thought, "Whynot?"

"I was always a fan of him in the movies,"she said.

"Reagan rolled down the window of his car as hewas leaving and I got to shake his hand," she said.

Though it makes Baker happy to think of her past presidentialencounters, a chance to meet Clinton would make her happier still, she saidseveral days before the president's visit. "What would really top offmy career in politics would be to talk to President Clinton."

On Wednesday, her wish came true.

News-Dispatch staff writer

One can only imagine the delight of being a mayor announcingto your city that the president of the United States is coming to town.

It is a high honor, indeed a great joy shared by veryfew individuals, and throughout the days of planning, that joy and pridehave been much in evidence with Mayor Sheila Bergerson Brillson.

When the mayor, years from today, looks back over hercareer, Aug. 28, 1996, will have to be one of the most significant days,a day that local historians will mark well as the day President Clintoncame to town.

There was another mayor who marked a presidential visitin two ways, as a child during a time of national tragedy, and as the chiefexecutive of his community in a joyful time of cheers and music and red,white and blue everywhere as a president came to town.

Martin T. Krueger was elected mayor of Michigan Citysix times. He was responsible for the acquisition and development of WashingtonPark, and was no doubt the most popular mayor in Michigan City history.

As a boy and as a man, and as the mayor of a small town,Krueger's association with the presidential mystic was monumental.

Krueger came to Michigan City as a young boy, an immigrantfrom Germany, and his life in many ways became the American dream. He wasa most unusual leader whose service ranged from 12 years on the School Board,to being a City Council member nominated for the post by both parties, candidatefor Congress, several times member of the Indiana Legislature and six-termmayor.

But it is back to Krueger's boyhood that we go for 10-year-oldMartin T. Krueger's first brush with history of major proportions on a rainyMay 1, 1865.

Young Martin had been in the United States for onlysix months, and with his young friends, also the sons of German immigrants,had summer jobs helping local farmers plant potatoes.

About a mile outside the city on that rainy, half play,half work day, the group of boys paused when they heard the sound of cannonsbooming in the distance.

As the story goes, young boys of the day were not reallyaware of current events, and had no idea that the Civil War had ended. Infact Krueger, it is reported, actually thought the Confederates were attackingMichigan City.

Running into town to face the danger, they found insteadhundreds of people, unsmiling, well-dressed and heading for the MichiganCentral Railroad station.

People were lined up, the line slowly moving as, oneby one, the townspeople stepped aboard a railroad coach stopped beneatha series of evergreen arches. Krueger was curious and stepped into the lineonly to be turned back by a guard who told him that he could only come aboardwith his parents.

The young mayor-to-be was a resourceful lad, and madehis way aboard the train hidden in the huge hoop skirt of an elderly womanboarding the car with her husband. Inside, Martin probably passed for herson.

Reality then set in: He was looking into the casketof President Abraham Lincoln. The Lincoln funeral train had stopped in MichiganCity on that rainy day in May, nearing the end of a 1,662-mile journey fromWashington, D.C., to Springfield, Ill.

The somewhat stunned boy was whisked from the trainby a soldier and firmly placed on the ground. In his wildest imagination,10-year-old Martin T. Krueger could not have placed himself near the samesite in Michigan City's North Side rail complex 34 years later, aboard anotherpresidential train.

It is now 1899 and Krueger is mayor of Michigan City,and charged with the responsibility of welcoming a most distinguished visitor,President William McKinley. The McKinley train was due on Oct. 17, pausingin Michigan City on its way to Kalamazoo, Mich.

The mayor had but a short time to prepare for the visit,and called for a public meeting in the City Council chambers the night ofOct. 12. About 50 citizens, many of them well-known civic leaders, showedup.

There were speeches and subcommittees were formed forfinance, decorations, receptions, etc. The morning of the 13th, Kruegerand the general committee looked over the North Franklin Street area wherethe president's reception would take place.

From Michigan Street north, Michigan City was a seaof flags and bunting. By Oct. 16, Michigan City was well prepared for thepresidential visit, and the mayor headed for Chicago with State Sen. Culbert,also a member of the reception committee.

Both men made the trip from Chicago to Michigan Citywith McKinley, enjoying a conversation with the president on the way home.At Michigan City, arriving late due to a delay at Kensington, the presidentialparty was greeted by a crowd of 10,000 people. For Martin T. Krueger, ithad to be one of the proudest moments of his life, introducing the presidentof the United States to the people of Michigan City, Ind.