ABSTRACT
The wonder was that, seven years later, on June 4, 1952, when once again he returned to Eisenhower Park a hero, the reverence was still there. That day’s festivities had followed a long and astonishingly persistent effort to make him a Presidential candidate, a movement that had begun while the Nazis were still fighting. Even during his first visit to Abilene he had had to deny any political ambitions. Once west of Topeka the trees gradually disappear, and motorists along Interstate 70 can see rolling plains as far as the horizon on all sides. About one-third of the way across the state, some forty-five miles past the university town of Manhattan, white grain elevators and the towering old Sunflower Hotel, visible for many miles around, mark the village of Abilene; and, seconds later, large and very modern neon motel signs appear alongside the road.
