George McGovern - Later Education and Early Career

Later Education and Early Career

Upon coming home, McGovern returned to Dakota Wesleyan University, aided by the G.I. Bill, and graduated from there in June 1946 with a B.A. degree magna cum laude. For a while he suffered from nightmares about flying through flak barrages or his plane being on fire. He continued with debate, again winning the state Peace Oratory Contest with a speech entitled "From Cave to Cave" that presented a Christian-influenced Wilsonian outlook. The couple's second daughter, Susan, was born in March 1946.

McGovern switched from Wesleyan Methodism to less fundamental regular Methodism. Influenced by Walter Rauschenbusch and the Social Gospel movement, McGovern began divinity studies at Garrett Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois, near Chicago. He preached as a Methodist student supply minister at Diamond Lake Church in Mundelein, Illinois, during 1946 and 1947, but became dissatisfied by the minutiae of his pastoral duties. In late 1947, McGovern left the ministry and enrolled in graduate studies at Northwestern University in Evanston, where he also worked as a teaching assistant. He received an M.A. in history in 1949.

McGovern then returned to his alma mater, Dakota Wesleyan, and became a professor of history and political science. With the assistance of a Hearst fellowship for 1949–1950, he continued pursuing graduate studies during summers and other free time. The couple's third daughter, Teresa, was born in June 1949. Eleanor McGovern began to suffer from bouts of depression, but continued to assume the large share of household and child-rearing duties. McGovern earned a PhD in history from Northwestern University in 1953. His 450-page dissertation, The Colorado Coal Strike, 1913–1914, was a sympathetic account of the miners' revolt against Rockefeller interests in the Colorado Coalfield War. His thesis advisor, noted historian Arthur S. Link, later said he had not seen a better student than McGovern in 26 years of teaching.

Nominally a Republican growing up, McGovern began to admire Democratic President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during World War II. At Northwestern, his exposure to the work of China scholars John King Fairbank and Owen Lattimore had convinced him that unrest in Southeast Asia was homegrown and that U.S. foreign policy towards Asia was counterproductive. Discouraged by the onset of the Cold War, McGovern was attracted to the 1948 presidential campaign of former Vice President and Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace. He volunteered for Wallace in South Dakota and attended the Wallace Progressive Party's first national convention as a delegate. After deciding there that Wallace was in the control of "fanatics", Communist and otherwise, he did not vote in the general election, although he supported the re-election of President Harry Truman.

Four years later, in 1952, he heard a radio broadcast of Governor Adlai Stevenson's speech accepting the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party. He immediately dedicated himself towards Stevenson's campaign, publishing seven articles in Mitchell's Daily Republic newspaper outlining the historical issues that separated the Democratic Party from the Republicans. The McGoverns named their only son Steven, born immediately after the 1952 Democratic National Convention, after his new hero. Although Stevenson lost the election, McGovern remained active in politics, believing that "the engine of progress in our time in America is the Democratic Party". In early 1953, McGovern left teaching to become executive secretary of the South Dakota Democratic Party the state chair having recruited him after reading his articles. Democrats in the state were at a low, holding no statewide offices and only 2 of the 110 seats in the state legislature. Friends and political figures had counseled McGovern against making the move, but despite his mild, unassuming manner, McGovern had an ambitious nature and was intent upon starting a political career of his own.

McGovern spent the following years rebuilding and revitalizing the party, building up a large list of voter contacts via frequent travel around the state. Democrats showed improvement in the 1954 elections, winning 25 seats in the state legislature. From 1954 to 1956 he also was on a political organization advisory group for the Democratic National Committee. The McGoverns' fifth and final child, Mary, was born in 1955.