Another notable action was reforming the police force in Minneapolis. He once gave an interview and said about those years: "I was mayor once, in Minneapolis...a mayor is a fine job, it's the best job there is between being a governor and being the President." With a vast political career behind him, Humphrey also served as a United States Senator from Minnesota since 1949. He was the first Democrat to take office in the state of Minnesota since before the Civil War. Hubert Humphrey held the position until he started his Vice Presidency. Vice PresidencyBefore serving as the 38th Vice President of the United States, Hubert Humphrey ran for the Democratic presidential nomination twice, but was unsuccessful in his attempts. Instead, he became VP under President Lyndon B. Johnson (November 22, 1963 – January 20, 1969) who was also known as LBJ. Lyndon B. Johnson took office after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, while Hubert Humphrey was the one to fill in the vacant spot of the Vice President, the seat being left empty for a 14 month period. As Vice President, Humphrey initially opposed the Vietnam War, but after being given the cold shoulder from President Lyndon B. …show more content…
Humphrey referred to the years along with Johnson as: “After four years as Vice-President ... I had lost some of my personal identity and personal forcefulness. ... I ought not to have let a man [Johnson] who was going to be a former President dictate my future.” He wrote that shortly after his close defeat in the 1968 presidential election.Another important speech that he held when it announced his candidacy for the 1968 election included: “Here we are, just as we ought to be, here we are, the people, here we are the spirit of dedication, here we are the way politics ought to be in America, the politics of happiness, politics of purpose, politics of joy; and that's the way it's going to be, all the way, too, from here on out. We seek an America able to preserve and nurture all the basic rights of free expression, yet able to reach across the divisions that too often separate race from race, region from region, young from old, worker from scholar, rich from poor. We seek an America able to do this in the higher knowledge that our goals and ideals are worthy of conciliation and personal sacrifice.” Later YearsAfter leaving the office in 1969, Hubert Humphrey started focusing on teaching at Macalester