Bentsen Evokes His Pioneer Roots in Dakotas

Lloyd Bentsen, son of a Texas rancher and the Democrats’ chief envoy to Dixie, revealed another identity Tuesday on a pilgrimage to frigid South Dakota, where his family first settled a century ago. This was Bentsen, a descendant of pioneers, a grandson of the prairies.

Bentsen and his entourage drove 50 miles from the nearest airport to return to the tiny town of White (pop. 472) and sit around a table at the Palace Cafe with elderly residents who remember his family, which moved south to Texas before the First World War.

Later, in the high school gymnasium, he spoke movingly about his immigrant grandfather, Peter Bentsen, a Dane who spent a “terrible first winter” in a sod house outside White “at a time the government would bet you 160 acres that you couldn’t make it through the winter.”

When Bentsen turned to presidential politics it was, in large part, to remind the audience that he was the only major candidate “who was born and raised on a farm and is still in farming.”

In a sign of the vice presidential nominee’s importance to the Democratic ticket’s final push, Bentsen will fly to Los Angeles today for a live TV interview with Dan Rather on “The CBS Evening News.” He will also appear in his first 5-minute network television ad on Sunday.

Bentsen devoted all of Tuesday to South Dakota, North Dakota and Montana--states so sparsely populated that, together, they have just 10 electoral votes. He conceded that North Dakota offered little prospect of a Democratic victory, but insisted that the day’s investment was worthwhile “to make an impact” in areas where “no one has paid much attention.”

For a rally in Fargo, N. D., in the early evening, Bentsen wore cattleman’s gear and, reins in hand, made a galloping entry driving a stagecoach pulled by four Clydesdales. With “The Magnificent Seven” theme blaring in the dirt-floored exhibition hall, the crowd cheered lustily.

Bentsen was received with equal enthusiasm at the rally in White, which attracted South Dakotans from as far as 70 miles away.

Back at the Palace Cafe, however--judging from the chitchat--the Bentsen everyone wanted to hear from was “Mr. Lloyd,” the senator’s 94-year-old father. And he was missing.

The senior Bentsen, remembered affectionately for the fruit baskets he sends former schoolmates, had sent word that he would come to White, but canceled at the last minute. Beneath cafe signs welcoming father and son, that earned him a mild scolding.

“I was hoping I would see you,” one woman told Mr. Lloyd after his son reached him by phone from the cafe. “I wish you could have been here. . . . “ said another. Then, after a pause: “Well, yeah, there’s always something like that comes along.” She sounded unconvinced.