If you had been walking down Hopkins Street in Milwaukee on the afternoon of Wednesday, March 29, you might have paused at 27th Street to witness a Dickensian tableau. Huddled about a sound truck, looking for all the world like Christmas carolers, were perhaps a dozen men and a cluster of pretty girls. It was snowing—not in the great soft flakes of Yule, which might have been more scenic, but snowing in hard little granules whipped by a twelve-knot wind. It was 28 degrees, but the chill factor was down around zero.
Toward the rear of this jovial crew, assembled at the plant gate of the A. O. Smith Company, stood a phalanx of Secret Service men, straight and stiff as baritones waiting their turn to come in. Capering out front, as major domo and guest conductor, was a diminutive figure in silk scarf and French beret: Dr. Edgar Berman, physician and factotum, thrashing his arms to keep warm. Hovering about the circle, passing out what might have been song sheets but actually were political leaflets, were the pretty girls and the front men. In the center, wreathed in smiles and powdered with snow, stood the tangible figure of Christmas present.




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