After Kennedy

THE ACRES OF newsprint written on Robert F. Kennedy's death are a monument to the insufficiency of words to capture very much of the horror of the event. There is something nearly obscene in our lust for facts--interviews with the Los Angeles ambulance driver or the engineer who drove the funeral train. And there is something both noble and terrifying in the passion of thousands of Americans to be part of the public mourning, shoving so hard to get near the funeral train are that two killed by an express speeding in the other direction.

One hopes that the talk about violence and American character is the start of a period of national introspection but fears that it is mere breast-beating, soothing us in a painful moment of national self-recognition and easing the transition to normalcy, where the National Rifle Association has more to say than the overwhelming majority of Americans about our gun laws.

Part of the normalcy which the country returns to is the prospect of a Humphrey-Nixon presidential race, a contest between experienced and conventional apostles of order--tepid progressives on racial problems, unimaginative hawks on the Vietnam War.

Since Robert Kennedy entered the presidential race three months ago, he rallied millions of voters to an alternate view of these questions. From the start, there was little substantive difference between Kennedy and his rival in the primaries, Eugene McCarthy, and their agreement was driven home by the televised debate a week ago. Together, as Kennedy pointed out after his defeat in Oregon, they swamped Humphrey-Johnson stand-in tickets in every primary. McCarthy workers who have shocked the pundits twice already this year should redouble their efforts to win the nomination. Kennedy's supporters now should join in that effort.