Elmer over Gomer

Mae West, Daniel Boone, Oliver Cromwell, Huey Long, Joe E. Brown and Patrick Henry got nowhere in Oklahoma's primary elections last week. Candidates for various minor offices on the strength of their names (TIME, May 23), none of them finished in better than third place. Mrs. Ruth M. Johnson, Shawnee schoolteacher, seeking to become Commissioner of Charities & Corrections, "broadcast" her vote appeals by "thought transference" from her home at 5 :30 a. m. daily but won only a fifth place by her "mental telepathy" campaign.

But Will Rogers, Congressman-at-large, was renominated. And "My Old Friend" proved a better name than "Lunatic Fringe" when called by Franklin Roosevelt. Senator ("Old Friend") Elmer Thomas, 1-to-3 short-ender in the betting before Mr. Roosevelt spoke, became a 10-to-8 favorite at poll time (see p. 7), won the Democratic nomination for the Senate by a 61,000-vote majority over Representative Corner ("Lunatic Fringe") Smith. Mr. Smith (a Townsend Planner) was second, Governor Ernest Whitworth Marland (oil) a poor third.

For the Democratic nomination for Governor, William Shaffer Key, a New Dealer whose popularity had been sapped instead of strengthened by his State ad ministration of WPA, lost out by 3,000 to Leon C. Phillips, erstwhile speaker of the State House, also a New Dealer. Also ran: hay-whiskered William Henry ("Alfalfa Bill") Murray, onetime (1931-35) Governor.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.