Sooner Strong Boy

Oklahoma breeds big, tough, silent men with hearts of gold--some good, some bad, some eccentric--but always men. In Oklahoma's heritage of oil, Indians, covered wagons, shoulder-holsters, pellagra, dust, drought and Bad Lands, there is no place for sissies. Sooners* will certainly not stand for sissies in their Governor's Mansion. Oklahoma Governors must be strong men to get elected, stronger to survive. (Of Oklahoma's eleven Governors, five were targets for impeachment by the ever-rambunctious Legislature. Two got hit.)

No sissy is Governor Leon C. Phillips. 49. One night last week he tumbled his 296-lb., six-foot-plus frame down the steps of the Oklahoma City Mansion, into a big black Buick, hustled over 121 miles of icy highways to Tulsa, banqueted, slept an hour on the way back, snatched two more hours' sleep at, the Mansion, was back at his desk ahead of his staff. That night he was in McAlester, 128 miles away; next night Wewoka, 72 miles, two nights later in Ada, 103 miles.

''Big Red" Phillips has amassed more legal powers than any Oklahoma Governor before him. He rides hard on the Legislature, shoos strays back in line, keeps them milling and mooing. Not once in his first year in the State saddle has he had to head off a stampede.

What "Big Red" says, goes. Oklahoma is constitutionally bone-dry, but licenses 3.2 beer, which is dispensed in the subterranean cafeteria of the domeless State House. But "Big Red" mortally hates liquor, fires out of hand employes who drink on duty. If you were to order beer in the State House cafeteria this week, chances are the waitress would ask guardedly: "Do you want it in a paper cup?" If you were a State employe, you'd say "Yes." She would keep the bottle out of sight and you'd pick up some mints on the way out.

Governor Phillips' first Legislature gave him a "quarterly estimate law." His budget officer, R. R. Owens, a white-topped, soft-answering little Welshman, combs through estimates submitted in advance each quarter, snips off dollars here and there. The two pinchfists, old fighters for economy in government, specialize in slashing salaries. The Senate had given up to "Big Red" its jealously hoarded powers, let him fire appointees pointblank. With these weapons, the Governor had:

>Cut State employes by 2,000.

>Reorganized the highway department, wiped out a $5,000,000 deficit in a few months with cold cash.

>Cut school appropriations from $12,800,000 a year to $11,500,000.

>Virtually canceled a building program --a $1,000,000 auxiliary State office building was left uncompleted inside, a yawning cavern, with temporary walls.

>Earmarked for direct relief two special tax funds (instead of taking relief catch-as-catch-can out of general funds).

>Enacted his entire program with no new taxes.

Last week State Auditor Frank Carter reported that "Big Red" had cut State expenditures $1,570,000 below appropriations since last July 1, that savings should total $3,400,000 by the fiscal year-end.

Oklahoma's pay-as-you-go basis ran into a dead end last month, however, when the State Treasury stood empty. Auditor Carter stopped issuing warrants when the deficit reached $400,000 (State debt limit) but Governor Phillips shifted current tax collections into the till, tightened up his belt, took a new grip on his economy hatchet.

Governor Phillips regards his duty as first to take care of Oklahoma, and sometimes Federal proposals don't conform to his ideas of States' rights. Against a Roosevelt third term on general principles but in favor of most New Deal legislation, Mr. Phillips is a friend of Postmaster General James A. Farley, looks kindly on the aspirations of John Nance Garner, and will be undisputed boss of Oklahoma's 22-man delegation to the Democratic convention.

"Big Red" was a star lineman on Oklahoma University's 1915 football team. Now he has a great paunch, which he lugs about with fat-man agility. A hound for details, he overworks daily, was warned off cigars by his doctors a year ago, told to puff a pipe. Last week he was still puffing his pipe momentarily, then casting it aside in favor of gnawing unlit cigars. Addicted to cards (any game) and dominoes, always for low stakes, often for fun, he gently beats his friends week in, week out. His health is good, except for asthma and hay fever; his grammar bad but positive; his inclinations conservative, against the wild background of Oklahoma politics.

Last week his insistence on the due process of law, let the humanitarians fall where they may, brought him sharply into the national eye. To Ohio he sent rugged-faced Warden Fred Hunt of the Granite Reformatory. Warden Hunt clumped into Columbus in his green, hand-tooled boots, demanded that Ohio extradite Carlton B. Chilton, 44, an Ohio highway worker who escaped from the prison 26 years ago.

Since 1936 Fred Hunt has been rounding up fugitives, from Florida to California--many of whom had almost forgotten their youthful misdeeds. He tried once before to get Carlton Chilton back from Ohio. But then-Governor Martin L. Davey of Ohio refused to give up Chilton, who had been an honorable citizen ever since his one misstep.* Last week Ohio's Governor John W. Bricker heard Warden Hunt's dramatic, voice-choked plea: "We need him, the records need him, and he needs us. He will be glad of it. We didn't bring any handcuffs." (Putting one hand on Chilton) "This man reminds me of the Scriptures and the prodigal son." Gover nor Bricker perhaps saw newspaper reports of a statement by Mrs. Mabel Bassett, Oklahoma corrections commissioner, who said of Granite Reformatory: ". . . Hell hole." Anyhow he ruled against Warden Hunt and "Big Red" Phillips, refused to send back Good Citizen Chilton. "Big Red" snorted over ex-Prisoner Chilton's "change of heart," insisted the fugitive should return voluntarily, then ask for pardon.

Oklahomans might not agree with their Governor in this case, but, as always, they knew exactly where "Big Red" stood, knew he was as typical of Oklahoma as the oil derricks that stand on the Capitol plaza -- not pretty, but useful.

*Oklahomans. On April 22, 1889, a gunshot at noon opened the State's choice Indian Territory land to 20,000 settlers lined along the border. Racing frontiersmen found many of the best spots already occupied by border-jumpers who had got there "sooner." * In 1913, Carlton Chilton, then 17, grabbed $2,000 from a bank counter on the spur of the moment, while a clerk was out to lunch.

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