Good Soldier

For Vice President Republicans needed: a man who favored Federal power, a Westerner, a farmer, a lifelong Republican, a seasoned politician. Quick as a wink, in one ballot, they named Charles Linza McNary of Oregon.

Tall, trig, suave, 66, Charles McNary has been in politics 34 years, spent 23 of them in the U. S. Senate. No one in the G. O. P. is better qualified to help Novice Willkie through the guiles and intricacies he would face in Washington. Easygoing Senator McNary, leader of the minority, has won many a triumph himself with nothing up his sleeve but pure, political cunning.

Born on an Oregon farm, he went to Leland Stanford University. Like his running mate, he was a lawyer. He began his political career in 1906 as an Assistant District Attorney. In 1917 he went to the Senate. Still a farmer at heart, whenever he can leave Washington he makes tracks for Salem, Ore., where he owns a farm, bird sanctuary, an experimental laboratory, in which he developed the world's largest prune, the Imperial. Nuts are also a hobby, especially filberts.

Senator McNary has the wise and cynical expression of an old bachelor, though he has been widowed once, is now married to the former Cornelia Morton, who was told of her husband's nomination while she was in a Salem grocery store. Said Mrs. McNary: "I couldn't believe it. Charles had wired me this morning that he wouldn't accept the nomination."

In the Senate, where he has cut independently across party lines, Mr. McNary has favored the Wagner Act, the NRA, old age pensions, aid to the farmers, the Securities & Exchange Commission, TVA, the Muscle Shoals development.

Said Mr. McNary, who had never met or even seen his running mate (their first conversation was on the telephone last week): "I am profoundly conscious of the confidence reposed in me by the Convention. I wish they had imposed this chore on someone else. However, I'll be a good soldier and do the best I can."

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