Pappy Wins

Wilbert Lee ("Pass the Biscuits, Pappy") O'Daniel is Washington-bound, hillbilly band and all. In the closest State election ever held in Texas, Governor O'Daniel won the late Morris Sheppard's Senate seat by an unofficial margin of 1,095 votes.

Observers called the result a rap on the knuckles for President Roosevelt, who had reached out his hand to endorse New Dealer Lyndon Johnson. But it was the first time in three campaigns that Lee O'Daniel failed to win a clean-cut majority over all his opponents.

Friends of the Governor said he plans to make his entry into Washington, after an official canvass on July 14, in typical O'Daniel style, escorted by his dome-topped sound truck (a replica of Texas' Capitol), his famed string band, and Texas Rose to sing the Governor's song, Beautiful Texas. Along the way, he expects to stop in Kansas, where he grew up, at Malta, Ohio, where he was born.

One minute after he steps out on the floor of the Senate, Lee O'Daniel has promised to introduce a Federal counterpart of the bill he pushed through Texas' legislature, outlawing violence by strikers. He will start agitating for bigger old-age pensions, threatens to pin back the ears of "pussyfooting politicians" around Franklin Roosevelt.

In Texas, tall, tanned Lieut. Governor Coke Stevenson, onetime teamster and banker, a lawyer and ranch-owner on the side, will take over the State House. Many a harried Texas legislator will sigh peacefully, glad that Lee O'Daniel is gone at last.

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