The Day Before Spring

Pennsylvania's Democratic politicos were courting the Army Air Forces' four-star General Carl A. Spaatz as assiduously as fraternity seniors rushing a football star. Ruddy, square-cut "Tooey" Spaatz looked like a dream candidate for governor. The General, well aware of Washington forecasts that he will be appointed to succeed General Henry H. Arnold as commander of the air forces, wouldn't say yes and wouldn't say no. But he was betraying a certain quiet fascination with the idea of being governor of his old home state. The Democrats badly needed a candidate like Spaatz. It was almost certain that popular Republican Governor Edward Martin would challenge blustering Democratic Boss Joe Guffey for his 11-year-old seat in the U.S. Senate. This would leave either Chief Justice George W. Maxey of the State Supreme Court, or Lieut. Governor John C. Bell Jr., scion of a Philadelphia Main Line family, free to run for governor. Even though President Franklin Roosevelt carried Pennsylvania by 105,000 votes in the 1944 election, a Martin-Maxey or Martin-Bell ticket would be hard to beat in 1946.

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