Pull to Haul

Republicans were amused and delighted. In a hammer-&-tongs fight for the Democratic nomination from Washington's First Congressional District (Seattle), left-wing Representative Hugh De Lacey and rabble-rousing, opportunistic Howard Costigan were tearing an old friendship to shreds. When both appealed for help to the heirs of Franklin Roosevelt, even family ties snapped under the strain.

Candidate De Lacey scored first, when Jimmy Roosevelt announced that the Independent Citizens Committee for the Arts, Sciences and Professions was swinging in behind him.* Candidate Costigan immediately dashed off a letter of protest, sent a copy to his good friend Anna Roosevelt Boettiger (who has lived in Seattle off-&-on since 1936, when her husband John began an eight-and-a-half-year term as publisher of Hearst's Post-Intelligencer). Costigan roundly denounced De Lacey as a faithful Communist-line follower who "values the welfare of one nation--other than the United States--above all others." He pointed to the De Lacey record: anti-war before the invasion of Russia, raring to go afterwards. Jimmy Roosevelt was unmoved.

Back came an answer from Sister Anna, enclosing a copy of the letter she had sent Brother Jimmy. Costigan, she wrote, is a "sound and trustworthy liberal" who had resigned from De Lacey's leftist Commonwealth Federation when it hewed too close to the Communist line. Said she: "I am endorsing Costigan."

In great good humor, the Republicans sat back to enjoy the row. Their own primary was not expected to unwrap any odds-on candidate. But any Democratic discord was sure to brighten their chances in the fall.

* For other news of Jimmy Roosevelt, see Radio.

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