Finis for Capper

Kansas' kindly Republican Arthur Capper has sat in the U.S. Senate for 29 years --longer than any other member of his party.* Nearing 83, he is stone-deaf, inclined to doze off in the middle of important conversations. By virtue of his long service, he is chairman of the Senate Agriculture and Forestry Committee and ranking majority member, after Arthur Vandenberg, of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Against the well-intentioned advice of nearly every Kansas GOPolitico, he announced his intention of making his sixth campaign for the Senate. "Young Bill" White, son of Emporia's late sage, was sure he knew why: Alf Landon had put him up to it to bleed votes from Capper's rival in the primary and Landon's archfoe, ex-Governor Andrew Schoeppel. White said so in an Emporia Gazette editorial. In a tearful statement, Capper replied that Young Bill was mistaken; the decision to run was "mine and mine alone."

But last week, Kansas City's potent Roy Roberts (TIME, April 12) sounded off. Addressing a University of Kansas audience, he said: "I have tried to be kind to Arthur Capper. I love him. But I don't want to have a man 80 or 90 years old representing us in writing the [peace] treaty that will affect you students and my grandson." The word went down the line that only a miracle could now elect old Arthur Capper.

* Longest-sitting Democrat: Tennessee's McKellar (32 years). Alltime recordholder: Wyoming Republican Francis D. Warren, who served a total of 37 years between 1890 and his death in 1929.

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