Torchlights in Havana

Fifteen hundred people, four horses and one pigeon turned out in the center of Havana, Ill. (pop. 5,000) one night last week for a torchlight parade. On North Plum Street the pigeon left the parade and soared in an easterly direction to carry the tidings to Harry Truman in Washington. The message, which the Pres ident had already gotten from sources faster than a carrier pigeon,* was that Scott Lucas, majority leader of the U.S. Senate, had officially decided to seek reelection.

The parade followed Senator Lucas to the Havana high-school gymnasium where everybody but the four horses crowded in to hear the home-town boy open his campaign. Actually, Lucas was getting a late start: his Republican opponent, ex-Congressman Everett Dirksen, had been running for months. Dirksen, onetime isolationist, had seemingly abandoned his position during his term in the House, but this winter he was talking isolation again and his stand had re-won him the favor of the Chicago Tribune's Colonel Bertie McCormick. Launching his campaign last fall; Dirksen pitched his battle on the field of foreign policy, charging that the bipartisan foreign-aid program is "pouring money down a rathole." At this point, many an Illinois politician thinks Dirksen, an effective campaigner, has at least an even chance of beating Lucas.

In the Havana gym, Scott Lucas accepted Dirksen's challenge--and managed to make foreign aid sound like a local assistance program. "The next time a smooth gentleman tells you we are pouring money down a rathole," he said, "ask him whether he means the money which has gone to Illinois factories or farms." Argued Lucas: the Marshall Plan brought Moline, Peoria and Chicago nearly $50 million in orders in the first nine months of the plan alone.

Then Scott Lucas was off, like the pigeon, for Washington, to spend most of the next six months on the job, while Dirksen makes hay on the hustings.

*The pigeon flew into a bad storm over Columbus, went on instruments, hasn't been heard from since.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.