The Mad Whirl

Even Californians, who love nothing better than a noisy, unorthodox, whirling political campaign, had to confess to a feeling of bleary-eyed dizziness. Just as their primary election merry-go-round was speeding up, grey, quiet Senator Sheridan Downey jumped off. From Bethesda Naval Hospital he announced last week that he wouldn't be riding for the Democratic nomination after all. Reason: peptic ulcers and general weariness.

That seemed to leave the brass ring to his opponent, handsome, spirited Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas (wife of Cinemaqtor Melvyn Douglas), who ten years ago had given up the Broadway stage and the Hollywood screen to turn a purposeful hand to politics.*

The Camellia Man. But just as Downey dropped off the merry-go-round, he bequeathed his wan blessing and his political organization to a newcomer to politics, Elias Manchester Boddy, publisher of California's only big-city Democratic daily, the Los Angeles Daily News, and gentleman farmer of a 168-acre suburban camellia and azalea farm.

Chester Boddy (rhymes with crowed he) hoped to pick up the votes of any Democrats who thought Helen Douglas too much of a Fair Dealer and too stridently prolabor. In his earlier, more venturesome days, their political tracks might have lain confusingly closer: under Boddy the News had once trafficked in some odd political nostrums.

Last December the News had pointed sharply to the political inexperience of the leading Democratic candidate for governor, Jimmy Roosevelt. "We just do not believe," Boddy had written from his camellia farm, "that Roosevelt has the necessary qualifications for the job." Now, Candidate Boddy, a man with less political experience, was trying to settle down comfortably on the same ticket.

I Promise You. Meanwhile Jimmy Roosevelt was looking more & more like a pretty shrewd politico. Up & down the San Joaquin Valley he was drawing crowds to the back platform of his shiny new trailer-bus. For his campaign manager Jimmy badly wanted George T. Davis, a smart San Francisco lawyer who had run the California Truman-Barkley clubs. Davis wanted to be sure that it was all right with Harry Truman at Key West. After sounding out the Administration's boys in the back room, Davis came back with a demand from the Truman advisers that Jimmy promise in writing that he would not be a candidate for President himself in 1952. Graciously Jimmy composed the letter: "Should President Truman decide to seek re-election in 1952, I shall, of course, do everything possible to assist him ... It has always been and will continue to be my firm intention, if elected governor, to serve a full four-year term without any deviation from that course . . ."

*Another Hollywoodsman with a yen for politics, Edward Arnold, portentous statesman of the movies and radio, who a fortnight ago filed for Senator on the Republican side, last week reconsidered and withdrew.

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