Home on the Range

Across the jack-pine hills of Idaho came the twang of a familiar guitar and the whine of an even more familiar baritone lustily singing: "From this valley they say you are going, / We will miss your sweet face and your smile." Glen Taylor, troubadour politician, ex-Senator (1944-50) and Henry Wallace's vice-presidential candidate on the Progressive Party ticket in 1948, had come home from self-imposed exile in California to ask a favor from the voters. Said Taylor: "I want to go back to Washington because I want a job and I can't find anything else to do."

Wearing a grey toupee and a brace on his back, Taylor, with his 19-year-old son, Arod, went from house to house in a state where houses are far apart. He explained his brace to rapt audiences. Six years of sitting in a Senate seat had caused partial collapse of his backbone. Said Glen: "I gave my all for you people, sitting there in Washington. But now I've got a wonderful brace. And in the Senate the man who works the hardest is the one who does the most sitting. With this brace, I can outsit them all."

Democratic Party leaders avoided Progressive Taylor like poison, asked voters to do the same. In the 1950 primary, Taylor was beaten by 948 votes by D. Worth Clark. But this year a third candidate entered the race and took some anti-Taylor votes away from Glen's chief opponent, Claude Burtenshaw, a Mormon professor from Ricks College. Last week the primary was held, and Taylor won by about 2,500 votes. Said Burtenshaw: "It looks like the left wing has taken over the party."

Taylor tuned up his guitar for the fall campaign against G.O.P. Senator Henry Dworshak. In Washington, Senator Dworshak heard the news, ran a hand through his ample hair and braced himself for a vigorous campaign to "clarify the issues."

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