Lesser Words

While all ears were cocked to catch the word from Ike, last week's politicking produced some audible lesser words across the U.S. Items:

P: In Texas 17 newspaper publishers, polled (at the Texas Daily Newspaper Association meeting in Dallas) on whether Ike could carry Texas again, voted nine no, eight yes. Those who felt that Texas still likes Ike in spite of the gas bill veto advanced a homey piece of logic to back their argument: Texas still has more gas consumers than gas producers.

P: In Maryland, Democratic War Horse Millard Tydings, 65, who was defeated for a fifth term in the U.S. Senate by McCarthy-sponsored Republican John Marshall Butler in 1950, announced that he will run again this year. His first job: to win the Democratic primary from hard-running George P. Mahoney, perennial candidate and onetime chairman of the State Racing Commission; in this Tydings already has the backing of such powerful Democrats as Baltimore Mayor Tommy D'Alesandro and ex-Governor William Preston Lane Jr. His second job: to beat a John Marshall Butler who is notably stronger than he was in 1950, who has won the solid support of Maryland's Governor Theodore McKeldin and the busi ness community by working tirelessly for Maryland's best interests, e.g., to rehabilitate Baltimore's shipbuilding industry.

P: In Iowa, where 1956 politics begins with the price of corn and ends with the price of hogs. Dr. Haridas T. Muzumdar, 55, India-born American and a professor at Mt. Vernon's Cornell College, announced that he will campaign for the Republican congressional nomination in Iowa's Second District on a foreign policy platform. His program: "To carry on a campaign whose one purpose shall be a discussion of how to win our Asian and African neighbors as friends and co-workers . . ." A friend and biographer of Gandhi, Dr. Muzumdar is less concerned with beating G.O.P. Incumbent Henry O. Talle than getting Iowans to give his views some thought.

P: In Florida former (1949-53) Governor Fuller Warren, 50, decided to run again despite his persistent denials of renewed political ambition. Said he: "I feel that the Almighty endowed me with the talent to govern this state." His likely chief opponent: able Governor LeRoy Collins (TIME, Dec. 19), who is filling the unexpired term of the late Governor Dan McCarty and is waiting only for a state Supreme Court decision to endow him with authority to run again under Florida's law forbidding a governor to succeed himself.

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