POLITICAL NOTES: Cross v. Boss

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At Eastern Point last week the Connecticut Democracy, long a minority in State politics, convened to make nominations for the November election. From Homer Stille Cummings, onetime chairman of the Democratic National Committee, down to the youngest of the 1,000 delegates at the Griswold Hotel, the party representatives had one antagonist in mind: big-bodied, hard-eyed John Henry Roraback, Republican National Committeeman, for 18 years Connecticut's firm-fisted G. O. P. Boss, president of Connecticut Light & Power Co. To break Boss Roraback's grip, the Democrats at Eastern Point informally decided to put up for Governor no hard-boiled political veteran of the same kidney but rather a gentle academic man who had never before stood for public office. He was ruddy-cheeked, white-haired Wilbur Lucius ("Uncle Toby") Cross, 68, long-time professor of English literature at Yale, dean emeritus of Yale's Graduate School, scholarly editor of the Yale Review, author of textbooks on the English novel.

Aware of his probable selection on the morrow, Dean Cross went peacefully to bed after serving notice on party leaders that he would not accept their nomination unless he were given a free hand to reorganize the static Democratic State Committee by turning out its chairman James

J. Walsh, its secretary A. Sidney Lynch, and naming their successors. At 4 a. m. friends of Messrs. Walsh & Lynch burst into Dean Cross's bedroom. He confronted them in a suit of wrinkled blue pajamas. Roughly they told him he could "go to hell" with his dictation to the State Committee. In equally strong language he reiterated his determination to make a fresh start in the party's organization. In that first serious political encounter of his life, Dean Cross proved his mettle, forced his opponents after much wrangling to yield.

Next morning Dean Cross received the Democratic Gubernatorial nomination by acclamation. He was cheered as a "providential candidate" to lead his party out of the wilderness of perpetual defeat. Representative of a new political order, Dean Cross fired the delegates with a new enthusiasm when, in his speech of acceptance, he said:

"... I owe my career to the social and educational institutions of the State, up from the red schoolhouse on the country hillside, through the public highschool, and on to a university founded by the colonists far back of the first days of the Republic. As a poor return for these benefits I stand ready in the present crisis to give to my fellow-citizens such services as they may ask of me provided nothing is asked beyond my abilities. . . .