POLITICAL NOTES: Garner's Blushes

One afternoon last week, the Vice President of the U. S. motioned frantically from his rostrum to Senator Key Pittman, president pro tem of the Senate, to come up and take over the gavel. Senator Pittman lingered in his seat, smiling. Senator Tom Connally of Texas had just handed a beribboned resolution to a page boy, sending it to the clerk's desk to be read. Vice President Garner's red face grew redder. "Come on, Key!" he implored, so loudly that galleryites could hear. Still Senator Pittman took his time. Jack Garner could not make his escape, amid applause and laughter, before the clerk had actually begun reading:

"Whereas the time is not far distant when the National Democratic Party will put in motion the machinery for the selection of its Presidential nominee in the 1940 general election. . . ."

The resolution which Senator Connally offered, not for Senate adoption but just to be read into the record, was one which the Texas Legislature had passed few days prior. It concluded: ". . . That the said John Nance Garner is hereby indorsed and put forward as a candidate for the nomination by the National Democratic Party for the high office of President of the United States. .

Texas urged Democrats of other States to second its sentiments. The dean of Congress, Texas' Senator Sheppard, promptly announced himself "in hearty sympathy." A few House members later chimed in.