CAMPAIGN: Little Bull Booed

In the crowded gymnasium of Louisiana State University in booming Baton Rouge, Louisiana's State Democratic Convention, its first in twelve years, came awkwardly to order. The night was hot; beads of sweat stood out on Senator Allen ("Little Bull") Ellender's flushed and angry features.

It had been a bad week for the Senator. A longtime Huey Long ally, a Th'rd-Termer, a filibusterer, an energetic retimes embarrassing Administration supporter ("I want to help Mr. Roosevelt do the same things for the nation that Huey did for Louisiana"), Senator Ellender kept right on doing business at the old stand. He fought Sam Houston Jones just before Jones swept the State and smashed the Long machine. He boosted Longster Dick

Leche (convicted fortnight ago of defrauding Louisiana of $31,000) for a Federal judgeship. Last week, when Governor Jones was being feted in Washington, pointedly ignoring Senator Ellender, Little Bull's bitterness overflowed. He rushed to the White House, told the President he was going to plead for the Third Term ("the President looked up and smiled broadly"), and flew to the Louisiana convention.

The temporary chairman called for or der, said Senator Ellender had a message from the President. Boo! "I will now ask the Senator to take the floor." Boo! The Senator reached the microphone, white and shaken. "Fellow Democrats," he be gan,"I left Washington at a quarter of two this morning. ..." Nothing was plain after that; through the surging roar of catcalls and the stamping of feet, whistles and bleacher wit, disjointed phrases echoed out of the loudspeakers: I thought democracy had returned to Louisiana. . . .

This booing does not annoy me at all. . . .

I was at the White House . . . consider the sugar legislation. ... I told him I was going to submit a resolution nominating to a third term. . . . You can boo, but he'll be your next President. . . . The President has asked me to deliver to you his sincere wishes for a successful convention [Interruption: Then why don't you sit down? . . . The President . . . ex pressed a sincere desire . . . visit Louisiana . " participate in the fishing and duck hunting. . . ." The shaken Senator could not go on, left the platform.

The convention voted an uninstructed delegation, passed a resolution saying that "the unfavorable reception given Senator Ellender was not to be construed as any reflection on President Roosevelt." In Washington, Third-Termers said that Senator Ellender had acted on his own, that an uninstructed delegation from Louisiana was precisely what they wanted. But Little Bull's booing seemed to indicate that for politicos who are on the skids, Term III is useless as a brake.