National Affairs: Texans' Texan

Through the 27 days of campaigning for the run-off primary for Texas' governorship, hard-pitching, New Dealing Dr. Homer Price Rainey strove mightily to overcome the 152,000-vote handicap that was indicated by last month's indecisive Democratic primary. Said onetime baseballer Rainey: It won't be over till the last man's out in the ninth.

But last week, to no one's surprise, friendly, middle-of-the-roader Beauford Jester smacked out a home run to win the ball game with a two-to-one majority. His chief campaign promises: increased old-age pensions without increased taxes, a hearty welcome for all shades of warring Texas Democrats. To Rainey's last-minute charges of Ku Klux Klan backing, he quipped: "He has lost his fast ball, he has lost his curve ball. All he's got left is a mud ball."

A Texan's Texan, softspoken, greying (53) Beauford Jester had all the attributes of a winning candidate: Texas-born, son of a former Texas lieutenant governor, graduate of Texas University and its law school, infantry captain in World War I, father of three children (one a pretty Texas coed).

Lawyer Jester's public batting average was 1,000. In his first try for political office he won a seat on the railroad commission in 1942, was re-elected to a full six-year term two years later. He had his own explanation for his victory, which fitted in with 1946's conservative voting trend. Said he: it showed Texans wanted no part of "newfangled theories of government."