POLITICAL NOTES: A Chat with Millie

At a luncheon in Pasadena last week, Mrs. Mildred Younger, 33, a comely GOPolitician, faced State Senator Jack B. Tenney, 56, whose political record is far from comely. Tenney represents the big 38th District (which takes in Los Angeles County, with more than 4,000,000 people). He was chairman of the legislature's McCarthyite Red-hunting committee and once wrote a Christian Nationalist tract, Zionist Network. Mrs. Younger has decided to run against him.

According to luncheon protocol no candidate could mention another, but Millie Younger, whose brains and looks delighted the 1952 Republican Convention (TIME, July 21, 1952), felt she had to challenge Tenney's bland assertion that "I have never been connected in any way with Gerald L. K. Smith." As the lunch ended, she went up to Tenney, snapped: "I'm disgusted with you." Replied Tenney: "Likewise."

Younger: Do you mean to say you have no connection with Gerald L. K. Smith?

Tenney: That's right.

Younger: Wasn't your picture on the cover of The Cross & the Flag last month?

Tenney: Yes. Wonderful, wasn't it?

Younger: Isn't that Gerald L. K. Smith's publication?

Tenney: I believe so.

Younger: But you still have no connection with him?

Tenney: That's right.

Younger: Weren't you a candidate for the vice presidency [of the U.S.] on the Christian Nationalist Party ticket?

Tenney: I ran with Douglas MacArthur.*

Younger: But wasn't it the C.N.P.?

Tenney: I don't know; I think so.

Younger: You don't know! Well, Gerald L. K. Smith is executive secretary of that party, just in case you didn't know.

Tenney: Well, Gerald L. K. Smith is a fine American. When this is all over, it will have been a lot of fun. [Exit Tenney.]

When it's all over, Tenney's long political career may well be, too. California observers expect the race to be close, believe that Mrs. Younger has at this moment a lead.