Nation: No Time for Sentiment

The year was 1924, and an upstart Massachusetts Republican named Joseph W. Martin Jr., 39, launched a no-holds-barred campaign to wrest a congressional seat away from a sickly 83-year-old incumbent. "This is not a time for sentiment," snapped young Joe Martin in announcing his candidacy. "The office of Congressman is a position for one in vigorous health if the people are to be adequately served."

Last week Joe Martin, now 81 years old and himself enfeebled after a dis- tinguished, 42-year career on Capitol Hill* that included four years as Speaker of the House of Representatives and 20 years as Republican leader, went down to defeat in the G.O.P. primary at the hands of an aggressive woman candidate who based her campaign on the same youth-v.-age attack that Martin had used to win his first election. Hennahaired Mrs. Margaret Heckler, 35, a pert, petite (5 ft. 21 in.) lawyer-housewife from Boston's upper-class suburb of Wellesley, tossed Martin's own 1924 quotes back at him with the comment: "If the country needed vigorous service in those years, certainly today it demands even greater vigor." Peggy Heckler's only previous political post has been her position since 1963 as the only woman—and the only Republican—on the eight-member state executive council, an elected body that has almost no powers beyond offering advice to the Governor. Heeding her campaign slogan ("Get a Heckler in Congress"), the voters gave her the nomination in the Tenth District, 15,449 to 12,218.

In November, Mrs. Heckler must run against Democrat Patrick Henry Harrington, 46, a tough labor lawyer with three terms on the Bristol County board of commissioners behind him. Because of redistricting, the Tenth District now has more registered Democrats than Republicans, and Peggy Heckler will need every ounce of her vigor to hold the constituency for the Republican Party.