POLITICAL NOTES: Stirrings of Spring

In most U.S. congressional districts, a man whose wife has accused him of adultery with a round dozen women would be carrying an impossible political handicap. But in California's 26th (southwest Los Angeles) this week, James Roosevelt, F.D.R.'s eldest son, stood up before the 26th's Democratic district convention to ask its endorsement as the party's candidate for Congress. A few delegates booed, but the majority heard Jimmy out, cheered him heartily. By a vote of 91-77 the convention endorsed Jimmy for the party nomination in the heavily Democratic 26th.

Other stirrings of political spring:

¶1n Maine, the whole state is talking about the Jones boy. Young (32), brash Robert L. Jones, once a big noise in the state Young Republican organization, announced that he will run against U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith in the Republican primary next June. Most political observers are less interested in Candidate Jones than in the man they believe is behind him: Joe McCarthy. The Wisconsin Senator has neither forgotten nor forgiven Senator Smith's 1950 "declaration of conscience" attacking McCarthy's methods. Last November, when McCarthy spoke in Bangor and Portland, Jones was at his side and in his speeches ("A Maine boy who is making a name for himself," said Joe). Last month, Michigan's Republican Senator Charles Potter fired McCarthy's Maine boy as his research assistant after Jones 1) issued an unauthorized statement backing McCarthy in the Army affair and 2) continued to set up his campaign against Mrs. Smith. Last week Jones insisted that he is not a McCarthy candidate at all. But he took pains to classify Mrs. Smith as a "left-winger" and Senator McCarthy as "a great patriot."

¶1n Alabama, U.S. Senator John Jackson Sparkman is facing a real fight for renomination, largely because he was the Democratic candidate for Vice President in 1952. His chief opponent, Birmingham's Democratic Representative Laurie Calvin Battle, is campaigning effectively on the charge that Sparkman has let geography be his guide on the civil-rights issue during and since the 1952 campaign. Said Battle: "He kicked it on one side of the Mason-Dixon Line and caught it on the other."

¶1n New Mexico, two good men bowed deeply to each other, then started down the track in what is expected to be a close race for the U.S. Senate. Said popular Governor Ed Mechem: "I guess I'm the only Republican simple-minded enough to run against my opponent." Said Democratic Senator Clinton Anderson: "Thank God I'm running against a clean, honest man."