National Affairs: Small Choice

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Choosing among 14 all-out segregationist candidates for the Democratic nomination for Governor, Alabamans last week gave first place to one with highly acceptable credentials: Attorney General John Patterson, 36, who could boast at one time of having every Negro leader in the state under subpoena.

Boyish-looking John Patterson appeared on the Alabama political scene in 1954 when his father, Albert Patterson, then the reform-minded nominee for attorney general, was shot to death by hoodlums in vice-ridden Phenix City. Young John promptly filed for attorney general in his father's place, won easily, later helped in the drive to clean up Phenix City.

In leading last week's field, John Patterson drew heavily on the crusading father-and-son background, even more heavily on his record as an attorney general who would enforce to the letter Alabama's harsh segregationist laws. He won 160,000 votes to 134,000 for his nearest rival, Circuit Judge George Wallace, who had promised to jail any FBI man found snooping around his jurisdiction to investigate denial of Negro voting rights. Patterson is strongly favored in his runoff with Wallace next June, but either way, Alabama can be sure of having just the sort of segregationist Governor it likes to succeed outgoing Governor James E. ("Kissin' Jim") Folsom.