POLITICAL NOTES: Rich Widow

When Michigan's Senator James Couzens died in 1936, leaving $34,000,000, the title "richest man in Congress" passed to Old-Guard Republican Congressman Chester Castle Bolton of Lyndhurst (suburban Cleveland), Ohio, son of the late, great Mark Hanna's business partner. Mr. Bolton's personal check for $125,000 assured Cleveland the 1936 Republican convention; his champagne reassured 500 Party bigwigs at the convention's swankest reception. Chester Bolton, popular though rich, died last October.

In this week's Republican primary to select a successor to Chester Bolton, his widow, Frances Payne Bingham Bolton, who campaigned for him...