National Affairs: Straws in the Wind

In freshening presidential weather last week, the wind blew—and these straws flew:

¶ Wearing a natty polka-dot sling around his right arm, bruised but unbroken in a 30-ft. fall from the hayloft of his Poolesville, Md. barn, Oregon's Democratic Senator Wayne Morse announced that he would be a candidate in the May 3 primary in the District of Columbia (nine delegate votes). Although he is already entered in the Oregon primary and may well run in Wisconsin, Morse knows he has no chance for the Democratic nomination. But he is bitterly opposed to Candidates John Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey because of their votes last year for the Landrum-Griffin labor-reform bill, hopes to pester them in the primaries, throw any delegate votes he might pick up into Adlai Stevenson's hope chest at the convention next July.

¶ House Speaker Sam Rayburn formally announced that for the first time in twelve years he will not handle the gavel as permanent chairman of this year's Democratic Convention. Instead, Rayburn plans to work for "the candidate of my choice": Fellow Texan Lyndon Johnson. Top choice to succeed Rayburn as permanent chairman: Louisiana's Representative Hale Boggs.

¶ For a Democrat with only seven years of House service, it is a good idea to get on the good side of Sam Rayburn, and one way to get on Mister Sam's good side is to support Johnson for President. But for New York's Representative Victor Anfuso, backing Johnson presented difficulties : Anfuso is a liberal from Brooklyn, where Middle-Road Southerner Johnson's name is less than a liberal byword. Anfuso solved his problem in a speech in the House urging Johnson toward "greater service on behalf of our nation"—and proceeding to credit Johnson with "placing on the statute books most of the great liberal legislation sponsored by the Roosevelt Administration."

¶ Needled by Jack Kennedy's challenge to come out and fight in the primary elections, Missouri's Democratic Senator Stuart Symington promised, on a TV program, to "take my campaign into the homes, to the street corners and to the farms"—indeed, almost everywhere except to the primary ballot boxes. Symington also plans to advance his candidacy at a series of high-caloric political banquets, starting with a Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner in Springfield, Mo., with Pennsylvania's Governor David Lawrence as the featured speaker, and a testimonial dinner in St. Louis on Feb. 20, with Harry Truman presiding. Said Symington last week: "I certainly would like to be President."

¶ In Washington for State Department briefings before a two-month Latin Ameican tour, Democrat Adlai Stevenson again denied that he was a candidate for President, again said he did not expect to be drafted. Asked if he would accept an appointment as Secretary of State, Stevenson replied: "I would look on any office with great respect."