Booms

Moody. "I am Very sorry, Governor, if I am late, but I have just had a session with my dentist," said Governor Alfred Emanuel Smith of New York to Governor Dan Moody of Texas.

"Well, Governor, if these New York dentists are like those I've had down in Texas, you have my sympathy," said Governor Moody.

"They are all," said Governor Smith, "bad enough."

Thus, last week, two famed Democratic Governors met for the first time, discussed dentists, avoided politics. Governor Moody was in Manhattan as the head of a Goodwill Delegation of some 125 Texans, touring the North and East, proving that the modern Texan costume includes no six-shooter, preaching the doctrine of economic interdependence among 48 states. The trip had been designed on a strictly non-political basis, Governor Moody having repeatedly refused to discuss either "politics or personalities." He did say, however, that in Texas the Ku Klux Klan is "as dead as the proverbial doornail."

Despite the taboo on politics, observers attached deep political significance to the Smith-Moody meeting, started a conversational boom for a Democratic 1928 national ticket with Governor Moody as Governor Smith's running mate. Should the Democrats nominate Governor Smith, the "logical" vice presidential candidate would be a dry Southerner, and Governor Moody has come into national prominence as the result of his having eliminated the Ferguson family from Texas politics. But attempts to interpret the meeting as a great Democratic get-together failed, inasmuch as neither of the principals mentioned politics and as Governor Moody's attitude was restrained almost to indifference. Political advisers in Texas are said to have cautioned Governor Moody against being drawn into anything approaching an endorsement of any candidate, presumably on the theory that there is no point in climbing into a wagon before you know it is the bandwagon.

Lowden. Last week Indiana Republicans called on onetime (1917-21) Governor Frank O. Lowden of Illinois, asked permission to use his name as presidential candidate in the Indiana preferential primary in 1928. Answered Mr. Lowden: "All I can say is that I know of no man in all our history who has run away from the Presidency." Not long ago Mr. Lowden had told an Iowa delegation that "No man is too big to refuse the support of any state as a candidate for the

Republican nomination for President." Observers agree that both statements permit the interpretation that Mr. Lowden is receptive.