Governors

In the title Governor-General, there is the glamour, and also the distance of some far province like the Philippines. Since colonial days the title Governor has waned in glamour, but waxed in its direct power over the lives of U. S. citizens. This year, 35 States chose Governors--Maine last September and 34 States last week. In every State, where a real contest existed, citizens awaited for gubernatorial results with less emotion than for presidential, but with scarcely less concern. For politicians, gubernatorial results were almost as important as presidential because of the local patronage at stake.

For a variety of reasons, the following elected or re-elected Governors got special national mention:

P: The Governor of Texas, as everyone knows, is red-headed Dan Moody, 35. By right of the usual sweeping Democratic majority, he will continue to be Governor for at least two years. And long before he is three-score and ten, he is expected to ask his party to let him do what, in 1928, Smith did not.

P: "The name of Alfred Emanuel Smith loomed mightier than ever last week. Not only was he elected Governor of New York for the fourth time by a plurality of some 250,000 votes, not only did he sweep a large part of the Democratic ticket into office with him, but he established himself as the most mentionable personality in his party until the 1928 presidential nomination is settled." Thus reported TIME, after the November elections of 1926. In 1928, a Democrat again became Governor of New York despite a national Republican landslide (as Smith had done in 1924). The victor was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who had, in 1920, in 1924, and 1928 placed the name of Smith before Democratic Conventions, and who had dubbed him The Happy Warrior. With his Warrior in unhappy defeat, Governor-Elect Roosevelt took small pleasure in predictions that he himself might be the hope of an, at least momentarily, nationally hopeless Democracy. Also, since he had not yet entirely recovered from paralysis of the legs, Mr. Roosevelt could not confidently contemplate long years of public office.

P: In Connecticut was re-elected a Governor, famed for air-travel and for a daughter who is unannouncedly engaged to President Coolidge's only son--Governor John H. Trumbull, 55.

P: In Minnesota, in the county of Lac qui Parle, in the township of Lac qui Parle, was born, 45 years ago, Theodore Christiansen. He has twice been elected Governor of his native state, in whose university he achieved Phi Beta Kappa, before whose bar he made a reputation, and at whose public banquets he became famed as a defender of Babbitts from the attacks of Minnesota's Sinclair Lewis. Last week he was re-elected for a third term on a record of economy and efficiency.

P: In Wisconsin, a great manufacturer (plumbing), Walter J. Kohler, was elected Governor. This was a certainty after he had won in the primaries against the traditional La Follette power. Any Governor in a politically doubtful State may become nationally conspicuous--and such a fate was freely predicted for this Business-man-in-politics.

P: In respect to its public servants, Republican Vermont has a "mountain rule," to wit: no Governor shall serve twice; the position shall alternate between the eastern and western sections of the state, i.e., the two slopes of the Green Mountains. But last year Vermont had bad floods and economic upheaval. Governor John E. Weeks, oldtime West Sloper, handled himself and the crisis well, and the crisis included the drowning of Lieutenant-Governor S. Hollister Jackson of Barre (East Slope). In September's primary, Governor Weeks, 74, "Vermont's Al Smith," had the temerity to offer "continuity of service" against tradition, and the popularity to carry it off. He was, of course, reelected.

P: In Klan-ridden Indiana, a Republican Governor was elected to succeed a Republican Governor who had come closer than most Governors to going to jail, and who was the successor to a Republican Governor who had gone to jail (Atlanta Penitentiary). The Governor-elect is Harry G. Leslie, no jailbird.

P: In Republican Illinois, to succeed Republican Governor Len Small, who some people have tried unsuccessfully to jail, the Republican Secretary of State was elected Governor. Name: L. L. Emmerson.

P: In 1926, South Dakota got its first Democratic Governor, William J. Bulow, 59, a man who had never seen the sea. Last week South Dakota decided to keep him, now a travelled man who had seen the sea last January at Coney Island.

P: It was a bad week for Democracy but not quite so bad for Bryans--although historically their misfortunes have been one and the same. Charles W. Bryan, the last Great Commoner's "Brother Charlie," tried to come back to the post of Governor of Nebraska, which he held when nominated for U. S. Vice President in 1924. But while the Brown Derby was being smashed, the Bryan skull cap was also refused reentrance to Nebraska's architecturally famed Capitol. Republican A. J. Weaver won. However, in Florida, a Bryan won (see p. 11).

P: Unique among all U. S. political executives is Democrat George Wylie Paul Hunt. Only one other man has even been Governor of Arizona since it was admitted to the Union in 1912. Once "strong as an ox," now 69 and bald as a turtle, he has grown with Arizona and shaped it. First a waiter, then a cow puncher, then businessman, then legislator, he is remembered by oldtimers for having prohibited the presence of women in saloons and many another modification of the early territorial customs. No U. S. mustache is more famed than his. Once frowsy and walrusy, it is now smartly waxed. But while the Hunt personality might easily have explained his seventh reelection, actually he was defeated by Republican John C. Phillips. This was partially because Arizona was opposed to the Brown Derby's water power policy as possibly applied to Boulder Dam.