Better Half

Though the Law does not hold the felony of a husband against his wife, the Church holds them of one flesh. Practical politics adds that they are also of one brain and therefore interchangeable upon a ballot.

While Governor William Langer of North Dakota was on trial in Federal Court on a charge of forcing CWA workers to contribute to his political support, Lydia Cady Langer went out on the stump and campaigned to win her husband renomination (TIME, June 25). A frail woman with four children and little political experience, Mrs. Langer is the daughter of the late James Cleveland Cady, Manhattan architect who designed the Metropolitan Opera House. After her marriage 16 years ago in a Riverside Drive apartment, she went West with "Bill" Langer and left her New York ways and words forever behind her. When North Dakota's farmers heard her stump speeches they decided she was the right kind of wife for the kind of Governor they wanted. After Governor Langer's Federal conviction and before his sentence to 18 months in jail the farmers gave the Langers a vote of confidence, renominated him on the Republican ticket by a whooping majority (TIME, July 9).

Ousted by the State Supreme Court from the Governorship because of his conviction, Mr. Langer found that his opponents were going to court to have him debarred as a "convict," from the ballot in November. Ten years ago Texas gave the country a neat political trick whereby such legal difficulties could be sidestepped and the Governorship kept in the family. First to use it was James Ferguson who, following his impeachment and removal from office, put up his wife Miriam ("Ma") in his stead. Last week Mr. Langer decided to follow this pattern when he resigned his nomination and had the Republican State Central Committee, packed with his partisans, nominate his better, unfelonious half.

That afternoon Lydia Langer was at the Langer summer home at Spiritwood Lakes near Jamestown. At the committee's call she rushed back to Bismarck in a day coach, was met by a delegation at the station.*

"Do they really want me?" she demanded as the greeters carried her off to the State committee meeting. There she spoke:

"I come to you, very humbly, to enter this tremendous task. ... If I am elected your Governor there is not one person on the ticket I wouldn't cooperate with, not one person I couldn't go to and seek their advice. . . . And so, friends, I want you to know I know my limitations, and if our ticket goes over and if I should be your Governor I would carry out these policies of Bill's which were so soundly endorsed at the primary election. I shall try to do the most good for the most of the people at all times."

Next day she went back to her summer home to spend three weeks with her daughters. When she went into the June primary campaign as her husband's stumpster she weighed 120 lb. and when she came out, she weighed 100 lb. After a rest-up during which she hopes to regain some flesh, Nominee Lydia Langer will start campaigning in her own behalf.

*In Bismarck the Langers still occupy the Executive Mansion from which Governor Ole Olson has not bothered to oust them. The Olson family continues to live and work on the Olson farm near New Rockford.

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