Grandson into Club?

"For some time Republican friends of mine . . . have suggested that I become a candidate for the United States Senate. . . . I have given the suggestion deep thought. I have concluded that my work as a newspaperman in Washington and my experience as a member of the legislature would enable me to be of service to the people of Massachusetts. I desire, therefore, to submit my candidacy to the people."

With this hoary political formula, handsome young Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., grandson and namesake of Massachusetts' late great Senator, put in his bid last week for the Senate seat of Democrat Marcus Allen Coolidge. Barely 33, Grandson Lodge realized that a picket fence of "ifs" still separated him from the most distinguished gentlemen's club in the land. He must first win the Republican nomination next summer and then the regular election the autumn after.

This cum laude graduate of Harvard (1924) served as a junior Washington correspondent and later as an editorial writer on the New York Herald Tribune before getting himself elected to the Massachusetts Legislature in 1932. Though that arch-Republican paper swings few votes in Massachusetts, it came out strongly last week for its onetime employe:

"It is not the nature of the American Democracy to harbor a governing class . . . and yet most of us could wish that politics in this country attracted more of those men and women whose upbringing and education best fit them for public office. . . . It is . . . in order to applaud a young man like Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. . . . and to see in his ambition to emulate the example of his illustrious grandfather a portent of brighter days. For Mr. Lodge, we believe, is of the kind of stuff to leaven the lump of mediocrity that burdens our national councils. . . ."

Before the week was out, Massachusetts had produced another descendant of a proud forebear to challenge young Mr. Lodge's candidacy. Republican friends of Mayor Sinclair ("Sinny") Weeks of Newton, son of the late John Wingate Weeks, onetime (1913-19) U. S. Senator, onetime (1921-25) Secretary of War, reported that they had likewise prevailed upon him to go after the Senate job.

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