Flying Start

Hot but happy was Topeka, Kans. last week as it turned out to salute John Daniel Miller Hamilton, returning from Cleveland to hand the Republican nomination to Governor Alfred Mossman Landon and to plan with him how their glowing prize may be converted into the U. S. Presidency. Co-Candidate Knox reported in Topeka, too, and, after an appropriate amount of hat-waving and handshaking, John Hamilton, with characteristic snap and simplicity, lined up an executive campaign committee. Included were such new faces as Congressman Joseph W. Martin Jr. of Massachusetts, Earl Warren of California, Robert P. Burroughs of New Hampshire, Ezra R. Whitla of Idaho-- such old faces as Charles Dewey Hilles of New York, Harrison Spangler of Iowa, Rentfro Banton Creager of Texas, "RedHeaded Rooster of the Rio Grande."

Figures unfamiliar to Kansans began to appear in Topeka's streets: Charles P. Taft, younger brother of Ohio's favorite son, Robert Taft, come to help Governor Landon prepare speeches; Charlton MacVeagh of New York, come as adviser to John Hamilton--both liberal offshoots of conservative families; Ralph West Robey of Columbia to advise on economics; Earl H. Taylor, formerly of The Country Gentleman, to advise on farm problems; E. Ross Bartley, onetime secretary to Vice President Charles G. Dawes, later press-agent of Chicago's Century of Progress, to take charge of Nominee Landon's press relations.

John Hamilton quickly made plain that this "Brain Trust" would have little to do with the campaign. "I'm running this show," he said, and after a few confabs with the candidates and with his newspaper friends Lacy Haynes and Roy Roberts, John Hamilton announced his show's rough scenario. It called for no important speech by Nominee Landon until his acceptance late in July; then a short speech-making tour, probably beginning at West Middlesex, Pa., his birthplace; then a rest and, for the final weeks of the campaign, an energetic swing possibly from Boston to Los Angeles. In early autumn while Nominee Landon is relatively quiescent, Co-Nominee Knox would make a sweep, stumping wide and freely. But for the early part of the campaign the major burden would be thrown on G.O.P. Chairman Hamilton. His virile features and straightforward talk would be offered the U. S. as a contrast to Democratic Chairman Farley. Trusting to his physical stamina, he would be pushed unceasingly, would fly from state to state, cover the country from coast to coast, make two, three, four speeches daily.

Burden-Bearer. Easily the most newsworthy product of the Cleveland convention was John Hamilton, his youthful looks, engaging smile, curly chestnut head, frank manner, direct speech. To bored political onlookers, not Alf Landon but John Hamilton was the young Lochinvar come out of the West.

Actually he is neither young nor Lochinvar. At 44, he has been case-hardened for 22 years in practical politics. Born at Fort Madison, Iowa, he was the younger son of a lawyer father who became claims attorney for the Santa Fe Railroad at Topeka. Both parents are now dead but John Hamilton has one brother, Hale, 12 years his elder, an actor who in 1910 starred in Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford, later went into the movies. John Hamilton graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover, in 1913, got his law degree from Chicago's Northwestern University three years later. Before graduation he married Laura Hall, daughter of a wealthy Kansas printer, after graduation settled briefly in Kansas City, Mo. before moving back to Topeka.

Save for some months during the War, in training as a machine-gunner at Camp Hancock, Ga., the rest of his life has been devoted to law and politics. In law he made an astute alliance with Ralph T. ("Dyke") O'Neil, past commander of the American Legion and a Democrat. The firm of Hamilton & O'Neil, with feet in both political camps, did well. In 1934 Partner O'Neil got involved in the War Department supply scandals but Partner Hamilton was not entangled. In politics Hamilton started at the bottom as a precinct captain, for two reasons worked up rapidly: 1) An urge to get on top of the heap, which drives him to work incessantly--he made a house-to-house canvass on foot to win his first election as probate judge in 1920. 2) Adoption by a potent political father, David W. Mulvane, late boss of Kansas. In 1924 Hamilton,' with Mulvane's backing, was elected to the Kansas Legislature, served until 1928, finished as its Speaker. Far from a flaming beacon of liberalism was the Mulvane machine. In the Kansas House, Hamilton helped defeat the Child Labor Amendment to the Constitution.

In 1928 Hamilton launched out as a candidate for Governor. Opposed to him in the Republican primary was Clyde M. Reed who had the backing of Kansas liberals--William Allen White, Arthur Capper, Alfred M. Landon. Hamilton was beaten, Reed elected. Two years later Reed, with the same backers, tried to repeat. Hamilton changed tactics, became the manager of another candidate, Frank ("Chief") Haucke. This time Hamilton licked the Liberals, only to be beaten in the election by Democrat Harry Woodring.

The year 1932 provided a turning point in Hamilton's career. On the morning after Franklin Roosevelt's landslide, Boss Mulvane quietly dropped dead of heart attack. Hamilton inherited his post as Republican National Committeeman. He was, nominally at least, on top of the political world in Kansas. Last year when the "grassroots" liberals demanded a voice in preparing for the battle of 1936, Hamilton was made assistant to the Chairman of the National Republican Committee at a salary of $15,000 a year. He was no Landon-backer in the early months of the pre-convention campaign. For a time he flirted with Frank Knox. but finally made up his mind, resigned his job in Washington and took the job of managing Landon at a salary of $800 a month.

Thus, though he appears like anything but a typical politician, John Hamilton is precisely that, in formal outline. Subjectively he differs, too. He has a terrific energy not ordinarily coupled with the free & easy friendliness that is political good manners. His wife, who will have nothing to do with politics, is not popular with politicians and lives apart from it all in their chaste colonial house in Topeka, quietly collecting American antiques. For all his animal energy and physical charm, his nerves at times go haywire and he is not infrequently guilty of the gross political sin of tactlessness. To those who do not like him he is an egotist, unable to play second fiddle to anyone else, tied to Governor Landon only by their mutual self-interest. To his admirers he is a fine fellow, unquestionably loyal, in spite of a hard-shell political past; to Governor Landon and Liberalism, a bright new blade of energy and vigor who will lead his Party to far better success than all the butter-knife minds who for a decade have been running the Republican show.

First Plunge-- With lines of fatigue still written on his face from his Cleveland campaign, John Hamilton last week alighted from a plane at Newark to start the Republican campaign in the East. Asked why he had chosen Manhattan he replied with a grin, "Mostly because I want to see the Louis-Schmeling fight."

Instead of calling up financial bigwigs, his first act was to telephone all nearby county chairmen. He proposed to work, he told them, strictly through their organization. He wanted to meet and handshake their district leaders, whom he amazed by knowing their first names. He aid he proposed to see each & every one of the Party's 3,000 county chairmen before this campaign was over. They were the boys who must win for him. He knew. He had been one.

In his first Eastern campaign speech, in Manhattan this week, Chairman Hamilton whipped an audience to easy enthusiasm with gibes at Chairman Farley, reminiscences of broken New Deal promises, an exposition of the Republican platform, etc., etc. Just as Governor Landon had welcomed the formation of the Lemke-O'Brien Union Party, Mr. Hamilton paid his respects to the "distinguished and determined citizens" who renounced the New Deal with Al Smith.

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