Blind Man's Rebuff

On the morning of Dec. 22, 1935 there were two blind men in the U. S. Senate. That evening there was only one, Minnesota's bitter, blatant Thomas David Schall having died of injuries suffered when he was struck by an automobile. One evening last week the Senate lost its second blind man when Oklahoma's Thomas Pryor Gore, no New Dealer, finished fourth in a primary race for the Democratic nomination to his seat.

Famed for biting wit since he went to Washington as one of Oklahoma's first two Senators in 1907, "Tom" Gore once remarked in the course of a debate on inflation: ''If cheap money is what the country needs, why don't we repeal the laws against counterfeiting?" Last week the white-thatched old statesman acknowledged defeat thus: ''The law of evolution is adapt or die, and I didn't adapt."

In a career distinguished by stanch independence, it was not the first time that blind Senator Gore had lost his job because of opposition to a Democratic President. In 1916-17 he fought Woodrow Wilson's drift toward war, fathered the Gore-McLemore resolution to keep U. S. citizens off belligerent ships, voted against war and, in consequence, failed of reelection in 1920. Returning to the Senate in 1931, this onetime Populist turned hard-headed conservative proceeded to oppose such New Deal innovations as NRA, such New Deal largess as AAA and the $4,800,000,000 Relief bill of 1935. To his constituents' demand that he vote for the Relief bill, he replied: "Much as I value votes, I am not in the market. I cannot consent to buy votes with the people's money."

The candidates who trounced Senator Gore last week had outdone themselves in promising handouts from the public funds. The vision of $200 per month for every oldster helped the Townsendite candidate, Corner Smith, vice president of Old Age Revolving Pensions, Inc., to finish a strong third. As No. 2, Governor Ernest Whitworth Marland won the right to enter a runoff primary July 28 by singing the praises of Franklin Roosevelt, pointing to his own State's social security amendment. Even so, he ran well behind winning Representative Josh Lee, 44, whose New Deal-plus platform included "a farm for every farmer and a home for every family."

Christened plain Joshua, "Josh" Lee took Bryan for his middle name at 10 after hearing the late Great Commoner orate. Patterning his life on that of his hero, he grew up to be national collegiate oratorical champion in 1916, head of University of Oklahoma's public speaking department when he returned from the War. Then he set about preparing himself for a political career in earnest. He took an M.A. in political science at Columbia. He joined the right organizations, coursed about the State making friends and speeches, charming his fellow teachers, fellow Baptists, fellow Legionaries and fellow Anti-Saloon Leaguers with his flowery eloquence. He delivered more than 500 public-school commencement addresses to audiences totaling some 350,000. When he got a leave of absence from his teaching job to run for the House two years ago, he piled up a bigger vote than all four of his opponents combined. Blond, sturdy and friendly as a pup, Josh Lee last week made good the predictions of Washington observers who had quickly rated him one of the House's most effective speakers, marked him for a comer.

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