Drugstore Cowboy

If the laughing waters called Minnehaha, in Minnesota were merrily roaring last week, the windup of Minnesota's gubernatorial campaign was sufficient reason. That spectacle had reached a point where Farmer-Labor Governor Elmer A. Benson, stung by his Republican opponent's charges that the Farmer-Labor administration was a corrupt city slicker machine, hurled back the worst epithet he could think of, called burly young Republican Harold E. Stassen a "drugstore cowboy." As fantastic were Republican Stassen's chief campaign planks against the most successful Farmer-Labor party in the U. S. : he promised: 1) a State Labor Relations Act, and 2) to do something for Minnesota's "forgotten men," the farmers.

No drugstore cowboy but a strapping 210-pounder born only 31 years ago on a Dakota County farm, Harold Stassen worked his way through the University of Minnesota Law School, for three years as a Pullman conductor. Aged 23, he was elected Dakota County attorney and has held that job ever since. Blue-eyed, ruddy, with a contagious smile and natural friendliness as strenuous as that of Kentucky's Happy Chandler, Stassen soon became a force among Minnesota's Young Republicans. This year he led their test of strength against the Old Republicans, easily overwhelmed Old Guarder Martin Nelson, twice his party's candidate for Governor, and also Minneapolis' hard-boiled Mayor George Leach.

Candidate Benson worries not so much about the 125,000 votes Stassen polled in the Republican primary as the 210,000 votes polled by insurgent ex-Governor Hjalmar Petersen in the Farmer-Labor primary. Insurgent Petersen, who thinks he and not "Radical" Elmer Benson is the rightful heir of Farmer-Labor's late, great Boss Floyd Olson, has pointedly failed to make his peace with the Governor. Other insurgent Farmer-Laborites have emphasized the split by testifying before the Dies Committee in Washington that today's Farmer-Labor party is riddled with Communism.

All this has given Harold Stassen an unparalleled chance to make hay. A more energetic campaigner than bespectacled Governor Benson, he has covered 20,000 Minnesota miles in his car, bellowing into a back seat dictaphone between speeches. He makes as many as four in one evening, always scurries to the back of the hall to pump the hand of each departing listener.

Apparent losers in any combination were Democratic Candidate Thomas Gallagher (campaigning for $50 pensions for Minnesotans over 60) and Democrat Franklin Roosevelt. The President failed to accommodate Elmer Benson, a vociferous New Dealer, by scratching the Democratic slate in favor of Farmer-Labor as he did in 1936. With no similar New Deal deal in sight last week, Twin Cities betting odds, hitherto favoring the well-oiled Benson machine 10-to-9, dropped to even money.

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