Ohio's Eighth?

Seven of the 32 U. S. Presidents came out of Ohio. Two were Governors, one was a Senator before they got to the White House. All were Republicans.

From and about Robert Alphonso Taft (son of Ohio's sixth President) the U. S. has heard much since he was elected to the Senate last year. From and about Ohio's 54th Governor, the U. S. has heard almost nothing at all.

Last week in Columbus, John William Bricker sweated to send his first Legislature home with a record worthy of a Presidential prospect. His biggest chore: to get a $9,250,000 Relief appropriation passed without having to impose new taxes, which would violate his campaign pledges. His biggest asset, other than his own vigor and mien, is the fact that his predecessor was bumbling Democrat Martin Luther Davey, whose administration thoroughly fed up Ohioans of all parties. Last week Governor Bricker signed one of several bills designed to oust Davey holdovers. His latest "ripper" ejected from the State parole board the former Governor's former secretary, Mrs. Myrna Young Smith, whom Martin Davey appointed just before he left office.

Ohioans know John Bricker as a husky, iron-grey-haired 45-year-old who has the elemental political prerequisites. He was a farm boy, schoolteacher, lawyer, a notably honest utilities commissioner, an ab.e State attorney-general before he ran and won on last year's Republican upswell. He pared $3,000,000 from the last Davey budget, in turning out the Daveycrats he offended some politicos by holding Republican patronage within bounds. Every inch a Presidential prospect in his own mind, he is mortally afraid that indiscreet friends or canny enemies will boom him too soon, explode his chance to come up opportunely in the convention next year.

"Honest John" Backer's friends have kept a hard eye on Ohio's Republican Boss Ed Schorr, who may be able to name the Favorite Son. Last week Ed Schorr was reported to have made his choice. It was not John Bricker but Bob Taft, who is well up in the polls, is at the top in the perhaps wishful ratings of Republican strategists in Washington. The Gallup Poll last week published results of a check on radio listeners who tuned in Bob Taft's debates with pro-New Deal Congressman-Professor T. V. Smith of Illinois. The tally as to which had better arguments: Taft 66%, Smith 34%. Since Bob Taft is a notably inept speaker, and Representative Smith a notably skilled one, the judgment was as much a comment on the New Deal's unpopularity as on the junior Senator from Ohio.

Minnesota's New Republican Governor Harold Stassen last week presented himself in Washington as a young man worthy of note because: 1) he had just put a bang-up, middle-of-the-road reform program through his first Legislature, and 2) he cannot run for the Presidency next year. He is 32, will be nicely past the Constitutional minimum of 35 in 1944. Harold Stassen's first purpose in visiting Washington was to promote cooperation between his reorganized State Government and the Roosevelt Administration. His second was to tell G. 0. P. Chairman John Hamilton how to turn out the New Deal in 1940. His way: eschew attacks on "the sound social objectives" of the New Deal, promise to do more for the farmers than Franklin Roosevelt has done.

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