Free-for-all

With a sob in his voice and a look at the record, Governor W. Lee O'Daniel last week jumped into the Texas Senatorial campaign. There are now 21 candidates. O'Daniel's joining them made the State's special election this month, to find a successor to the late, great Prohibitionist Morris Sheppard, the biggest U.S. political show since the Presidential campaign last fall.

The political situation in Texas was confused enough before the Governor jumped in. Three weeks after the campaign's start (TIME, May 5), most observers were ready to tear up their dope sheets. Martin Dies, who eats two Communists for breakfast every morning, was running a surprisingly colorless campaign. Lyndon Johnson, 32, the New Deal's candidate, suffered the awful fate of Wendell Willkie--his voice gave out just as he began a whirlwind speaking tour. If anybody looked strong it was Gerald Mann, 34, Attorney General, who still carries about his eyes a mass of scar tissue from the days when he was a football hero at Southern Methodist University, the first great All-American and forward passer from the Southwest.

Gerald Mann doesn't cuss, doesn't drink, is slight, quick, deep-eyed, and keeps his weight down to his quarterback's 150 lb.

Nobody expected the lesser candidates to win. But nobody knew how many votes they would take from the big four of O'Daniel, Mann, Johnson, Dies, or from whom they would take most. Some of the minor meteors:

Evangelist Sam Morris, the "Voice of Temperance," radio prohibitionist. His strongest card: a letter written by Morris Sheppard before his death, praising Sam Morris' fight against the Demon Rum.

Gland Specialist John Brinkley, barely defeated (twice) for the Governorship of Kansas, once potent operator of a radio station over the Mexican border. Said William Allen White: "He will appeal to the hillbilly mind as it has never been lured before. . . . He is irresistible to the moron mind, and Texas has plenty of such!" Editor White's conclusion: Doc Brinkley may win.

Mineral Water Salesman Hal Collins, with a radio following, a string band, a dialect entertainer, introduced a new trick at campaign rallies: he gave away a mattress to the largest family present. But when O'Daniel entered the race, Hal Collins dropped out, saying, "Anybody with an ounce of brains would know it's the only thing to do."

Nobody paid much mind to A. B. ("Cyclone") Davis of Dallas, who runs for everything; to a politically unknown ex-West Pointer who buys radio time to demand an immediate declaration of war against Germany, Japan, Italy; to old Basil Muse Hatfield, "Commodore of Inland Rivers," who is campaigning for a five-ocean navy.

Radio spellbinders and Gerald Mann may cut into O'Daniel's support, but the tone of his announcement showed they faced a mighty task: "I shall take along with me the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, an inbred and inerasable common touch with the common man and I hope your unceasing prayers." He spoke of his "old, old friend the President," urged more and bigger pensions and fewer strikes. He ended with a poem:

No knightly crown will I ever crave 'Cept a conscience clear and an honest grave. . . .

In Washington, Texas-born Under Secretary of the Interior Alvin Wirtz conferred briefly with President Roosevelt, came out to announce that he had resigned. He was off to Texas to prop up Lyndon Johnson's wobbling campaign.

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