California Keynoter

To keynote their national convention next June 26, Republicans last week picked a prime, ripe, sun-kissed man: California's able Governor Earl Warren. The choice was a surprise to many a GOPster--and a happy outcome for National Chairman Harrison Spangler.

Earl Warren's name had not been among those originally suggested for keynoter. Reason: he was considered a sure bet for second place on a ticket with Tom Dewey, and the keynote spot is usually reserved for a noncandidate. But by the time the G.O.P. Committee on Arrangements met in Chicago's Stevens Hotel, the way had been cleared for the Westerner.

Proposed by his own committeeman, Earl Warren got early support from Texas' redhaired Committeeman Rentfro Banton Creager, the South's most potent Republican. Chairman Spangler seconded the motion. Representatives of the Dewey and Bricker camps nodded agreement. In the face of such agreement at the top, all other candidacies collapsed. Earl Warren was chosen unanimously.

Would the choice build up Warren for the Vice Presidential nomination? Many GOPsters were sure it would. Others recalled that Governor Warren has said that he is not a candidate for any national office, and they now believed that he would really rather wait for a shot at first place in 1948 or 1952.

Texan Creager's action was significant of the growing rush to the Dewey bandwagon. Heretofore, Ohio's Bricker was generally understood to have inherited the support of the South's "kept" Republican delegations which Ohio's Taft acquired in 1940. Some political dopesters now concluded that Warren had everything that was coming to him, that Dewey's running mate will turn out to be John Bricker--who is now the only candidate, Republican or Democratic, who has thrown his hat into the ring and jumped after it.

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