The Earls of California

Ever since California's big, blond Governor Earl Warren refused the Republican vice presidential nomination at Chicago last year, he has been suspect to many members of his own party. When he made only three speeches (one of them canned) for Tom Dewey in the campaign, suspicions deepened. And when he supported a compulsory health-insurance bill at the last session of the legislature, red-blooded GOPsters practically accused him of felonious conduct.

The mutterings fazed Earl Warren not a bit. He had campaigned and been elected as a "nonpartisan" in 1942 and he seemed determined to go merrily along his non-partisan way. To some observers this seemed politically smart. California voters are notoriously fickle and cross party lines at the drop of a good pension plan.

But by last week the anti-Warren undertone had reached the proportions of a shout. One Earl Lee Kelly, a stem-winding, dyed-in-the-wool Republican, let fly with a speech which accused Warren of "vacillation . . . opportunism . . . political expediency" and lack of "courage and character." He mailed out 50,000 copies of an anti-Warren cartoon, which showed the governor frantically trying to ride an elephant and a donkey going in opposite directions. And he hinted that he might run against Warren in next year's primary.

Earl Kelly believes and says that the Republican Party should be frankly conservative, and no nonsense about it. A hearty, well-barbered Irishman with a fine baritone voice, he learned the political ropes as highway commissioner and director of public works under Republican Governors Rolph and Merriam. Just before Merriam was beaten for re-election in 1938, he joined the Bank of America as a vice president. Last spring he started an investment banking firm of his own (First California Co.). He will run far governor, he said, if "support lines up for a real business leadership."

From Earl Warren came no reply. Last week he was preparing to leave for London on a project which, if it succeeds, would lose him no votes at home. He hopes to persuade the United Nations Organization to set up its permanent home in or near San Francisco.

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