Speaker Gus

It was as cut & dried as a stalk in an old corn shock. Big, conservative, conscientious Gustav Theodore Kuester (TIME, April 29) had left his rich Cass County acres and no head of first-rate hogs in the care of a friend and moved into smoggy Des Moines to do his biennial bit of legislating. The 98 Republicans in the 108-member House promptly and unanimously elected him Speaker.

No. one was surprised. Gus Kuester ran a hoe-hardened hand through his silvery hair, told his colleagues in his slow, casual way that the chief thing he has in mind is a successful session.

Gus Kuester's first problem was not political, but he met it with his customary forthrightness. He flatly refused to follow precedent by wearing a soup-&-fish to Governor Robert D. Blue's fancy inaugural ball. Said Speaker Gus: "I know some fellows wear them, but the only way they would ever get me into one of those things is when I'm dead."

lowans knew that he would meet legislative puzzlers in the same head-on fashion. They also know that, come early April, he will head back to Cass County to do the job he loves best--help his fat brood sows farrow another crop of piglets.

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