Second Section

Robert Taft had steam up. Last week, with Congress just about ready to quit, he pulled the whistle. This week the Taft campaign train would begin to roll, and Ohio's plugging Senator would be off on what he hoped was the right track to the Republican presidential nomination.

If anyone did not know the makeup of the train, it was not the fault of Engineer Taft. He had put it together in the yards of the 80th Congress, where virtually every piece of major legislation had been given his boost or his boot. Frankly, loudly, obstinately and often, he had declared his stand. Some of his views (his opposition to David Lilienthal, to universal military training, to the State Department's Voice of America) had brought a storm of criticism. Other views (on the labor act, on tax-cutting) had won him both praise and condemnation. But nobody, friend or foe, could accuse him of not speaking his mind. He was wide open to rocks and cheers all along the right of way.

Points West. First stop on his schedule was a meeting of some 2,000 of Ohio's top Republicans in Columbus on July 31. At that meeting, Senator John Bricker was expected to renounce his presidential ambitions in favor of his fellow Ohioan. Ohio's G.O.P. executive committee would formally choose Taft, and Ohio's favorite son would be off. Then he would relax for a month at Quebec's Murray Bay, where three generations of Tafts have relaxed before him. In September, he would take the road. On his itinerary: California, Oregon, Washington.

As the Taft train began to chuff, Taft and his campaign strategists breathed nothing but confidence.

The Dewey trip did not worry them. Dewey, they knew, was out in front, Taft was currently a bad second. But Tom Dewey, they figured, had hurt himself by advertising a political trip as a vacation, and by trying to line up Dewey-bossed delegations to the convention. Whistled Taft strategists as they rounded a curve: "The best chance the party has to win the 1948 election is to stage a completely unbossed convention."

Brave Heart. The Dewey train was homeward bound. Optimism filled the eastbound streamliner. Said the Governor: "I think I re-established my roots in the West."

Dewey strategists were certain that the Governor had accomplished his main objectives. He had shown himself to a lot of people. He had reminded the country that he was a self-made Midwestern boy. He had impressed on some Republican leaders the need for stampede-proof, Dewey delegates.

He had also impressed, and pleased, some rank-&-filers. One of them was Chief Red Cloud of the Sioux Indians. At Cheyenne, the Chief had made Dewey a member of the tribe, presenting him, in a speech in Sioux, with a red-dyed, turkey-feather headdress. Princess Blue Water had translated: "We're a-namin' him Brave Heart. We're for him for President and with what he's a-doin' he's got to be brave."

Dewey had accepted the headdress, being careful not to put it on. "None of this St. Calvin stuff for me," said he sotto voce, remembering how Calvin Coolidge had looked in turkey feathers.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.