Making a Race

In less than a month, the national convention of the Liberal Party would meet --to pick a party leader to succeed retiring Mackenzie King. Hats began to go into the ring. Short, scrappy Agriculture Minister James Gardiner last week announced: "I have agreed that those who think I would make a suitable leader for the party might place my name in nomination."

This was the first announced competition to dignified (66) Louis St. Laurent, Minister of External Affairs, who most Canadians had long assumed would be the new Premier. Now they are not sure.

St. Laurent has something of the stature of an elder statesman but he has never been a rough & ready politician. No other Liberal has St. Laurent's qualification: widespread support in both French and English Canada. But in the give & take of practical politics he was un ingenu.

Articulate Man. Jimmy Gardiner is as practical as politicians come. In provincial and federal politics for over 30 years, he has never lost an election. Twice Premier of Saskatchewan, he still holds a firm grip on the provincial Liberal Party (although the socialist CCF rules his province). As Minister of Agriculture, he has played for the farmer vote, sponsored the British food contracts with their long-term price guarantees. He sometimes dictates 60 letters a day, most of them four-page crunchers well larded with facts. A staunch United Churchman, who neither smokes nor drinks, he makes a speech at the drop of a hat, at political meetings, church suppers or almost any other gathering that wants to listen. He gets about, spends half his time away from Ottawa on the hustings; last week he was mending fences in Saskatchewan. He has the closest thing to a personal political machine in Canada.

Theoretically, St. Laurent should be within reach of a majority on the first ballot of the 1,299 convention delegates. He will have most of Quebec's 324 votes, a good part of Ontario's 388. A modest number of votes from the Maritime provinces and a scattering from the west should add up to the necessary 650.

Gardiner can expect most of Saskatchewan's no, some of British Columbia's 93, and Alberta's 97. He cannot count on Manitoba's 97, which should be solid for Manitoba's own Premier Stuart Garson (said to be Mackenzie King's choice for leader a few years hence). Nor can Gardiner count on the Maritime provinces' 186 votes, which are now destined for a favorite son, Premier Angus Macdonald.

Men on the Scene. But Gardiner's announcement made the convention a real contest. It gave hope to all candidates, including such dark horses as Lester B. ("Mike") Pearson and Brooke Claxton, Paul Martin, Clarence Decatur Howe, Douglas Abbott and Charles Gavan ("Chubby") Power. Because of mechanical differences, Canadian conventions are not so easy to swing or control as U.S. conventions: the delegates vote individually by secret ballot; no candidate may rise to withdraw and publicly switch his support to another.

Last week Jimmy Gardiner supporters were in the field, promising freight rate adjustments to the Maritimes, cheap feed grains to Ontario farmers, federal financial aid for scores of community projects. In Quebec, they reminded French delegates that Jimmy was a steadfast opponent of conscription (in private--he followed the party in public) and that he fought what he terms the "thin wedge of Communism" of the CCF in Saskatchewan.

It was old-fashioned political infighting, and effective; but the odds were still on St. Laurent. The Ottawa Journal put it this way: "Our guess is that Mr. Gardiner will not win the party leadership. We would bet all the tea in China, though, that when he goes down it will be with all his banners flying."

Yet people began to wonder. Following Minister Gardiner's flat announcement that he was running, white-haired Minister St. Laurent declared nobly: "I believe that any member whom the party selects would feel it honorable to accept. I am doing nothing to influence the choice of the party."

In Ottawa, politicians were saying: "That's just it. Do you remember the Republican convention last month? St. Laurent is behaving like Vandenberg. And Gardiner is doing a Dewey."

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