"Just that Simple"

The crowd on Hollywood's Vine Street shouted, cheered and clapped at the sight of Jimmy Roosevelt emerging from Tom Breneman's restaurant with a wide Rooseveltian grin on his face. Inside, Jimmy had just made a broadcast announcing that he would run for governor of California. His studio audience surged out behind him, still munching their free ice cream cones, and gathered around to gawk at the show. On the sidewalk a three-piece band struck up Happy Days Are Here Again, a tumbling team cavorted and square dancers twirled in the rosy glow of neon signs. In the midst of it all stood Jimmy, bald, tall and toothpick thin, bending low to pump a hundred hands.

The curbstone coming-out party attracted a lot of people, though F.D.R.'s eldest (41) son might well have preferred a fine public dinner, full of resounding endorsements from Democratic bigwigs. Unfortunately, most old-line California Democrats regard Jimmy as something of a Typhoid Mary. Among their kindlier criticisms they accused him of being a carpetbagger--a point which he met in his broadcast with a time-honored political cliche: "I congratulate those of you who, like my sons and daughter, had the foresight to be born here. The rest of us, three out of every five Californians, have had at least the merit of choosing wisely."

Mostly his enemies in the party remembered Jimmy's attempt to dump Harry Truman in favor of Eisenhower at Philadelphia last year. "We can't very well trust him," groused redheaded Tom Scully, Los Angeles Truman stalwart. "This is a lot different from The Bronx where the name Roosevelt means something. The people here will fill a ballpark to see a Roosevelt--or a Clark Gable or a Lana Turner, of a Frankenstein. But they won't vote for them." Most of the Truman professionals preferred California's E. George Luckey, the swashbuckling Imperial Valley cattleman who had been widely advertised as President Truman's favorite California Democrat.

Last week they learned that the signals were changed. Democratic National Chairman Bill Boyle let it be known that he (and therefore Harry Truman) was now for Jimmy Roosevelt. Boyle was no man to underestimate the crowd appeal of the name, the smile, the memory-waking voice. Said one party strategist: "George Luckey is awfully nice, but California is important to us. Jimmy Roosevelt can beat Earl Warren. Therefore Roosevelt is our man. It's just that simple."

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