The Governor Bids a Slam

KANSAS The Governor Bids a Slam

George Docking, the genial, 53-year-old governor of Kansas, and his wife Virginia had just finished a rousing round of duplicate bridge and a lively tournament post-mortem of the play over coffee and ice cream in the Hotel Kansan snackshop, the Purple Cow. It was past midnight in Topeka as Democrat Docking paid the bill, escorted Virginia to his state-owned Cadillac outside, helped her into the car, slid into the driver's seat and purred off into the night.

The governor was in a purring mood--and the fact that he and Virginia had won third prize at bridge ($2) had almost nothing to do with it. As Kansas' first Democratic governor in 20 years, George Docking has been winning most of his contracts from Kansas Republicans since he took office last year. Last week he dealt put a fresh hand that may well keep him in the governor's chair for another term. The slam bid in this case: a budget so carefully conceived and publicized that the Republicans might as well be against motherhood as oppose it.

Nuts & Jolts. In the Docking bid were such jolts as a 1-c- reduction in gasoline taxes (to be offset by a truck ton-mile tax), which pleased the oil companies, the railroads and plain, ordinary car owners; a 5% salary increase for state college and university teachers; slightly bigger corporation taxes, which outraged business but pleased Kansas' growing labor unions. Chuckles old Banker Docking: "This is one of those bankers' Machiavellian ideas. I dreamed up the gas tax-reduction plan all by myself, and later some of my people tried to talk me out of it. I said, 'Nuts to that.' Bureaucrats never think of reducing a tax any more, and this is one I want to reduce." If the Republican-controlled legislature resists his program, it will have to raise $20 million elsewhere--probably by an increase in the sales tax from 2% to 3%, a move which Docking already has promised to veto.

Though his tax program sounds like orthodox Fair Dealing, George Docking has made a political career out of being an offbeat Democrat in Republican Kansas (he regards himself as "a kind of cynic," likes to read Voltaire, Swift, Defoe). The son of a prosperous Kansas banker, Docking sold bonds for a few years after his graduation (A.B., economics) from the University of Kansas in 1925. Eventually he went into the family banking business, took over in 1942 as president of the First National Bank of Lawrence. He played his first political hand in 1952, as money-raiser for Adlai Stevenson's first presidential campaign.

Barks & Blights. Docking lost his first campaign for governor in 1954 by 44,000 votes. On his second try, he campaigned in every county of the state, won by 115,000 votes. His victory followed a crunching split in the long-powerful Kansas G.O.P., where highhanded Republican Governor Fred Hall had thoroughly alienated his own party. Even so, the Republicans felt that a Democrat in the statehouse represented some political quirk of fate and would prove to be a brief nightmare. But once in office, Docking settled down to a program so different from Hall's that it pleased even some Republicans.

Where Hall closed his door to virtually everybody and worried about tapped telephone lines, Docking played the genial host. He put signs outside his office: "Come right in. The doors are closed only in the interest of efficient air conditioning." He made himself available to politicos, welcomed daily press conferences (and set up a coffeemaker for newsmen in his office suite), would interrupt almost any affair of state to have his picture taken with plain folks, who came in steady streams to pay their respects.

Factions & Finesses. Such has been the success of Democrat Docking that in county after county across the state, once hopelessly labeled by blighted Democrats as the Land of Landon, the Democratic Party is showing gaining strength, building a fresh, new organization, putting up candidates for county and municipal offices where Democrats have never had a chance. The Democrats already have one of Kansas' six congressional seats, have high hopes of gaining one or two more this November. The Republican factions are still too busy snapping at each other to find a good candidate to throw against Docking in the November election.

It worries Docking not at all that his budget is in for a drubbing. He has maneuvered so that the Republican defensive will make him look good to Kansas voters. With such a losing finesse likely to work out in his favor, the governor and his Democratic partners stand a good chance of picking up a new book of tricks in November.

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