Wagons Ho!

The woods along Oregon's presidential primary trail are full of eager political explorers, but of all of them, none is so determined as Massachusetts' Democratic Senator John Kennedy. Last week Jack Kennedy's wagon train was pounding hell for leather up the trail toward primary day next May, leaving the others well fogged in the dust.

Of no great moment was the announcement by Oregon's Senator Wayne Morse that, despite the pleas of "thousands," he would not permit his name to be put on the primary ballot as a favorite son. More to the point was the fact that both Minnesota's Hubert Humphrey and Adlai Stevenson lost some of their best scouts. One was a national committeeman and state senator, Monroe Sweetland, onetime socialist and longtime Democratic liberal, who declared that he was switching his support from Humphrey to Kennedy. On Sweetland's heels was equally influential Sylvia Nemer, 1956 co-chairman of the Stevenson campaign, whose strength counts a lot with still uncommitted Congresswoman Edith Green of Portland.

"I didn't let go of Stevenson easily," explained Mrs. Nemer as she threw in with Kennedy. "But I finally realized we must avoid the pitfall of the father image that has befallen the Republicans. The first fact of life is that [Stevenson] doesn't want to run and can't be forced into running. I am with the wing of the party that wants to stop Symington or Johnson. I regard both Humphrey and Kennedy as outstanding liberals, but I believe Kennedy is the man who can win."

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