New Track

The Commonwealth of Kentucky, though it ranks among the states lowest in income and industry, employment and education, has long stood at the very top in the successful use of its political patronage system. To build up the power of incumbent Democratic administrations, Kentucky's 23,000 state employees for years were required to "contribute" 2% of their salaries to campaign war chests. Under loudmouthed Governor (1935-39 and 1955-59) Albert ("Happy") Chandler, eight $7,200-a-year highway commissioners traveled Kentucky's highways and byways dispensing jobs and rounding up votes; so many weed cutters were hired by the highway department around election time that Kentuckians ruefully calculated the number at two cutters for each weed.

But these days Kentuckians have reason to hope that a new day has dawned. The reason: a remarkable performance during his first months in office by Governor Bert Thomas Combs, 48.

Making a Point. Bert Combs, a country lawyer from Prestonsburg (pop. 3,585) with a way-down-yonder drawl, was elected last year over a handpicked Chandler candidate. A shy, retiring sort of man, he seemed likely to be overshadowed by 1) powerful former U.S. Senator Earle C. Clements, who had backed Combs against the rival Chandler faction, and 2) smart, persuasive Lieutenant Governor Wilson Wyatt, onetime (1941-45) mayor of Louisville and U.S. housing expediter in 1946 under Truman. But from the beginning, Combs worked smoothly with Wyatt, and he quickly let Clements know who was boss. At his first cabinet meeting, Combs listened politely while tough Earle Clements, who had been appointed highway commissioner, outlined a pet proposal. Combs replied quietly but firmly: "Nope, that ain't the way we're going to do it." And a point was established.

Slicing the bloated state payroll by 15%, Combs next sent to the general assembly a 16-point reform program put together by himself and Wyatt. Among the measures pushed through the assembly ("This," said one legislator, "has been the hardest-working, lightest-drinking session in Kentucky's history"): 1) a merit system of state employment; 2) a realistic conflict-of-interest law; 3) a fair-elections law, requiring voting machines throughout the state; 4) the first statewide cleanup of Kentucky's voting rolls; 5) an average $1,100 raise in teachers' salaries and a probe of the inept education system; 6) establishment of a $4,000,000 business-development corporation ("little RFC") and a $2,000,000 industrial-loan authority to bolster the state's sagging coal-mining and agricultural economy.

Trimming & Taxing. To finance his billion-dollar budget, Combs insisted on a 3% sales tax, trimmed 40% from the state income tax. Kentucky pols promptly predicted that the hated sales tax would kill Combs's political career. But Bert Combs professed no ambitions beyond his term's end in 1963. Said he: "I would like to leave some sort of track that I've been here." He already has.

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