Arkansas Upset

Until a few months ago, the only place where Dale Bumpers was known and admired was the Ozark foothills town of Charleston, Ark. (pop. 1,353), where he is choir director and lead baritone at the Methodist church. He is the city attorney because he is the town's only lawyer, and he has at one time or another represented nearly every business firm, plaintiff, criminal and divorcee in the community's recent history. Outside of Charleston, Bumpers was so unknown that shortly after he decided last spring to run for Governor, one computer sampling showed that he could expect only 1 % of the vote.

Bumpers jolted Arkansas last month, however, by collecting 19% of the Democratic primary vote for Governor. He thus knocked off two veteran politicians and forced a runoff with Orval Faubus, who was the state's vote-pulling champion in six successive gubernatorial elections before retiring in 1967. In the second and decisive round last week, Bumpers overwhelmed Faubus with nearly 60% of the vote.

Noble Profession. One reason for the upset was that Bumpers came across as a cool, rational and intensely sincere candidate whose natural style contrasted sharply with the contrived, emotional preachings of Faubus. Articulate, handsome and husky (6 ft., 200 Ibs.), Bumpers, 45, laughed readily, shunned speech texts, spoke quietly and candidly of the need for prison reform, better roads, higher teacher salaries, more vocational training and better programs for the poor. He countered Faubus' attempts to stir racial fears by saying that he too was against busing to achieve racial balance in schools. Yet when he was a school-board member in Charleston, the district was desegregated without difficulty. Arkansas Democrats seemed charmed by Bumpers' high-minded approach. "My father taught me that politics is a noble profession and I wanted to prove it," he said.

Faubus' personal attacks merely rebounded off Bumpers' wholesome persona. The son of a hardware-store owner who had served in the state legislature, Bumpers has been a Scoutmaster, Sunday school teacher, World War II Marine sergeant and smart-stepping bandsman (trumpet) at the University of Arkansas. He took over the family store when his parents were killed in a 1949 auto crash, later sold it to buy a 360-acre farm and raise Angus cattle. He sold some of the cattle to finance his campaign against Faubus.

Controversial Past. Thus when Faubus accused Bumpers of being "a country clubber, a tuxedo boy, a highball-to-highball type," the image did not seem remotely apt. Charleston does not even have a country club. Faubus also tried to raise doubts about whether Bumpers believed in God. In what became known as "the Red Sea controversy," Faubus said that Bumpers had once told his Sunday school classes that some biblical scholars questioned whether God had actually parted the waters of the Red Sea. This gave Bumpers a perfect opportunity to affirm his faith for the sake of the fundamentalists. He had only been trying to stimulate discussion in his class, he told a statewide TV audience. Then he declared: "I believe that God parted the Red Sea with an east wind, just as it says in the King James Version."

Bumpers raised no questions about Faubus' controversial past, but he did not need to do so. Faubus suffered from the memory of a sordid prison system exposed shortly after he left office and a scandal involving a savings and loan firm run by his cronies. Faubus, 60, campaigned with his 31-year-old bride Elizabeth at his side, a silent reminder that last year he divorced his first wife Alta after 37 years of marriage. The embittered Alta, 57, at first threatened to enter the race against him, but confined herself to warning voters not to trust his campaign promises because "he promised to love, cherish and obey when he married me, and he broke that vow." The divorce settlement gave Alta the family string of weekly newspapers. He kept their $200,000 mansion in Huntsville, complete with a $100,000 mortgage. It has been vacated by Faubus, who moved to Harrison as general manager of Dogpatch, U.S.A., an Ozarks amusement park.

Although hurt and angry over his loss, Faubus urged his supporters to get behind Bumpers in the race against two-term Republican Governor Winthrop Rockefeller and Walter Carruth, who is running on the George Wallace-allied American Party ticket. Faubus' backing helps make Bumpers a clear favorite to unseat Rockefeller, whose administration has been locked in a stalemate with a Democratic-controlled legislature. Arkansas voters seem receptive to a fresh face. If they choose Bumpers, Charleston will be proud but also a bit sad. It will have to search for a new lawyer and city attorney.

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