CHESTER BOWLES - COMPETENT LIBERAL
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
New Leader Portrait: Chester Bowles — Competent Liberal By William E. Bohn UNDER THE DOMED GLITTER of Connecticut's 70-year-old State House gits a governor who represents "competent...
...Since the Republicans hold majorities in a lot of the sparsely settled communities, they control the lower house and can thus tie up the Governor's program indefinitely...
...All four of them, moreover, are distinctively and definitely liberals who know how to get things done and, especially, how to get votes...
...We didn't want to...
...Those girls kept me th*r* an hour and a half answering questions...
...He laughed off the picture which I had sketched: "People just naturally get things hindside-forth and upsidedown...
...He died in 1878...
...In New England (outsiders must be told) a "town" is merely a region, a piece of soil with a government...
...He had been such a natural-born star that no one else could capture the publu eve...
...That is his wa> of working, THE STATE GOVERNMENT is a hodge-podge...
...The Republicans, we were told, had hiu men romping all over the plaee...
...So were Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson and Governor Adlai Stevenson...
...With engaging verve the young executive told me about his campaign...
...Last summer the Democratic party was written off as a total loss...
...And it was practically on the dot that Wash - ington and the opportunities of the Roosevelt administration called both Benton and me...
...The business of Connecticut is so twisted and tousled that it would be impossible to draw u chart showing clear lines of authority The legislature passed the requested authorizing legislation, a commission consisting chiefly of influential Republicans has been set up and is now at work...
...Samuel Bowles, editor of the Springfield Republican...
...The Republicans are against it...
...From the moment of his inauguration on January 5, the Governor has pushed proposals for education, housing, health...
...But in a moment hi' was off again: "Do you know, there's something new stirring...
...snorted all the trend-spotters and opinion-pollers...
...W* have some of them leading the legislature now...
...If Rus sia is making a long-term shift, we may not need that much next year or the year after...
...graduated from Yale...
...The head of the Monitor's Washington bureau had lined up four men as Democratic probabilities for the presidential nomination in 1952...
...put in a year or two on the Spriiifl/ield Republican, the paper made famous by his grandfather, Samuel Bowles...
...I never saw him...
...That was when the Jeffera>man wave was still rolling...
...So the "democratic" scheme of representation decreed in 1818 has led, in 1949, to a most undemocratic system of control...
...If you have too little government at one time, you may be beaten over the head with too much in the next round...
...therefore, outvote the five big industrial centers...
...In one respect Connecticut's chief executive is a queer duck among politicians...
...I'd rather not even think of it," he said...
...Nobody can shove us back whero we wer...
...But we have a right to know some things...
...Any well-run business, the Governor argued, can be described by means of an organizational chart...
...This body has not been instructed to offer amendments to the state constitution, but inevitably it will move in that direction...
...But at the very top was the name of the strapping young Connecticut Yankee sitting there in his office with me under the eyes of the proper and disapproving Republicans...
...His eye lit up as he explained how the cliches were put to work for reform...
...THAT MORNING an unusually optimistic line of thought had started in my old head...
...The tradition round New York is that the man was a whiz at the business racket...
...The people are with him...
...Five cities have 40 per cent of the population something like 800,000--and are represented by ten delegates...
...began to cut loose from business in 1936 and by 1941 was in Washington working for the people of these United States...
...Right now the legislature is tied up over a proposal to devote $75,000,000 to a program expanding the state's school system...
...As he came toward me, tall, square, smilingly confident, I thought the portraits of his Republican predecessors frowned disapproval...
...But Chester Bowles, with the legislative storm howling at his office door, remains serenely confident...
...if anyone, should know what is going on in the world of American politics...
...Th* other sight I was over at Haw London talking at th* Connecticut College lor Women...
...Th* young fallows all through th* stat* wer* up and doing, raising money, ringing doorbells...
...Without any idea of taring th* world, we both had th* notion of entering public service...
...He just naturally doesn't talk about himself...
...On the morning of my interview, the Hartford Times carried a four-column head: "Legislative Paralysis May Last Full Session...
...And, curiously enough, after a couple of minutes Governor Chester Bowles made a sweeping gesture and remarked: "These old boys don't like me...
...There are 108 commissions, bureaus and departments...
...His appeal was directed especially to Republican businessmen, the sort of leaders who might be expected to oppose him...
...Now most men, hogtied the way this governor is, would be goaded to desperation...
...How does a man like this, with his character, his ability, his motives, happen to be sweating it out in a state house...
...He is young...
...This was the political scene as it looked to wiseacres seven months ac...
...Here we are spending $17,000,000,000 for armaments...
...The Republicans control the House...
...Who's Who says he was born in 1901...
...I said to him: "Now look...
...If you are going to mention people in my life, don't leave her out...
...I see th* sam* thing in th* colleges, in th* high schools...
...started work for an advertising firm in 1925...
...It was in the trade unions...
...When 1 showed him the Monitor line-up...
...All the time we were talking, I was gazing at a portrait of Gideon Welles...
...There is, something fascinating about a Democratic reformer who stoutly believes he can work with Republicans...
...Either there has been a great change since last summer or we have discovered a great change which has been sneaking up on us during the years...
...He knows that in the end he will win...
...Then we can do various things...
...And what would come after that you hate to think of...
...The danger in that we will not do that...
...It wasn't a matter of orders from th* lop down...
...His face had turned sober...
...with William Benton started his own firm in 1929...
...You have to drive him into a corner and hold him down to get him to tell you what you want to know about his- personal life...
...We are going to face a problem...
...The>f are in earnest and they know what it is all about...
...Sooner oir later," mused the Governor, "we shall free ourselves from notions that were fastened on us in 1818...
...On the train coming up from New York I had been entertained by a story in The Christian Science Monitor...
...boys of 2S or 30...
...Tell me, how did you get started in this direction...
...The money just naturally came rolling in...
...When I finally forced him to listen to the end of this question, he started up rather slowly: "Well, there was my grandfather...
...But under the shadow of FDR the Democratic politicians had shriveled t" pitiful pretenders...
...He seemed to hurry as though to get something off his mind: "It's about time for us to do some thinking...
...The Democrats are for it...
...No leadership...
...We can cut taxes and bring on a depression, or' we can ease off on arms and spend the cash for schools, for health, for houses...
...But when the Civil War was over, he couldn't stand the corruption in the Republican party, "There are a lot of Republicans like that," remarked the Governor—and by this time he should know...
...But, like a certain Harry S. Truman, the time between January and May had been enough to land him in the midst of a heap of trouble...
...This man was Connecticut's gift to Lincoln's cabinet...
...Each of them has a name, a solid reputation for character and performance...
...I have enough to do right here for years to come...
...Six other "towns" with only 9,000 inhabitants are entitled to twelve delegates and can...
...I WAS ON MY FEET ready to go...
...She was a psychiatric social worker...
...THE GOVERNOR 18 A HEARTY EXTROVERT, easy to get on with, and very candid...
...And then, sobering: "You see, William Benton and I cam* out of Yale together...
...So there is what looks like a permanent stalemate...
...The Governor explained to me that the constitution of this small but- rich and distinguished state was adopted in 1818...
...New Leader Portrait: Chester Bowles — Competent Liberal By William E. Bohn UNDER THE DOMED GLITTER of Connecticut's 70-year-old State House gits a governor who represents "competent liberalism...
...SO HE WAS ELECTED...
...It was time, he_ said, to have a practical man of affairs look into things and find out where all the money goes...
...But in those Coolidge days there was no place for us in Washington...
...Each town in the state was given two representatives in the lower house of the legislature...
...At the very start of his administration, on January 12, he proposed to the legislature the appointment of a commission to study the operation of the state government...
...his face darkened for a moment...
...The Democrats control the Senate...
...Then there will be a break—with great suffering...
...This gave me ray line of approach to the man whom I was to interview...
...He was a liberal if there ever was on...
...Associate Justice William Douglas was on the list...
...It turned out, though, .that the years devoted to business were a good investment...
...People think of you as a man who went into advertising, made a heap of money and then plunged into politics as a rich man's diversion...
...But all my life he has been there, a sort of ideal...
...Like so many other evils, this lack could be traced back to Roosevelt...
...And then there is my wife...
...If we elect the right man in 1952, we may ease ourselves into a better time...
...I knew I couldn't take it any longer than that...
...The inevitable question is: How did a man so endowed happen to land where he is...
...Noting my interest, the Governor used Welles to point up his idea...
...I said to my friends that I would give myself until my thirty - fifth year to get out...
...I felt it in our campaign...
...And here in my hand I held a list of four men selected by the A/onitor's Washington expert as Democratic hopefuls...
...Too long, he explained to Connecticut businessmen, we have had up there in Hartford a set of impractical politicians, a lot of fellows who never met a payroll...
...On* ultra democratic feature of the basic law was designed to guard the commonwealth forever against the danger of being dominated by the wicked folk who live in the great dens of iniquity which the sage of Monticello distrusted...
...The only thing to do was to go into business...
...The first thing to discover was how this man himself got turned in the direction of liberal public service...
Vol. 32 • June 1949 • No. 23
