The Croquet Match for Arkansas' Governorship

...Governor of Nebraska, Oregon, Indiana, perhaps...

...Not that he is about to make a career of the governorship...

...Despite the fact that he and his father are currently undergoing litigation at the hands of their oil firm's stockholders for allegedly doing them out of four million dollars, one can't help appreciate the unflagging gentlemanship with which he has thus far conducted himself on his campaign across the state by bus...

...It is a photograph of the Governor, Mrs...

...This de-integrating shall be brought about not by giving way to violence, but instead by dint of Bennett's legal brain, an instrument which many persons feel he calibrates too highly...

...As in other Southern states where there is only a nominal Republican party, if one candidate does not get better than 50 per cent of the total vote, a second primary is held between the two candidates drawing the greatest number of votes...

...Unfortunately, he is the right sort of man at the wrong place at the wrong time...

...an admirable credit, though some of the distinction of it is drained in discovering that Williams was one of the principal founders of Arkansas Baptist College at Walnut Ridge where, 19 years later, he is still president...

...Orval Faubus is "standing on his record...

...H. E. Williams was a college president at 32...

...I consider that my experience over a period of thirty years of active contact with all phases of Arkansas life and its problems has prepared me to assume and effectively carry out the responsibility of the Office of Governor of this Great State," writes Hardin...

...Atop the Bennett handout of the photo is the rubric, "When Old Friendships Are Benewed...

...He is still the man to beat...

...This would seem to be clear thinking, for Millsap hasn't a wisp of a chance of winning, nor for that matter has he made any immoderate efforts to do so...

...I have been told that at Bennett headquarters this graphic composition is surreptiously slipped into a visitor's coat pocket —rather like a dirty postcard...

...Like the majority of his fellows, candidate Williams does not have much affection for the Governor, whom he has recently accused of abetting, sub rosa style, the integration of two Arkansas colleges...

...Faubus is going after a fourth rent-free biennial occupancy of the Governor's mansion in Little Rock, something no one has yet accomplished...

...This should be an easy mark for the Governor...

...He has to his reactionary credit the hunting out of potential Communists and the perpetual harassing of the state National Association for the Advancement of Colored People...

...The number of these followers is difficult to guess...

...He is, with his grayed pate, expansive forehead and squared jaw, good-looking in an alumni-football-game-weekend way...

...as Governor of Arkansas he is, at this juncture, out of the question...

...Unlike the other candidates, he is insouciant, angry at no one, mad at nothing...

...On the relationship of the Governor and Mrs...

...No one bothers to shoot in turnm, and, above the din, someone always seems to be shrieking a facsimile of the Queens "Off with his head...

...Should he happen to lose, his political survival could possibly be endangered and his ambitions most certainly would be retarded...

...As to his capabilities, he is no doubt correct...

...Known in the dailies as a "golden-throated orator," his stumping style is something of a hangover from active pulpit days...

...Once Governor, he promised to de-integrate every institution, place and phase of life in the state that is now integrated...

...Any other conjectures as to why he is campaigning would perforce be uncomplimentary to his mental balance...

...He has extensive experience, as a political handout might put it, in agriculture, government, education and industry...

...Hal Millsap Jr., an oil man and owner of a chain of grocery stores, doesn't hold with the political postulate, "to the victor belongs the spoils...

...Arkansas' dwindling population (better than 7 per cent in the last 10 years) and almost total lack-lustre as a location of branch plants for Northern industry, and, on the other, the state's racial troubles...

...Bruce Bennett, the State Attorney General, is adjudged the only man capable of defeating the Governor...

...He has since accused the Governor of unfair tax policies, of compelling Federally employed workers in certain offices in the state to cough up for campaign donations, of running a $l,000-a-plate dinner at the Governor's mansion to secure campaign funds, of doing more than anyone else in the South to foment integration, and, neatest of all, of being in cahoots with Daisy Bates, president of the state NAACP...

...Bates, Bennett has come up with the prettiest campaign gambit I have seen thus far...

...However, the Governor and his followers seem immensely satisfied...

...With a flair for the histrionic, Mill-sap filed for candidacy at the last possible hour...

...In fact, around the Capitol and the hotel lobbies—the centers for political talk in this dry and practically barless city—it is felt that the only reason Faubus opted not to glom the Senate Joseph Epstein is a free-lance journalist now living in Little Rock...

...It is generally presupposed that in 1962 he will aim for the United States Senate seat of J. William Ful-bright, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the most anomolous figure in Arkansas politics...

...This he does with disjunct sentences and thoughts, well-informed, though undisclosed, sources of information, and farm parables—old Faubustian gambits—as well as counter-thrusts...

...After all, it was these people whose fealty the Governor's actions have cultivated...

...At the moment, the Governor is busying himself with parrying the thrusts of Bennett and the others...

...It does seem safe to say, though, that the Governor may depend on the support of everyone in the state possessed of the strict segregationist mentality...

...Bennett, who was already a State Senator in his early 20s, is a political pro...

...So far as I know, he still has his oil wells and grocery stores...

...Taken in the Governor's office, it shows the Governor and Mrs...

...Bennett's reasoning on this last item is that the only true gainers from Arkansas' racial troubles have been the Governor and Mrs...

...As did the four other candidates...

...from time to time registering excessive alarm at what he terms the march of "creeping socialism" in America...

...Still, retaining the Governor's post is crucial for Faubus, since keeping under the klieg lights is crucial for any politician on the make...

...Bates grinning amply and shaking hands, while the West Indian stands between them...

...Smile— Smile—SMILE...

...He is handsome and has a glamorous war record...

...nor has he been sighted chucking money out his car windows onto the streets...

...To many this record denotes simple havoc, economic dissipation and spiritual morass...

...When he first filed candidacy this January, Bennett espoused running an affirmative campaign, one free from indulgence in personal attack...

...His approach to politics is not dissimilar to, say, a plumber's to bashing out a living: competent, thorough, knowledgeable in his field, but totally without imagination and inspiration...

...The single thrust behind his entrance into politics has about it something of the hillbilly Thoreauan vision: "I beard Chet Lauck [formerly of the hum and Abner radio comedy team] at Harrison last week on the need for political integrity in government, and this [his declared candidacy] is the result...

...The only element of coherence in this year's campaign is that four of the candidates are urging decapitation of the same skull: that of incumbent Orval Eugene Faubus...

...The great significance of this year's election, then, is that it offers to those who are out of concord with the Governor on things political (and social, and radical, and ethical, and so on) a chance not so much to nip the bud—it is too late for that— but to smash soundly the stamen of a career they deem a detestable growth...

...No one argues that, in all, he is sound...

...Bates—presumably the gains have been in publicity— and that, ergo, the two must inevitably be in league...

...should he retain the office, the next two years may be looked on as nothing more than marking time...

...The Arkansas primary will be held July 26th...

...Millsap deposited $1,500 with the Secretary of State upon filing his candidacy...

...Bates as his guide...

...seat of John L. McClellan, who will this year run unopposed, is that the two have too much in common in the way of financial supporters to allow for divisiveness...

...He does, however, strongly feel that the problems of Arkansas are economic and not racial: and he hasn't as vet disclosed whether or not he discerns any connection between, on the one hand...

...These two items suggest that Millsap is quite conceivably in the campaign for whatever patronage he can lay his hands on, and that he might be inclined to sell his votes to the man he thinks the probable winner of the second primary for whatever largess they will bring...

...NATIONAL REPORTS The Croquet Match for Arkansas' Governorship By Joseph Epstein Little Rock Like the players in the Queen's croquet match in Alice in Wonderland, the five candidates for Governor in Arkansas wag their political mallets with little regard for one another...

...Bates and a distinguished looking Negro from the West Indies who was visiting Little Bock in some vague ambassadorial capacity with Mrs...

...This is quite natural...

...A trifle anachronisti-cally, Williams is, at least in economic matters, a laissez fairist...

...He has shown interest in the development of highways, little in the development of race relations...

...Joe Hardin is perhaps the drabbest man at the gubernatorial hustings...