Landes Out

Once aroused, there is no more potent politician than the Better Element. It lifts politics right out of Politics. But then, successful, the Better Element forgets. Last week, Seattle reached the turning point of the same sort of Better Element cycle by which New York got a Hylan after a Mitchell, Chicago a Thompson after a Dever, and by which Detroit will inevitably get a question mark after its Lindberghian granduncle, Mayor John C. Lodge.

Four years ago, while underworldly Mayor Edwin J. Brown of Seattle was away, the president of the Seattle City Council, Mrs. Bertha Knight Landes, wife of Dean Landes of the University of Washington and sister-in-law of President Emeritus David Starr Jordan of Stanford University, stepped in as acting mayor and "closed the town." The town had needed closing so badly that the Better Element was very pleased with Mrs. Landes. In 1926, it elected her Mayor of Seattle by a 5,000-vote majority.

Last week, the Better Element having forgotten it was in politics, and "the town" being weary of her welldoing, Mrs. Landes was defeated for re-election by Frank Edwards, a retired Seattle showman. This time the Mayor-elect's margin was 19,000 votes.