Colorful Governors

Last week throughout the land was heard a great swearing of high oaths by Governors taking office. Last November 33 States either re-elected their old executives or chose new ones. January is the prime month for State inaugurals when bands play, soldiers march, flags fly and new Governors raise new political hopes with their addresses. Among the States which last week inducted important or colorful executives were:

"Uncle Toby." The sight of a scholarly old gentleman becoming the State's first Democratic Governor in 18 years was enough in itself to attract a crowd to the parks and lawns about the Capitol at Hartford. What made the crowd a multitude and set it to tumultuous noise-making was the appearance of an ex-heavyweight world's champion garbed in the full regimentals of a Marine Corps Major serving conspicuously on that Governor's military staff. In retrospect most observers agreed that Major James Joseph ("Gene") Tunney with his dress saber and gold braid stole the inauguration from Governor Wilbur Lucius ("Uncle Toby") Cross with his fawn spats and his red ribbon of the Legion of Honor.

"It's going to be a great Administration," perkily announced the white-haired dean emeritus of the Yale Graduate School as he took his place in the military parade to the Capitol. There he led the other new State officers, all Republican, inside where Chief Justice William M. Maltbie administered the oath of office. Immediately Governor Cross began his inaugural address in which he aggressively pleaded for a repeal of the 18th Amendment, larger veto powers, increased authority for the Public Utilities Commission. Arguing that "mankind cannot be made good under compulsion," he quoted against Prohibition Chaucer's reference to the village parson:

To drawen folk to heven by fairnesse

By good ensample, this way his bisy-nesse.

Also quoted by Dean Gov. Cross were: Sir Isaac Newton, Dickens, Einstein.

That evening the Governor attended the famed inaugural ball of the Foot Guards. Present also was Major John Coolidge of the staff of outgoing Governor John H. Trumbull. During the day Mrs. Trumbull was knocked down and injured by an automobile in the thick of the celebration.

Gold Miner. At St. Paul farmers ar.cl laborers gathered to watch Floyd B. Olson become the State's first Farmer-Labor Governor.-- As the ruddy-faced young Governor with slicked-back hair was delivering his inaugural address inside the Capitol, a delegation of jobless assembled on the frozen lawn outside. Said Governor Olson: "An acute unemployment situation . . . duty of State to alleviate it . . . carrying on public works." The jobless silently retorted by unfurling a banner labeled: "The warehouses are full; we are empty." Afterwards Governor Olson received the delegation's leaders in his office, told them to "cut out the crap," received their memorial.

Pleased was the Press to hear Governor Olson recommend repeal of Minnesota's famed law for the summary suppression of newspapers (TIME, Dec. 30, 1929). He argued its "possibilities for abuse make it an unwise law."

As a roving longshoreman, gold miner and fisherman in British Columbia and Alaska, Governor Olson had studied law by correspondence, returned to Minneapolis in 1915 to be admitted to the bar, to marry and to become county attorney. In 1927 his drive against city graft won him fame. A forceful speaker. Governor Olson today plays golf in the 80s, drives a Chrysler. With small personal means, he is said to be still trying to raise the last payment on his campaign expenses.

Cigaret Democrat. Jubilant Democracy, back in office for the first time in 16 years, swarmed up Boston's Beacon Hill, packed themselves in under the great gilded dome of the State House to watch Joseph Buell Ely become Governor. Out on the Common guns boomed. Governor Ely's inaugural address recommended: 1) a $20,000,000 bond issue to help unemployment; 2) legislative action to memorialize Congress to modify the Volstead Act; 3) a curb on labor injunctions; 4) investigation to regain for New England full control of the Boston & Maine R. R. and the New York, New Haven & Hartford. Mrs. Ely, wearing orchids, beamed on her husband.

That evening, at a military ball Mrs. Ely got 150 talisman roses, and the Governor danced about briskly with officers' wives.

Fifty next Washington's Birthday, Governor Ely, able lawyer of Westfield. bears a strange resemblance to the State's last Democratic Governor -- that great vote-getter, big-faced, handsome David Ignatius Walsh, now U. S. Senator. Of middling height and weight, Governor Ely violates all rules of Massachusetts Democracy by smoking cigarets instead of rancid cigars. A quick, flashy smile has rendered him immensely popular. As Governor, he transferred from his own Chrysler to the Chrysler sedan furnished by the State but kept his private chauffeur. At the State House he received, among many another, a great floral tribute from Motorman Walter Percy Chrysler.

Brother Charlie. When Charles Wayland ("Brother Charlie") Bryan, brother of the late Great Commoner, was Mayor of Lincoln (1915-17), conservative citizens thought that he, with his municipal coal yards and employment agencies, was pretty progressive. When as Governor (1923-25) he began the direct sale of gasoline in competition with private companies, the same people were sure he was a radical. When last week he delivered his inaugural address as Governor for the second time, they were convinced that he was downright revolutionary. Were he as able as his late Brother William he would be to these people infinitely more dangerous.

Now 63, still tall and strong, balder and homelier than ever, with snapping blue eyes and a white mustache more bristly than ever, Governor Bryan frankly avows a purpose to drive out "monopolistic business." Into the discard has gone his black skull cap which made him a marked figure at the 1924 Democratic National Convention and helped win him the vice presidential nomination on the Davis ticket. Though a Democrat, his chief political support is a large bloc of independent voters who also insure the regular re-election of Republican Senator George William Norris.

Making a shambles of conventional U. S. economics, Governor Bryan called for the establishment and operation of banks by the State. He also wanted legislation to put cities and towns into the retail gasoline trade. He would have the Legislature ask Congress to relieve agriculture by means of the equalization fee or the export debenture. Other Bryan demands included a State income tax and the wholesale purchase by the State of road building materials to be resold to contractors at cost. Governor Bryan was determined to give Nebraska a ''business "administration" the like of which the State had not known before--nor for that matter, any other State.

Alfalfa Bill. A "common people's affair" was the inaugural of William Henry ("Alfalfa Bill") Murray as the State's ninth Governor. To the "Sage of Tishomingo" and the author of Oklahoma's Constitution the oath of office was administered by his father, Uriah Dow Thomas Murray, 91, a special notary for the occasion. Governor Murray put aside the baggy wrinkled clothes and red suspenders he had affected for his hitchhiking campaign last year and appeared at Oklahoma City in a well-pressed suit, with his shoes shined and his long, scraggly mustache trimmed. Close at hand as an escort was the Squirrel Rifle Brigade of which all members are officers. Afterwards a great dance was thrown open to the public without written invitations. Governor Murray led the first old-fashioned square dance with "breakdown fiddlers" playing in the corner.

Oklahoma citizens waited to see if Governor Murray would post on his office door the new rules he had promised. Among them were:

"Don't ask me about the weather. The weather bureau is in Washington.

"Don't try to deceive me. Be brief and to the point because I suspect your motive already.

"Don't try to tell me how I was nominated and elected. Perhaps I know more about that than you.

"Don't ask me how I feel. I may feel like damn it and tell you so."

"Phil." When in 1901 Philip Fox La Follette was three, he watched his father, the late great Robert Marion La Follette, inaugurated as Governor at Madison. Last week on the same spot, without fuss or celebration, "Phil" La Follette took the oath of office which made him the State's youngest Governor. An interested on-looker was Robert Marion La Follette 3rd, aged 4, the new Governor's son, who is already being coached to follow the family tradition in politics.

--Minnesota also has the first and only Farmer-Labor U. S. Senator, Dentist Henrik Shipstead.

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