Winant Boomlet

Down from the icy Mt. Washington range rushed a freezing winter gale Sunday night before last, howling among the eaves of tight little New Hampshire homesteads. Seated around their snug fireplaces, winter-bound New Hampshiremen listened to their radios. Those who were listening to gabby Walter Winchell's air column were in for a surprise. As a rule. Columnist Winchell confines himself to reporting who is whose "heart," what romances have "gone phffft" on "the Stem." Unexpectedly assuming the role of kingmaker, he jolted his listeners in the Granite State by announcing: "The New York Herald Tribune is plotting to boom the Republican candidate for the Presidency in 1936 -- Governor John G. Winant of New Hampshire." Last week, while New Hampshire was still buzzing over the Winchell gossip, sombre, spiritual John Gilbert Winant went to Manhattan to address the National Consumers' League. For the second time in 72 hours his name made national news. One of the brave little band of eight remaining Republican Governors. New Hampshire's Winant not only heartily endorsed Democratic President Roosevelt's NRA, but urged that its labor provisions be made permanent. "Jungle warfare," said he, "has no place in modern industry. The exploitation of workers . . . has been a deep, underlying cause of our lack of social advance." The Herald Tribune, supposedly behind the Presidential candidacy of its owner's cousin, Ogden Livingston Mills, conspicuously printed: "Miss Lucy Randolph Mason, general secretary of the National Consumers' League . . . said that she had been so impressed by Governor Winant's address that although I've never voted the Republican ticket I'd like to turn Mugwump and nominate him for President.' " Taking the cue, the Times man covering the address apostrophized the speaker as one "who has been mentioned for the Republican nomination for the Presidency in 1936."

In Concord and throughout New Hampshire, New York newspapers sold out as quickly as they could be unloaded from icicled baggage cars. Who knew what might happen, now that the radio and the big papers down in New York were talking about John Winant for President? It had been a long time ago, but one New Hampshireman, Franklin Pierce, had made it. In the garland of local journalistic tributes which promptly flourished throughout the state, none was so significant as that of the Manchester Union: "If Mr. Winant aspires to the Presidency, he will discover only friendliness and loyalty at home."

It was to Publisher Frank Knox of the Union (now of the Chicago Daily News) that John Winant took the announcement of his candidacy for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 1924. Mr. Knox was also a candidate, the leading one, so he devoted four lines on an inside page to Mr. Winant's cause. Old Guard Republicans had their eyes opened when Idealist John Winant, running on a strictly sociological platform including abolition of child labor, won not only the nomination but the election. Mr. Winant's gaunt resemblance to the young Abraham Lincoln, his lined mouth and tousled forelock, did not prejudice his campaign, nor did his fine record in the War and in both branches of the legislature. He was 35 at the time, New Hampshire's youngest governor. In 1930 he was reelected, and again in 1932. He is the only man in 100 years to serve as New Hampshire's governor thrice.

Most noteworthy of his gubernatorial accomplishments is the New Hampshire, a program for reducing working hours, spreading work. Like Lincoln, the common people have always been dear to his heart. Born rich in New York City, he was sent to fashionable St. Paul's School, in Concord, at 14. His best friend was not numbered among his socialite schoolfellows. He was a railroad engineer's son who lived down the road. At 15 John Winant adopted New Hampshire as his state. He went to Princeton, but when he enlisted in the Army it was Concord, where he had gone back to teach history at St. Paul's, that he gave as his home.

New Hampshire has no regular gubernatorial mansion. The Winant home at Concord, a rambling white house of considerable charm, is unique among the 48 seats of state sovereignty. Children (the Winants have three) cackle and cry. dogs bark, a macaw screams. Mrs. Winant, who raises dogs, has tacked a sign on her front fence: PUPPIES FOR SALE.

Last week Governor Winant wryly ignored his Presidential boomlet. Of his immediate political activities, all honest John Winant would say was that he would not be a candidate for governor next year because he is now busy with the State's relief program, does not think that an official in that position should have a political ax to grind.

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