Inaugurals

STATES & CITIES

Last week and the week before 32 Governors, old and new, took office throughout the land (TIME, Dec. 31). Some newsworthy inaugurals:

North Dakota. Last summer popular Republican Governor William Langer was sentenced to prison, ousted from office for forcing Federal relief workers to contribute to his political support (TIME, July 30, et ante). In November the Republicans split with the result that a small-town newspaper editor named Thomas Hilliard Moodie was elected second Democratic Governor in the State's history.*

By constitutional requirement a North Dakotan must have lived five consecutive years in the State to be eligible for the Governorship. Husky, mop-haired "Tom" Moodie is an oldtime itinerant newshawk whose restless feet have carried him through newspaper shops from Cleveland to San Francisco to New Orleans. For ten years he has lived chiefly in North Dakota, the last four as editor of his own paper at Williston. But in 1930 the urge to move took him to Minneapolis for a time. When North Dakota Republicans discovered that he had voted that year in Minnesota, they secured an injunction which kept him from receiving his certificate of election as Governor. Governor-elect Moodie claimed that he had been out of North Dakota only temporarily, had never intended to change his legal residence. A State District Court vacated the injunction, allowed him to be sworn in at Bismarck last week. Pending, however, was a suit to oust him from office brought by the State Attorney General. Because his title was still beclouded, North Dakota's Legislature last week refused to hear Governor Moodie's inaugural address.

Wisconsin. Beginning his second term as Governor but his first as a Progressive, Philip Fox La Follette asked his Legislature to up the State's 1935-37 budget by nearly $17,000,000. Objects: school aid, old age pensions, shorter hours and higher pay for State employes.

Connecticut. Between brilliant lines of the Governor's Foot Guard old (72) Wilbur Lucius ("Uncle Toby'') Cross, one-time Yale dean, marched into the Capitol at Hartford last week to be received by the General Assembly and sworn in for his third term as Governor. An hour later he marched out again, still unsworn. Deadlocked between Republicans and Democrats with three Socialists holding the balance, the Senate continued to take ballot after futile ballot to elect a clerk. Governor Cross went ahead with his Inaugural Ball that night, was sworn in late next day after the Socialists had swung to the Republicans on the 110th ballot.

Massachusetts. Last fortnight a filibuster blocked election of a President of the Senate, an official who traditionally administers the oath of office to the incoming Governor. After waiting a day, bluff James Michael Curley had himself sworn in by the Secretary of State. When the Senate finally chose its temporary presiding officer to be President last week, that official fainted dead away in the midst of reading the report of his election.

Rhode Island. With the ceremony scheduled for high noon, rich, scholarly Democratic Governor Theodore Francis Green was inaugurated for his second term just after midnight. In the meantime his Democratic colleagues, already in control of the House, had seized control of the Senate by a recount in two contests, proceeded to smash Republican offices and officeholders throughout the State. Prime act was to oust all five Republican justices of the State Supreme Court.

Oklahoma. Oilman Ernest Whitworth Marland, who has promised a "New Deal for Oklahoma," sent local politicians scurrying to tailors when he announced that he would dress formally for his inauguration as Governor. William Henry ("Alfalfa Bill") Murray, who scorns such niceties, made his last news as Governor by delivering to the Legislature a scorching denunciation of "brain busters known as brain trusters who are trying to destroy our government."

Minnesota. "It looks like you are going to a funeral," remarked a friend as radical Farmer-Laborite Floyd Bjornstjerne Olson smoothed his cutaway, brushed his striped trousers one day last week. "I may be going to one," replied Governor Olson as he marched out to take oath of office for his third term, propose to an overwhelmingly conservative Legislature such measures as a central State bank, State ownership of public utilities, State ownership of all key industries.

Pennsylvania. To permit some 100 Democratic Congressmen to attend the inauguration of George H. Earle as Pennsylvania's first Democratic Governor since 1895, the U. S. House of Representatives declared a holiday.

*North Dakota State history begins in 1889, when it was admitted to the Union.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.