Will's Boy Bill

California Democrats are out this year to liquidate Republican Congressman Leland M. Ford*--who is what pinko weeklies call "an arch labor-baiter." To do the trick they picked a well-known name that covered an unknown political quantity. Their candidate: Will Rogers Jr., 29, son of the late, famed humorist.

Magic Name. Though he is the spittin' image of his father, down to the unruly cowlick and the twangy voice, Will Jr. has not inherited his dad's gift for the newsy quip, the folksy gag. He has gone in for sterner stuff. Naturally hesitant to live in his father's shadow, for years he called himself Bill. He is not unmindful of the political value of his name and appearance. (For the campaign Bill has become Will Jr.) But as the earnest publisher of the Beverly Hills Citizen, Will Jr. has made a quiet name for himself.

At Stanford University in the early '30s, Will Jr. set a 100-yd. backstroke swimming record that still stands, was a four-goal man on the polo team. For a while he edited an off-the-campus paper stridently called New, once scooped the college and West Coast newspapers by tracking down a "kidnapped" college queen. He graduated from college in 1935, the year his father died with Wiley Post in the Point Barrow, Alaska plane crash. With his share of the estate he bought the Citizen, was a full-fledged publisher at 23. He kept a union shop, covered labor news himself, sweated long nights over heavy editorials on international affairs. He took a turn at covering the war in Spain, was bombed in Barcelona. Franco, he said, made him "a good Democrat."

Name's Chances. The 16th California District (195,434 votes in 1940) includes movie-rich Beverly Hills, Bel Air and Westwood, labor and middle-class groups in Santa Monica, Culver City, western Los Angeles. From his movie friends Will Jr. hopes for campaign speeches, votes and money. He also hopes to capitalize on labor's hate for Leland Ford. It was apoplectic Mr. Ford who suggested concentration camps for labor leaders "guilty of dissension," and last year he sponsored a bill making strikes in defense industries punishable by imprisonment, even death. With a fair record on foreign policy, he is nevertheless nationally known as an "obstructionist."

On foreign policy Will Jr. has been ahead of most Congressmen. Early last year his editorials called for throwing out all appeasers, asked a declaration of war on Germany "when necessary."

Behind him, Will Jr. has the money and influence of rich California Oilman Edwin W. Pauley, secretary of the Democratic National Committee. A reserve officer in the Field Artillery, Will Jr. will soon be called to service. Then he will let his name and his backers campaign for him.

* Not to be confused with California's Representative Thomas F. Ford, Mississippi's Representative Aaron U. Ford, both New Dealers.

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