For Throttlebottom . . .

Washington newshawk: "How much political news is sent abroad?"

OWI Director Elmer Davis: "I presume that you are alluding to the fourth-term talk. Well, that is a lot of hot air at this time. . . . It hasn't reached the news stage yet."

Elmer Davis was on the freight, and a slow one, at that, when he thus aired his views at his press conference last week. Term IV talk was past the news stage; the hot news upcoming was the next Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate.

Kansas City Star Correspondent Ted Alford wrote that "an experienced observer" for the Democrats had just returned from a trip on which he found 95% of the Party's following "reconciled to a fourth-term nomination." There was nothing left for Democrats to do but start slugging it out for runner-up. That would be the only remaining fun after the 1944 convention drafts Franklin D. Roosevelt again.

One thing seemed fairly sure: just as Franklin Roosevelt had dumped John Nance Garner as a political liability in 1940, so is he likely to dump Henry Agard Wallace in 1944. Returning this week from an 11,000-mile good-will tour to South America, Henry Wallace may well find that the major remaining chore of his term will be to look for a new job. Practical Democrats took him in 1940 only at Franklin Roosevelt's insistence. Henry Wallace lost his own farm state of Iowa; by 1942 the whole farm belt was solidly Republican.

The race to be Franklin Roosevelt's running mate was wide open. Jokesters even suggested Stripteuse Gypsy Rose Lee. Said Miss Lee: "I'd like to run, but I haven't kissed a baby in years."

Some more likely candidates:

Platinum-haired Paul Vories McNutt, boss of WMC, who manfully stepped aside in 1940 to bow to the will of the master. His liability: by 1944 his necessary rulings on manpower very probably will have infuriated every voter strong enough to go to the polls. His assets: he took Washington's toughest wartime job without audible grumbling; he has always been popular with practical politicians.

Texas' Sam Rayburn, Speaker of the House, who manfully (and successfully) strives to carry out Franklin Roosevelt's orders, without himself losing the love of Congress.

Economic Stabilizer James F. Byrnes, smooth, compromising, politically wise, also from the South. His only liability: he was once a Catholic, though now a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Shrewd, sense-making Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, who has turned down several war-czar jobs to stay on the bench. But Bill Douglas is not in any political hurry.

Illinois's tall, rangy Senator Scott W. Lucas, not more than a 75% New Dealer. The Democrats' only successful vote-getter in the farm belt, Scott Lucas stock would rise if the G.O.P. nominee is from the Midwest.

Others include: Commerce Secretary Jesse Jones; Virginia's Old Dealer, Senator Harry F. Byrd; Florida's Senator Claude Pepper; Texas' Tom Connally; OWI Director Elmer Davis; OPAdministrator Prentiss Brown; and a whole host of Southern Governors (including Tennessee's irascible Prentice Cooper, Louisiana's "Sad Sam" Jones) who last week found themselves willing to give up their tentative anti-Term IV campaign for hinted second-hand promises of consideration as a Vice-Presidential possibility.

In 1940, as insiders know, no less than 17 more or less gullible Democrats, including most of the anti-Term III rebels, were brought into camp by promise of consideration as Vice President.

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