Mike over Elmer

With a quizzical quirk of his wide mouth, Mike Monroney told Oklahoma voters, "If I haven't done anything else, I'm getting Elmer Thomas acquainted with his own state."

As they all knew, querulous old (73) Elmer Thomas had been living in Washington for 24 years as Senator from Oklahoma; only two of his colleagues had been in the U.S. Senate longer. He stayed there by stoutly supporting ever-higher support for farmers, stoutly opposing public power, and voting labor's way often enough to get labor's support. His wife increased the family income by trading in the cotton market, a field in which the Senator, as chairman of the Agriculture Committee, was quite knowledgeable. When he returns to Oklahoma City these days, he holds his press conferences at the city's best hotel, the Skirvin Tower.

Mike Monroney held his press conferences in the back of a furniture store named Doc and Bill's, which he had inherited from his father. For the past twelve years he had been a Congressman; now he was trying to take Elmer's Senate seat away from him.

On Page One. Aimer Stilwell Monroney (he legally changed his name to Mike when he entered politics) had earned a reputation as a sound moderate who helped put through the first real reform of Congress' rusty machinery in 25 years. Generally Fair-Dealing, he had voted for Taft-Hartley, but opposed the Brannan Plan. Though he comes from a state where oil wells are drilled even on the Capitol grounds, he voted against an oilmen's bill to raise oil price controls.

Hiring a private plane and an electric organ, Mike crosshatched the state, 'hammering at Elmer. In little towns, he would leave his car overtime by a parking meter, then identify himself and pay the fine ("Always good for a box on Page One," explained Mike). He used the "Brannan Plan" as an epithet, never let farmers forget that Thomas had sponsored it. He reminded Oklahoma's 100,000 rural voters, who get electricity from REA lines, that Thomas has opposed federal-built dams to provide cheap power. Thomas, he declared, is a "messenger" for private utilities.

Elmer & Soy Beans. With eager youngsters flocking to work for him, Mike's organization was flourishing; Elmer's was in bad shape from age and disuse. In alarm, crusty old Elmer began stumping the state. He pointed to the federal money he had gotten the state because of his seniority, plaintively warned that "a baby could grow up before a younger man could do the state any good." With a campaign kitty raised by oil and utility companies, he showered the state with pamphlets ("What Elmer Thomas Has Done for Soy Beans") and ads ("Can We Keep Tinker Field if We Lose Senator Elmer Thomas?").

Last week a near-record 470,000 went to the polls in the Democratic primary, gave personable Mike Monroney 201,338 votes to Thomas' 187,243. Five other candidates polled enough votes to force a runoff. If Monroney can win again, he will oppose the Rev. W. H. Alexander, a young (35), sidewinding spellbinder who won the G.O.P. nomination with 35,054 votes.

With the largest primary vote ever given a candidate for Oklahoma's governorship, Johnston Murray, son of tobacco-chewing, brimstone-spitting old ex-Governor "Alfalfa Bill" Murray, topped a field of four other Democrats by a plurality of nearly 90,000, but he also faced a runoff. A night-school lawyer who has never before run for public office, 47-year-old Murray has been a printer, reporter, salesman, cattle dealer, cotton-gin operator, farmer, interpreter, tool dresser, truck dispatcher, oilfield roustabout, and plant manager. His campaign slogan: "Just Plain Folks."

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