Poling at the Polls

Even Philadelphia's Republican leaders agreed that their machine badly needed a new look. They were nervous about the vote-getting names the Democrats were assembling for this fall's mayoralty elections. And they knew that a change was long overdue in the city that Lincoln Steffens once (1903) described as "corrupt and contented."

As a first step toward improving the slate, three Republican bosses (two of them county commissioners, the third, the sheriff) decided not to try for reelection. As a second step, the leaders made a surprising choice for mayor. Their man: the Rev. Dr. Daniel Alfred Poling, 66, editor of the Christian Herald and chaplain of Philadelphia's big nondenominational Chapel of the Four Chaplains, dedicated to Poling's son Clark and the three other U.S. Army chaplains who went down at sea in World War II after helping to save more than 200 G.I.s (TIME, Feb. 12).

Dynamic Baptist Poling, onetime college fullback, former temperance crusader, World War II chaplain, newspaper columnist and author of 26 books, had a little political experience too--he once ran for Governor of Ohio on the Prohibition ticket, losing handily. He was willing to carry the Republican banner this time, said Poling, if the G.O.P. bosses gave him a ticket he could "fight for." The bosses said all right.

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