Mr. President

Of all the Yanks who ever appeared at Oxford, Howard E. Shuman of Morrison, Ill. seemed just about the Yankiest. The son of a county farm agent, Shuman was a brash, bright 25-year-old, who had earned one B.A. in economics at the University of Illinois and another at Michigan before he got a Rotary International Fellowship to New College, Oxford. Once at Oxford, he seemed determined to set fire to the Thames (which Oxonians know as two branches, the Isis and the Cherwell). One of the first things he did was to join the Oxford Union.

In its 120 years, the union had never seen anything quite like Shuman. It had been headed by such men as Gladstone and Asquith, had been the training ground of hundreds of M.P.s, had heard the best brains of Britain in its debates. But never had it seen anyone rise in debate garbed in a U.S. lumberjacket and red baseball cap, and self-billed as "the original public schoolboy--from the public schools of Morrison, Illinois."

Sparkle & Corn. As the months passed, the union sort of got used to Shuman. He admitted that his jokes were corny, but Britons seemed not to mind the corn. He worked hard on committees, proved himself a sparkling speaker, began making his way up through minor offices. Finally, last spring, turned out in white tie and tails, he was ready to try for the presidency. But the test was the big pre-election debate, when candidates stand or fall. Shuman's confidence deserted him and he was defeated, 250 to 175.

After that, Shuman took stock. He cut down on the number of backs he slapped, adopted an air of studied nonchalance. Later he scored his greatest triumph to date, by carrying the affirmative on the question: "That this house has confidence in Mr. Churchill's administration of domestic affairs." Opposed to him as guest speaker: Clement Attlee himself.

Dead Albatrosses. This term, Shuman decided to try again for the presidency, and last week the big debate arrived. The question this time: "That this house would welcome the rearmament of Western Germany within the framework of a Western European Federation." Shuman was on the negative, along with Socialist Lord Stansgate and a young Bevanite named Patrick Uber. On the affirmative: Guest Speaker Paul Reynaud of France (see FOREIGN NEWS), and Shuman's presidential opponents Norman St. John-Stevas, former president of the Cambridge Union, and Oleg Kerensky, grandson of Russia's last pre-Bolshevik Prime Minister.

That night Shuman cracked no jokes. Instead, he reminded his audience of German atrocities, of concentration camps and mass murders. Use Germany on our side? No! cried Shuman. "We've got enough dead albatrosses hanging around our necks!" When he sat down, the audience burst into applause, voted the victory to his team.

Next day Shuman won another victory: presidency of the union, by a vote of 276 to 264. He is the third Yank to hold the job.*

* The first two: in 1913, W. J. Bland, who was killed in World War I, and, in 1922, Manhattan Lawyer R. M. Carson.

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