One Out

Four years ago this month, Harold E. Stassen was the one man to beat for the Republican presidential nomination. The former Minnesota governor had swept to significant primary victories in Wisconsin and Nebraska, walloping Dewey, Taft, MacArthur, Warren and any others who got in his way. His supporters had a slogan: "No surpassin' Harold Stassen."

Dewey eventually exploded the 1948 Stassen balloon. This year the surpassin' came earlier. On leave from his job as president of the University of Pennsylvania, Stassen has been rolling through primary states, winding up at dead ends. In New Hampshire, he ran a poor third behind Eisenhower and Taft. In his own Minnesota, where his was the only name on the ballot, the total write-in vote for other candidates outnumbered his Xs. His name was on the ballot in Nebraska but he was third, behind write-in votes for

Taft and Eisenhower. In Wisconsin, where he desperately attempted to get votes on Ike's name (he promised that he would give the general half the delegates he won), he was behind Taft and Warren.

From the beginning of his campaign, it has been hard to see where Stassen thought he was going or what he was trying to prove. He had no chance for the nomination, and he has aroused the ire of all other Republican factions.

Last week Stassen plodded on through Illinois, where he made 19 speeches, and was set to tour 21 cities in New Jersey. Said he: "We're just in the preliminaries and we'll be in there in July." But even Stassen must know that the one Republican to beat in April 1948 is the one Republican already beaten in April 1952.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.