Side Shows

Most Democrats spend their time these days swapping rumors, gleefully watching the Republicans heave invective at one another, and waiting for the party leadership to swing its decisive blocs of uncommitted delegates to a specific candidate. Not so the Democratic Party's hopefuls. Last week the three leading contenders of the moment were busily beating the bushes across the land in hopes of flushing a few stray delegates, and perhaps of catching the bosses' eyes.

On a four-day visit to the Southwest, Averell Harriman clung closely, as usual, to the Fair Deal party line. At Phoenix, he labeled the G.O.P. "the Grim Old Pessimists." At Albuquerque, he cried that "we could never have defeated the forces of fascism in World War II if our economic vitality had not been restored by the New Deal." On the Taft-Eisenhower promises to cut spending, he said: "You can't have low taxes and security." At Salt Lake City, he rode in a jolting buckboard escorted by 40 cowboys and Ute Indians, who later made him a chief. Said Chief Averell: "Nicest time I've had since becoming a candidate."

At week's end, Harriman's party-lining paid off. Chairman Calvin L. Rampton of the Utah delegation to Chicago announced that at least eight of the state's twelve votes would go to the New Yorker. Harriman's campaign managers hoped for as many as a score more in New Mexico, Arizona and Montana. These were Harriman's first noteworthy conquests outside New York.

For wide-ranging Estes Kefauver, the week's mission was primarily to edge his way back to the party line. In a speech to the National Press Club in Washington, he announced that he had been "in error" when he recently proposed a time-limit ultimatum to the Communists in Korea. He explained that he had been enlightened by General Ridgway's report that the United Nations lacked the strength to make it stick. Another possible explanation: Kefauver's recent chat with Harry Truman. Two days later he headed back to the hustings in his chartered Lockheed Lodestar, catching badly needed catnaps aloft with the aid of a sleeping mask. He invaded pro-Russell North Carolina for some folksy talk about daughter Linda's troubles with the mumps. Then he boarded his plane for Chattanooga, his adopted home town, to raise funds at a $25-a-head barbecue and to collect some extravagant tributes. Sample: "Tennessee gives us the modern Andrew Jackson."

Georgian Dick Russell set forth on a 15-day invasion of the Midwest to try to demonstrate that "I am an American before I am a Southerner." At Omaha he said, "I have never been a sectional candidate," and plumped for high farm-price supports. Midwesterners liked his softspoken, courtly manners. "Too bad," said a party leader, "that he's not from some place like Ohio or Indiana."

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