Toft's Successor

Ohio's Governor Frank Lausche this week appointed a new U.S. Senator to succeed Robert A. Taft. He named his old friend and protege, Cleveland's Mayor Thomas A. (for nothing) Burke. A quiet, round-faced lawyer, 54-year-old Tom Burke has been in public office during much of his life. In 1941 Lausche, then mayor, appointed him Cleveland's law director, the No. 2 position in the city government. He became Lausche's right-hand man, stepped up to the Mayor's chair in 1945, after Lausche was elected governor. Burke, popular and able, has been mayor ever since, winning four elections to two-year terms. Last month, in Montreal, Burke was elected president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors (succeeding Chicago's Mayor Martin H. Kennelly).

A Roman Catholic and a Democrat, almost as independent politically as Lausche, Burke would be a formidable candidate for either Senator or Governor next year. Lausche pointedly commented that he did not expect Burke to "upset" Republican control of Senate committees.

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