Change in Maine

To Ike's hopes for a rising tide of modern Republicanism came a dash of bad tidings last week from a Down East stalwart. The tidebreaker: Frederick George Payne, 56, former (1949-53) Maine governor and 1952 Ike-backer who edged out Taftman Owen Brewster in the 1952 primaries and is now Maine's junior Senator. The tidings: hardworking, quietly effective Frederick Payne will not seek re-election in 1958. Among the reasons for the change in Payne: his health (he has a chronic but not disabling heart disorder), his family (Mrs. Payne doesn't like Washington), his pocketbook (he'd like to get back to private business). The Senator, an aide explained, announced his plans so early to give the party ''plenty of time to fill the seat with the right man."

Whatever the reasons, the effect of the announcement was to throw the 1958 Maine G.O.P. senatorial race wide open. Old Guard Owen Brewster, 67. who has been angling unsuccessfully for a federal job since 1952, was a possibility--an idea that brought shudders to liberal Republicans. Other possibilities: ex-Governor Horace A. Hildreth, 53, now U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan; University of Maine President Arthur Hauck, 63, a staunch Eisenhower supporter; and Congressman Clifford Mclntire, the only Republican Representative from Maine to be re-elected by a comfortable margin this year (one was defeated, one squeaked through). Whoever gets the nomination will probably have to go up against popular Democratic Governor Edmund S. Muskie, 42, who won re-election last September in a landslide.

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