Just a Term of Endearment

California's Democratic Governor Pat Brown is a most amiable fellow. But he can weep from every pore when things begin to go wrong--and so far in his state's 1963 legislative year, very little has gone right.

There seems little hope left for the Governor's pet bill to declare a four-year moratorium on capital punishment in California. His highway safety program has already been emasculated and his fair housing bill is in deep trouble. But what bothers Brown the most is the hostility to his proposed record budget of $3.3 billion for the next fiscal year. To help pay for it, Brown has proposed an income withholding tax.

Although Brown's Democrats hold majorities in both the senate and assembly, they have criticized his programs. Democratic Assembly Speaker Jesse M. Unruh publicly questioned Brown's general wisdom, and Senate President Pro Tem Hugh M. Burns blasted the budget as "politically dishonest." As for the Republican minority, it has naturally opposed Pat. Therefore, taking second things first, Brown recently summoned to his office G.O.P. Assembly Leaders Charles J. Conrad and Don Mulford, began lecturing them about legislative responsibility. Mulford reminded Brown that "many of your problems are generated by your own party." Pat knew it all too well. His fist crashed on his desk as he blurted: "Those bastards."

Next day Mulford and Conrad could hardly wait to report what they had heard to a Republican State Central Committee meeting. And at the Governor's press conference, reporters asked the inevitable question. Brown could not stop replying. "I may have used a rough word," he said. "It was not a profane word. I believe that I have gotten in the habit during the legislative session of using some words that probably a Governor shouldn't use, but I was speaking generally rather than specifically.

"And I find myself doing that from time to time," Brown rambled on. "But sometimes it's used not as a--it's used more as a term of endearment more than anything else." Later, Brown confided that his daughter Kathy had asked: "Daddy, you don't swear, do you?"

"I said," said Brown, " 'well, you know that I do once in a while.' "

And that, said the Governor, "is where I left it." Certainly not a moment too soon.

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