Morgan County Democrat. (McConnelsville, Ohio) 1886-1943, 1942-08-20
JOHN McSWEESET, DEMOCRAT
CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR

| Hard-boiled politicians have a
habit Of throwing off, on John Nc
| Sweeney for his mild manners, his
extreme politeness and his unspec-
| tacular way OF campaigning for Of
| fee. When two-score Democratic
| bosses conferred in Columbus
hotel room recently about the pos
sibility of uniting behind a candi-
date, McSweeney was severely criti-
cized for the way he campaigns.
Some of the bosses said that in
his campaign two years ago for the
u. S. senate, he was encountered
handing out his campaign cards on
the street of small town with the
election only week away. He
| should have been doing bigger
| things, they said. Several of the
party big shots had similar stor-
| les.
But John McSweeney won tough
Cuyahoga county in the senatorial
contest in 1910 and enjoys a tre-
| mendous popularity in that metro
politan area where gentle Johns"
might not be expected to be favor
ties. And now he's the Democratic
nominee for governor, position in
which many Of his partisans long
have pictured him as fitting ad-
mirably.
Darrell S. Jones Of Newark, his
campaign manager, confesses to
quite bit of trouble getting Nc
Sweeney to work in the right places
| in the last couple of months. 1t
seems that Jones strategy was to
concentrate on the votes of few
| counties and let the other four can
| didates split the rest. That plan
necessarily called for the Wooster
| candidate to stay where the votes
| were thickest, but Jones frequently
had to chase his man "out of the
sticks" and away from chats with a
few friends into better campaign
territory.
Don't let John McSweeney's mild
manners fool you. He's spunky and
fearless, but he doesn't go in for
mud-slinging. He'd prefer not to
make anyone mad" because he
really is never mad at anybody.
He was wounded in action with
the 37th Division in World war
one and was awarded the Purple
Heart. He entered the war by way
Of the first officers training camp
at Fort Benjamin Harrison and was
commissioned to serve with a ma
chine gun company. Later, he be-
came aide de camp to Gen. Charles
S. Farnsworth.
After the 1918 armistice, Nc
Sweeney studied law at the Inns of
Court, London, England. This was
made possible by the exchange of
American, English and French stu
dents among the colleges of the
various countries.
Back in America, McSweeney re-
turned to school teaching which he
had taken up soon after being
graduated from Wooster college in
1912. He was teaching in Wooster
high school when the war came.
He first was elected to congress
from the 18th district, comprising
Wayne, Stark, Holmes and Tuscar-
awas counties. He served three
terms in the national House of Rep
resentatives, meanwhile studying
law and taking the bar examna-
ton. Upon his defeat for a fourth
term in the Republican landslide of
1928, he took up the practice of
law becoming a member of the
firm in which were Judge L. p. |
Critchfield and Lyman Critchfield, |
jr., friends of his family for more
than two generations.
While representing the 18th dis
trict in congress, he served on the
committee on agriculture and was
co-author with Senator Charles NC
Nary Of Oregon of the McSweeney-
McNary forestry and conservation |
bill.
Governor George White. soon aft