Evening star., 1946-04-26

ord as Governor of great State,
and an equally fine war record as
an officer in the United States
Navy. To every one of the other
four availables can be ascribed some
of these Stassen assets. But to
none can be ascribed them ALL
In addition, Mr.. Stassen is the
only one now campaigning for the
nomination. Whether he can prof
itably keep this up for 26 months
remains to be seen, but certainly
he is trying every day in every way
to promote his prospects,, setting
up StaSSen organizations wherever
1t can be done and, so far as he
can, making friends and molding
sentiment. Nor is he insufficiently
flnanced-not by any means.
Making Progress.
But, with the national convention
more than two years off, no pru-
dent man would attempt to forecast
its action. There is, however, no
risk in saying that Mr.. Stassen is
making some progress, almost GER
tainly will be strong figure when
the balloting begins, easily may be
nominated despite the present
strong opposition within his party.
Nevertheless, it is a long row he
has to hoe and there are a good
many ways in which he may be
ditched or may ditch himself. At
the moment it appears that Mr.
Stassen will make his fight as the
liberal" candidate, asSailing all
other aspirants and their friends as
'reactionaries" and "Old Guards
men, At least that is the idea
spread by some of his supporters
with CIO affiliations and extreme
left-Wing tendencies who recently
nave been posing as authoritative
interpreters of the Stassen mind
Perhaps, this may be smart STRAIT
egy but some of Mr. Stassens close
friends do not think so and are
somewhat disturbed.
They reason, rather soundly, that
Mr.. Stassen has got to be nomi-
mated in convention controlled by
conservatives in which neither he
nor any one else will have major
ity on the first ballot. Obviously
his chance is to obtain on the de-
cisive ballot support from conserva-
tives who start out as opposed to
him. They think that it would be
easy to turn these present oppo-
nents who ultimately might swing
to him into bitter enemies who
never would.
Difficult to Combat.
It would be easy to do this by a
name calling, mudslinging campaign
such as Judging from the denun-
Ciatory outpourings of these un-
solicited spokesmen) he plans
Those who know Mr.. Stassen best
and are most eager to see him nom-
mated insist that this is far from
the fact; that the unbridled use oi
derogatory adjectives is not his way
OF describing men who are not fol
him. Nor does he make the silly
charge that Senator Taft, two years
in advance, has bought up the
Southern delegates, or is likely te
buy up" any one at any time
Those who use these adjectives anc
make these charges are not, it is
said, speaking for him.
Mr. Stassen, his intimates insist
realizes that this sort of stuff does
him no good and that it comes from
advanced New Dealers who Woulc
like to push him much further tC
the left than he intends to go. But
his friends do not see exactly what
he can do about it. He cannot. they
say, control these embarrassing ano
overzealous advocates. Nor can he
very well repudiate them without
getting himself into sticky contro-
versies calculated to confuse his
actual position.
About all he can do is to hope