Evening star., 1950-03-23
The Political Mill
BowIes Is Man to Watch
In Race for Presidency
Connecticut Governor Plays
For Big Stakes in Election
The Political Mil
By Gould Lincoln

HARTFORD, Conn, Mar. 23.-Gov.
Chester Bowles of Connecticut, glutton
for work and with all the plausibility Of
an advertising salesman who made him.
self millionaire, is playing for big
stakes in the November elections. The
immediate stake, of course, is reelection,
this time for a four-year term which
would see him sitting pretty as Demo-
cratic Governor of the Nutmeg State
in 1852. In that year the Democrats
select their national ticket. Gov. Bowles
will be there with his lightning rod up,
just as will half dozen other willing
and Fair-Dealish Democrats.
The Governor is also a Connecticut
Yankee, good trader with an eye to
the main chance. Having retired from
the advertising business and turned to
public life and politics, Gov Bowles
probably carries over to his new activi-
ties lesson from radio advertising
that giveaWay program is terrifically
popular. Anyway, he first leaped aboard
the Roosevelt New Deal and is now all
out for the Truman Fair Deal - the
greatest giveaway program the Ameri-
can people have yet experienced.
Sounds Like Horse Sense.
When you listen to Gov Bowles, how
ever. he makes his ideas and his pro-
grams sound like horse sense, entirely
in the interest of the people and good
government 1t is to the run of -the-mine
citizen, as we'll as to organized labor and
other special groups that Mr.. Bowles
makes his appeal.
While he is doing this, Gov Bowles
makes no hay with the wealthy men
IIyPn live, i,Icf
New York State line, in Connecticut.
Some of them have brought their for
tunes across the line from New York be-
cause Connecticut does not impose a
State income tax, or for some other rea-
son. Anyway, they have no use for Gov.
BoWles whom they consider q back
slider. Further, Gov. Bowles has pro-
posed to the Legislature that it sub
stitute State income tax for the pres
ent sales tax, on the ground that sales
tax is hard on the low income group
and an income tax could readily be borne
by the higher income groups-particu-
larly the very rich.
The elimination of the sales tax is
prime recommendation of Gov.
Bowles. In a budget message to the
Legislature soon after he took office he
inserted table comparing the amount
of sales tax paid by families of varying
income with the amount of income tax
these same families would pay if his
recommendation was adopted. For ex-
ample, families whose income is 1000
pay $11 sales taxes in year, those whose
income is SO 900, $18 sales taxes, and
those whose income is 81 900, $27 sales
taxes. None of these families would pay
any State income tax under the Bowles
proposal. The $4,000 income family,
which pays an average of $32 sales taxes,
would be in the first group to pay an
income tax-and he estimated it would
average $40 only for that group. But
after that the income tax would mount,
as the incomes grew larger and larger.
Appeal to the Many.
This is an appealing proposition to
a great many people in the lower in
come groups-of whom there are lot.
coming campaign.
Nothing could be more plausible than
Gov. Bowles' argument in favor of his
program for the reorganization of the
State government, contained in a re-
port submitted by a special commission,
now before the State Legislature. He
bigger and bigger Federal Government
in Washington is to make the State
governments stronger and more ef-
ficient-so that the pople will not have
to look more and more to the Federal
Government for needed services.
OF course, Gov. Bowles is quite right
but for the argument to come from a
man who has aligned himself with the
Fair Dealers is something else. The
point is that Gov. Bowles gets away with
the argument. He cites other gover-
nors-who are not and were not either
New Dealers or Fair Dealers-who have
taken the lead in reforming State gov
ernments. For example, Senator Byrd Of
Virginia former governor), President
Stassen of the University of Pennsyl-
vania former governor of Minnesota).
the late Gov. Al Smith of New York, and
Gov. Warren of California.
Gov. Bowles, too, sees the Democratic
Party moving into new and greater
phase-that is the party of economic
expansion, in the interest of both the
working man and the businessman. This
is field that the Republican Party, he
says, used to occupy-while the Demo-
cratic Party contented itself with being
the party of reform. The war and what
it taught the country in the way of full
employment and big enterprise. he says.
are responsible for this new develop
ment. And while the Democrats are
moving along these new lines-the Re-
publicans, he says, are still cropping.
with nothing new to offer either the
workers or the businessmen. Decidedly,
Gov. Bowles is man to watch.
Questions and Answers