Evening star., 1952-10-02
TIE Porfieoi NII
Senator Moody Proving
Self Able Compoigner
1t Is Evident in Michigan
He Is Winning Votes
By Gould Lincoln

S - ""HuS NOtSS
By Gould Lincoln
DETROIT, Oct. 2.-Blair Moody.
Michigan Democrat, appointed to the
Senate from the press gallery by Gov.
Mennen Williams. is showing himself an
able and hustling campaigner, with
great personal appeal. Win, lose or draw
in his race for his present seat in the
upper house of Congress-. Senator Moody
will have made his mark in Michigan
politics. He has great asset, as a
campaigner-peopl like him and he likes
people. Going before groups who are
perhaps congenitally Republican-and he
talks to many such groups in a State
which has Republican tradition, he in
variably makes friends. Friends, as q
rule. mean votes on election day.
One thing is noticeable in his cam
paigning. Senator Moody sticks to the
issues as he sees them-and avoids per-
sonalities as far as that is possible. He
complains at times that his Republican
opponent, Representative Charles Ed
ward Potter, a legless veteran of the last
world war, has misrepreSented his,
Moody's stand on legislation and issues
at least IA times. He met MIR. Potter in
joint debate on one occasion-and from
all accounts the verdict appears to have
been for Senator Moody. Five other
similar debates were scheduled, but Mr..
Potter or his managers are reported to
have cancelled them. Now James r.
(Jimmy) Hoffa, president of the Mich
igan Conference of Teamsters, AFL, has
invited the two senatorial candidates to
participate in three public debates at
the unions expense. to be carried over
television and radio. Senator Moody
promptly accepted and expressed the
hope his opponent would do likewise.
X
Mr.. Potter, Moody's opponent, was
first elected to the 80th Congress and
has continued to be elected since then.
He has more recently been serving as
a member Of the House Un-American
Activities Committee-a committee from
which another Republican climbed to a
seat in the Senate-Richard Nixon Of
California, now the G. o. P. vice-presi-
Dental candidate. When Senator Moody
calls attention to the fact that he,
Potter. has only IS per cent record of
voting in the House, Mr. Potter replies
that his duties as a committee member
have taken him away from Washington
and from the floor of the House, and
also that he had a campaign on. The
Senator, however, whose voting record
is SO per cent, points out that he, too,
has been serving on two active COM
mitteeS which have taken him out of
town, and that he has been cam
paigning.
II have so arranged my time," he says.
hot Ii - L
Senate when votes were coming up."
Successor to the late Senator Arthur
Vandenberg, Republican foreign policy
leader, as chairman and ranking Repub-
lican member of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee. and a strong sup
porter OF a nonpartisan and bipartisan
foreign policy. Senator Moody has fol-
lowed Vandenberg's attitude meticu-
louSly. In fact. he is doing so almost
passionately. To Senator Moody the
greatest and most impelling issue today
is to make America so strong, that with
the aid OF the rest of the free world,
Communist Russia will be unwilling to
start an atomic war with all its poten-
tialities Of complete disaster for the
world.
This is theme which Senator Moody
pounds home in his campaigning. At
the same time he seeks to point out that.
while Gen. Eisenhower, the Republican
presidential candidate. is strongly in
favor of such a program. the majority
of Republicans in the House, and in the
Senate. have voted to cut the so-called
Mutual Security Program appropriations
below the safety level approved by Gen.
Eisenhower himself.
Although Senator Moody has been a
Senator for less than two years, he can
point to an unusual record for fresh
man in that body. He has been leader
in the Senate against imitation and high
prices. He won $45 a month combat
pay for CTS. fighting in Korea. He
took part in the successful fight to take
politics out of the Internal Revenue Bu-
reau. He prodded the Defense Depart
ment into giving small plants more con-
tracts. For Michigan, particularly, Sem
ator Moody blocked cutbacks in auto
mobile production and saved 1000 Jobs
for Michigan workers.
An unknown in Michigan politics. SEN
ator Moody was widely known to hum
dreds of thousands of Michigan voters
before he entered the Senate He had
been for 18 years with the Detroit
News and had conducted radio and tele-
vision broadcasts. A human dynamo
as reporter, he has proved himself
equally energetic as Senator and poll
tician. The belief is growing here that
he will run right along, on election day,
with his friend and popular Governor.
Mennen Williams.