Senate Stirrings

The new year, an election year, brought widespread political stirrings among Senators and would-be Senators. In November, 35 Senate seats will be open to contest--32 routine rotations, plus special elections to fill vacancies in Kansas, Pennsylvania, Ohio. Primary elections to supply senatorial nominees will commence in April. Last week's developments:

North Carolina. Opposition for the first time in 17 years to the renomination and reelection of Senator Furnifold McLendel Simmons appeared when Joseph William Bailey, potent Raleigh attorney and politician, announced his candidacy for the June primary. Would-Be Senator Bailey, a dry Baptist who supported the regular Democratic ticket in 1928, would punish Senator Simmons for deserting Alfred Emanuel Smith.

Maine. Famed as a maker of wine from grape juice, Senator Arthur Robinson Gould has been extolling temperance, has decided not to risk himself again at the polls for renomination. Senator Gould's candidate: Congressman Wallace Humphrey White Jr. of Lewiston, co-author of the Dill-White Radio Law, of the Jones-White Shipping Law. Opposing Mr. White in the June primary will be insurgent one-time Governor Ralph Owen Brewster, victor in Maine's waterpower referendum last summer (TIME, Sept. 23).

Alabama. Banished from his party primary by 27 members of the Democratic State Executive Committee because he deserted Smith in 1928, Senator James Thomas ("Tom-Tom") Heflin, who mortally hates and fears the Roman Pope, returned to his State to open a campaign as an independent candidate for reelection. Said he of the "misguided 27": "I'm sorry for them. How pitiful is their lot! How ashamed they must be feeling. . . . But Old Tom will show them the proper way to the light."

Nebraska. Insurgent Republican Senator George William Norris went home to file for renomination in the primary. He anticipated strong Old Guard opposition, possibly in the candidacy of onetime Governor Samuel Roy McKelvie, now wheat member of the Federal Farm Board.

Pennsylvania. Senator Joseph R. Grundy must face the Republican voters in the May primary. Secretary of Labor James John Davis was toying with the notion of opposing him in that contest. First, Secretary Davis had said: "The pressure upon me is so great I don't see how I am going to get out of running for the Governorship." The "pressure" shifting to a new quarter, he declared last week: "I'm not wholly wedded to this campaign for Governor. The plans of my friends are working out satisfactorily--for Governor or U. S. Senator. Once in this struggle, I'll give Pennsylvania voters plenty to think about." Another candidate who vowed he would be in the May primary for the Republican nomination was William Scott Vare, Senator-Reject, invalid.

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