Bathless Cross

Army marksmen all know the story about the old rifleman who never took a bath during the National Shoot because "it might change his conditions." Last week at a Democratic victory dinner in Hartford, Governor-elect Wilbur Lucius Cross of Connecticut, 68, Dean-Emeritus of Yale's Graduate School, attributed his good health during his rigorous campaign to the fact that he was too busy to take a bath. While younger and sturdier associates succumbed to minor ills, said Governor-elect Cross, he never felt better in his life. "When I returned home after a rally it would be too late to bathe and when I arose next morning it would be too late again."

On the historicity of bathing in politics, erudite Dr. Cross reported: "I . . . found that there ~was never-a bathtub in the White House until under the Administration of Fillmore [1850-53], who was first a Whig or 'Know Nothing,' and later deteriorated into a Republican.

"Fillmore asked the Senate for a special appropriation for a bathtub, and specialists told him it would be dangerous to bathe between Oct. 1 and June 1. But he finally got the appropriation. But what about the Presidents in pre-bathing days? Was Fillmore greater than Thomas Jefferson?"

Having fortnight ago appointed James Joseph ("Gene") Tunney to be his aide-de-camp with the rank of major, Governor-elect Cross last week remarked: "The question is whether Tunney will go into politics. I hope he will, for he would be the strongest leader of the House or Senate that could sit in Hartford."

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