New Hampshire Convert

The Republicans lost a good man last week. New Hampshire's former Governor Francis Parnell Murphy, breathing fire, stomped out of the Party. The reason for his departure: he was fed up with the G.O.P.

Back of 65-year-old Mr. Murphy was a tradition of Republicanism. His father, a veteran of the Civil War, was a Lincoln man. Mr. Murphy himself, born on a New England farm, bootstrapped himself up to become a millionaire shoe manufacturer (J. F. McElwain Co.). Murphy was one of the few Republicans elected to a governorship during the 1936 Democratic landslide, was an able Governor for four years. But he decided last week that he had had all the GOPery that he could stand.

Blasting the "synthetic and stumbling leadership of the Republican Party in these desperate times," Mr. Murphy declared: "There is no program worthy of the great tradition of the Republican Party in a period when the nation is in dire peril." All he could see was a record of "pseudo-leadership, petty partisanship, mediocre talents, personal and political aggrandizement at the sacrifice of principle." The Republican Party, said he, had been betrayed by its leaders.

The time, said Mr. Murphy, was inappropriate for house cleaning. The nation was too busy with the war. The only thing to do was to walk out of the old house and slam the door.

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