Five Governors

In the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette one morning last week, George Leader found a prediction for his sign of the zodiac, Capricorn: "This is your day to get together with every single individual who has any interest in you." George Leader had no trouble taking this advice. It was his inauguration day as Pennsylvania's first Democratic governor in 16 years. "This," said Leader, making a refreshing admission in his inaugural speech, "is a post I sought."

In his home county of York, a Republican couple named their newborn baby George Leader in his honor. (Leader, who cut his own 37th birthday cake the day before, wired the infant: DEAR GEORGE: PLEASE TELL YOUR PARENTS SOME DAY HOW HONORED AND PLEASED I FELT.) In

Harrisburg 35,000 people hailed the new governor. The sun brightened a four-hour inaugural parade that included an A.F.L.

float displaying working girls in mink coats, a rather hopeful hint from labor.

Next day, after staying up until 1 a.m.

at his inaugural ball, Governor Leader issued his first order: cut state spending.

Because of the last administration's "reckless fiscal policy," he said, the state is running some $500 million in the red.

Nevertheless, he planned to drop the 1-c- state sales tax and to promote increased employment--two major campaign pledges.

Four other state governors were inaugurated last week: Texas. Governor Allan Shivers, sworn in for his third full term, quoted from the Book of Psalms. "So teach us to number our days," said Shivers, who says that he wants to retire after this term (ending in 1957). Wealthy and still young (47), he ran partly so that he could lead a con servative Texas delegation to the 1956 Democratic convention. He helped swing Texas to Ike in 1952, but may now make peace with new Democratic National Chairman Paul Butler. Shivers has spent more for schools and hospitals than any past governor, now wants higher taxes to pay for new highway and water-conservation programs. His inauguration, despite a north wind that whisked away chairs and toppled a TV camera, set off a Texas-sized celebration: two receptions, followed by five inaugural balls and a mammoth square dance.

Alabama. On Montgomery's hilly Dexter Avenue, banners fluttered with the phrase "Y'all come.'' Theater marquees proclaimed: "Welcome Back, Jim." Alabama put on its longest (twelve miles) and loudest (126 bands) parade for the U.S.'s tallest (6 ft. 8 in.) governor: Big Jim Folsom, 46, making a comeback after one sorry term, a bastardy suit in 1948 (later dismissed) and other troubles. Once famed as "Kissin' Jim," a whisky-drinking merry widower, he remarried, paraded in an Oldsmobile convertible, with his pretty wife and six children (two by his first wife, four by his second) in another car behind him. Folksy Folsom campaigned as "the little man's big friend" and won in a walk. He said nothing about segregation, won both the Negro and white-supremacy vote. He pleased prohibitionists by denouncing liquor ads and delighted drinkers by hinting of price cuts in the state liquor stores.

Businessmen mobilized a fleet of Cadillacs and Montgomery's only Rolls-Royce for his campaign. Once scornful of rich "got-rocks," Big Jim now has plenty of rocks himself (slices of an insurance agency and a battery business). He believes in the maxim: "Make no small plans." Big Jim has big plans for Alabama and for himself. As a sample, he had a special $32,000 hardwood dance floor installed in the Alabama Cattle Coliseum for his inaugural ball. Lazily, he waved to the crowd, called out his campaign catch phrase: "Hitch up them mules, boy, it ain't a goin' to rain." Speaking at the stately white capitol, he pawed absently at his cutaway, as though feeling for pockets. When the crowd roared, he drawled: "I forgot it was one of those longtail jobs. Just every four years is all I'm used to wearing it." South Carolina. With no parade, ball or fanfare, George Bell Timmerman Jr., 42, was sworn in as governor by his father, a federal judge. His oath of office included a promise that he would not fight a duel while in office. He replaced aging (75) Jimmy Byrnes, formerly governor, Secretary of State, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Director of War Mobilization and U.S. Senator. Timmerman, who served eight years as lieutenant governor, inherits a cool $3,000,000 reserve fund and a burning problem: South Carolina's determination to resist school desegregation.

Tennessee. The nation's youngest (34) governor, Frank Clement,* a onetime FBI agent and part-time lay preacher, ran up a good record in his first two years and has a good program ready for his new four-year term. Spellbinding Corn-Shuck-er Clement, re-elected with the state's biggest vote, hopes for a chance to make the keynote speech at the 1956 Democratic convention. He figures he can talk himself into the vice-presidency, at least.

* Not to be confused with Kentucky's Earle Clements, Democratic whip in the U.S. Senate.

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