Ready to Run

For the past year, Canadians pondered the same question about their Prime Minister that U.S. citizens asked of their President: Will he run in the next election? Last week President Eisenhower, looking more and more like a candidate, nevertheless kept the guessing game going (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS). But in Canada Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent ended the suspense. The 73-year-old Canadian leader passed the word to political intimates that he had definitely made up his mind to go for a third term in the federal election expected in 1957.

St. Laurent's decision to campaign again at the ripe age of 75 was mainly influenced by a marked improvement in his health during the past year. A year ago, after a successful but exhausting world tour and a difficult legislative session, the Prime Minister was feeling his age, and dropped a series of hints that he would retire unless he felt a lot better soon. That prospect was more than agreeable to Mme. St. Laurent, who worried about her lawyer-husband's late entry into politics (at 59) and has never made any secret of her willingness to quit Ottawa for a quieter life at the family home in Quebec City.

During last summer's long holiday season, however, St. Laurent made an impressive comeback. He returned to Ottawa spry and refreshed, and led the government through the current parliamentary session without any serious recurrence of last year's fatigue. "He's as perky as he ever was," observed one government official. "He's enjoying his job too much to give it up." A top Liberal who asked him point-blank about his political plans last week reported afterward that St. Laurent said "definitely, with no ifs or buts [that he] will run in the next election," and serve as Prime Minister "as long as his health stands up."

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