Nation: With a Little Bit…

Maryland’s Theodore Roosevelt McKeldin is a Republican of partly Irish descent who believes in the luck of the shamrock, the shillelagh—and Baltimore’s Southern Hotel. It was at the Southern that McKeldin listened to election returns in 1950 and heard himself elected Governor of Maryland for the first of two terms. And it was to the Southern that McKeldin, citing its good luck charms, returned last week to hear himself elected as Baltimore’s second Republican mayor in 36 years (the other, in 1943: T. R. McKeldin). McKeldin, 62, defeated Incumbent Democratic Mayor Philip H. Goodman, 48, by 108,365 to 103,741—despite a recorded John Kennedy plug for Goodman that the Democrats played repeatedly over Baltimore’s radio stations. In a city with a 4-t01 Democratic registration advantage, luck did seem to play a part in McKeldin’s victory. Goodman, a former state senator, had been accounted a pretty good mayor, who kept city hall aswirl with housing, traffic-safety, street-maintenance and law-enforcement plans. But he is a dull speaker with little appeal to the voters. McKeldin, on the other hand, is a onetime Dale Carnegie Institute instructor who has obviously kissed the Blarney stone; his oratory earned him the honor of nominating Dwight Eisenhower at the Republican National Convention in 1952. Still McKeldin was the underdog. But the Republican candidate for city comptroller withdrew after a firm he once headed was found insolvent by the Baltimore Circuit Court. The G.O.P. filled the vacancy with Hyman Pressman, a Democrat who had switched tickets after los ing his own party’s nomination for comptroller. Pressman, self-styled “watchdog” of Baltimore’s budget, is a perennial candidate for one office or another and, while never before a winner, he has a considerable following. Baltimore politicians figured that his presence on the ticket attracted enough Democrats to put McKeldin (and himself) across.