National Affairs: Carnations & Carnage

To Walter J. Kohler, new Governor of Wisconsin, came last week a floral lavatory. Presented to the Governor in connection with his inaugural exercises, the blooming washbasin is two feet high and 18 inches wide, and exactly duplicates the “Columbia” lavatory, as manufactured by the Governor in his plumbing fixture factory. It is made of from 400 to 500 white carnations, favorite flower of theGovernor.

Investigation. But not all citizens of Wisconsin were saying it with flowers for the new Governor. It will be remembered that Mr. Kohler was elected in opposition to the powerful La Follette group which has for many a year controlled Wisconsin politics. Angry, the bitter-enders among the La Follette organization drew up a petition accusing Governor Kohler of having spent $104,000 on his campaign. As the Wisconsin law puts $4,000 as a maximum campaign expenditure, the petitioners sought to disqualify the Governor from office as a violator of the states’s corrupt practices act. Among signers of the petition was Philip La Follette, brother of the present, son of the late Senator Robert Marion La Follette. Action on the petition is in the hands of Attorney General John W. Reynolds, who has announced that presently, in the course of his duties, he will proceed with an investigation.

Kohler Speaker. Meanwhile, however, Governor Kohler won a distinctvictory in the organization of the Wisconsin House. After 15 ballots, whichincluded a 49 to 49 deadlock, Charles B. Perry, regular candidate for the House speakership, won over Alvin C. Reis, Progressive candidate. Mr. Reis was one of the signers of the Kohler-ouster petition. While his defeat was aided by the split of the Progressive faction between Mr. Reis and John W. Eber, 1927 speaker, the fact remained that the Governor’s supporters secured control of the House, thereby the carnage sufferred by La Follettism.

As the ouster petition was regarded in many quarters as hardly more than a gesture, it appeared that Governor Kohler had opened his administration with conspicuous success. And Governor Kohler well knows that the man who stops La Follettism in Wisconsin is a man whom the nation will watch.