RACES: Ablest

Coolest head: Homer S. Brown

Best orator: Homer S. Brown

Ablest all-round: Homer S. Brown

Thus last week the watchful reporters who cover Pennsylvania’s Legislature voted their conviction that Democrat Homer S. Brown of Pittsburgh’s “Hill” area has plenty of ability. What made the vote news: Homer Brown is a Negro.

Most Negroes elected to serve in legislative chambers with white men are noticeable only because they are black or because they blatantly insist on their race’s rights. Oscar De Priest and his successor, Arthur Mitchell, only two Negroes elected to the U. S. Congress since Reconstruction, rated far below average in ability. Not so Homer Brown. Quiet, effective, popular, he is sought out by his white colleagues for his opinions on constitutional law—which is his heavyweight hobby. That attribute, plus his oratorical persuasiveness, pegs him as the lower house’s most influential member on nonpartisan legislation. No stooge for his party, Homer Brown voted to impeach Pittsburgh’s comic Democratic Mayor McNair, to investigate Democratic Governor Earle’s beclouded administration.