POLITICAL NOTES: Senator Barkley?

When the retiring Vice President of the U.S. packed up and headed for his old Kentucky home last January, it seemed that his distinguished political career was over. But last week the political sun shone bright on Kentucky’s old (75) Alben Barkley.

Last spring, as the sassafras shoots came out, so did rumors that Barkley might run for governor or Senator. He could have stopped the talk with a sentence or two, but he did not. By last week the buzzing had spread all over Kentucky and could be heard in Washington. Tending his 500 acres of land and his 200 head of cattle at Paducah. Barkley had “no comment whatsoever” about a political future. But he has been busy making speeches wherever he can (e.g., to the Kentucky Chiropractors Association in observance of “National Correct Posture Week”) and has been shaking a hand wherever he has found one stuck out of a sleeve. His closest friends believe he has decided to run for the Senate next year.

After almost half a century in public office and 40 years in Washington. Alben

Barkley wants to get back into harness, and Mrs. Barkley wants to get back to Washington. To run for his old Senate seat. Barkley would not have to make any definite move until early next year, and then he could get the Democratic nomination for the asking. That would put him up against the Republicans’ able, respected John Sherman Cooper, who carried Kentucky last year although Dwight Eisenhower did not. Kentuckians think it would be a close race.*

* If elected, Barkley would be the fifth American to serve in the Senate after presiding over it as Vice President of the U.S. The others: John C. Calhoun, John C. Breckinridge, Hannibal Hamlin, Andrew Johnson.