(5 of 6)
Governor-elect Allred's program includes: laws to prevent lobbying; publicity on the sources of income of all State Legislators; new revenue without a sales tax.
Nebraska's Roy L. Cochran, on his way to the Governorship, was last week also on his way to Washington to consult about relief. Reserved, tall, grey, portly, he tackles his problems like the engineer that he is and his relief problem is not like that of most Governors. His State has no debt whatever; its pay-as-you-go policy has paid for all State highways and for the $10,000,000 State Capitol. Nebraska's freedom from debt is due, however, to statutory restrictions on the issue of bonds. Nebraska has had to leave her problems entirely to her local govern ments. Sales taxes, income taxes or some other new taxes are necessary both to save the schools and finance relief. Engineer Cochran insists on one thing : the gasoline tax shall not be diverted from the care of roads.
Meantime the Governor-elect has an other problem, to make ready for the winding up of Nebraska's bicameral Legislature. An amendment to the State Constitution advocated by Senator Norris and adopted at the last election will do away with Nebraska's House and Senate, pre sent her in 1937 with one House of 30 to 50 members — the first unicameral Legislature in the U. S. since Vermont gave up hers in 1836.
Michigan's Frank D, Fitzgerald has the distinction of being one of seven Republicans to take command of a State in 1934. He began his career as a page in the Michigan Legislature. Later he became a 32 degree Mason, a Shriner, an Odd Fellow, a Maccabee. an Eagle, and finally Secretary of State. One vice he has: coffee, which he drinks all day long from a vacuum bottle. Last week his vacuum bottle had to be refilled many times a day as he sat in his home at Grand Ledge, twelve miles from Lansing.
Governor-elect Fitzgerald had already been unfortunate. On Nov. 6 the voters honored him with a Republican State Senate, a State House equally divided between Republicans and Democrats. Then the fire in the Kerns Hotel at Lansing killed off three House Republicans-elect, only one Democrat-elect, leaving him a Democratic House (TIME, Dec. 24). With this setback his job grows harder for he has promised to exempt food from the State's 3% sales tax. That will knock $10,000,000 off the State's revenue and $12,000,000 is what the State has been spending for relief.
New Jersey's Harold Giles Hoffman, at 38, will be the youngest Governor his State ever had. At 21 he was a captain in the A. E. F. At 26 his Legionary friends sent him to the State Legislature. At 31 they sent him to Congress. At 35 he left Congress to become New Jersey's Commissioner of Motor Vehicles. How. despite a Democratic landslide elsewhere, he captured New Jersey for the Republicans in an off year election for the first time since 1907 is no secret. In his first three months as Motor Vehicle Commissioner he voided 500 licenses for drunken driving. He made speeches every day. In the last campaign alone he rolled up a total of over 600 speeches.