Minnesota's young Governor Stassen has a streak that his critics call stubbornness and that his friends call a farsighted awareness of the new needs of a new time. Last week the Governor demonstrated this streak. To the post of the late Senator Ernest Lundeen he appointed—over the protests of Republican politicians —tall, lean, black-haired young Joseph Ball, who has been a newspaperman for 13 of his 34 years.
What made that appointment news was not that Governor Stassen passed over eligible oldsters like Congressman August H. Andresen. Nor was it that Governor Stassen simply made up his mind that Joe Ball would make a good Senator despite political considerations (he has already begun talking of Ball's re-election in 1942).
Because Senator Lundeen was a Farmer-Laborite, the appointment increased the Republican minority in the Senate to 24. Because Senator Lundeen was violently isolationist and Joe Ball favors "all aid possible to Britain without crippling our own defenses," the appointment cut a bigger hole in the Senate's isolationist bloc. But bigger news was that Joseph Ball's background made him look like a new type for the Senate.
Brusque, able, serious-minded Joseph Ball is called by other Minnesota political writers the best-grounded writer on government in the Twin Cities. Popular, but no handshaker, with 180 Ib. on his 6 ft. frame, he was born in Crookston, Minn., raised seed corn to pay his way through a year of Antioch College, went to the University of Minnesota (but did not graduate), got a job on the Minneapolis Journal when he was 21, married a reporter on the same paper, took a year off, like all newspapermen, to free-lance writing fiction. Back on the St. Paul Despatch and Pioneer Press, he began writing politics, fathered three children, was an active Newspaper Guildsman (but dropped out in disgust two years ago), became Governor Stassen's confidential political adviser and close friend during the campaign.
Last week Joe Ball, still limping from a fractured kneecap that he got in an automobile accident while driving home after the Democratic National Convention, prepared to take his first steps as Senator-appointee. He prepared a radio speech urging 1) aid to Britain (with the Army and Navy to be the best judges of "how much and what sort of aid we can extend with safety"), 2) the election of Wendell Willkie. Because his 35th birthday comes next month he would register for the draft, as would Governor Stassen (33) and Lieutenant Governor C. Elmer Anderson (28), then leave for Washington to take the oath and begin work as the Senate's youngest Senator.