Chocolate Belle To Run For Governor

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31003, 8 March 1966, Page 2

Chocolate Belle To Run For Governor

[By a Special Correspondent of the Sydney “Sun” in New York ] Her name is Lurleen. It conjures up a vision of dimpled southern womanhood, all frilled parasols and magnolia blossom complexions. And so it should, because Mrs Lurleen Wallace, who has announced she will run for the Governorship of Alabama, is the epitome of the Southern belle.

Married before she was 17, now a mother of four, she is still pretty at 39.

A wizard with the crochet hook (according to her official biography) and a great charmer at women's clubs teas, she is about as qualified for the post of Governor as Ladybird Johnson would be for the United States Presidency. Less so, since unlike Mrs Johnson, a highly successful businesswoman, Mrs Wallace’s experience in the outside world is limited to a brief spell selling chocolates in a chain store. Ironically, those very chocolates got her where she is todaj’, making history as the first woman ever to run for Governor of Alabama. The story is that a young penniless law graduate dropped into the chain store to buy a quarter of a pound of chocolates. He was so taken with the blonde salesgirl that he kept returning. They were married in 1943 when she was 16 and he was 23. He was George Wallace

who went on to become Governor of Alabama and one of the most widely known segregationists of the 19605. Mrs Wallace is running for Governor today only because the Alabama Constitution prohibits a Governor from succeeding himself after his four-year term has ended. Her husband has made no bones about her candidacy. If elected, she will sign the papers but he will ran the State, as before. Nothing will change except that Mrs Wallace will get the Governor’s salary and Mr Wallace will work as her number one assistant at a salary of one dollar a year. As Mrs Wallace told a cheering crowd on February 24, “my election would enable my husband to carry on his programmes for the people of Alabama.’’ Although she dislikes making speeches, she went on to read from a prepared statement “I want to provide the people of Alabama the

opportunity to reaffirm their support for the principles of free enterprise and local government and for the prin- ; ciples of honesty and integrity in government.” . Third Woman After this brief announce- ’ ment speech, Governor Wai- ’ lace took over the floor, out- ’ lining the accomplishments of ! his administration. He did not mention integra- , tion, his chief issue when ' elected in 1962. ! Instead, he stressed his sup- . port of American servicemen ; fighting in Vietnam. ' He said he plans to do all , of his wife’s campaigning for her. If Mrs Wallace is elected, she will be only the third ‘ woman to serve as Governor in the United States. The first was Mrs Nellie Taylor Ross of Wyoming who. was elected to succeed her husband, Governor William Ross, after he died in 1924. ' She was later appointed direc- ' tor of the mint by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The second, Mrs Miriam ! Amanda Wallace (“Ma”) Ferguson, of Texas, provided a situation closer to that of Mrs Wallace. Mrs Ferguson's husband, James E. (“Pa”) Ferguson, was found guilty of financial irregularities during his second term as Governor, making him ineligible to hold office again. Mrs Ferguson ran to clear his name. She was elected in 1924. Her campaign slogan was “two Fergusons for the price of one.” Health Factor It was common knowledge that Mr Ferguson directed policy in the same manner that Governor Wallace has pledged to do . Strangely enough, one of the factors that may affect Mrs Wallace’s campaign is her health. Doctors have said the long term outlook for her health is good. But even her supporters (those who have placards with the slogan “let’s keep clean with Lurleen”) are concerned about the operation she had last month for cancer of the womb. Mrs Wallace says the cancer has been arrested and her health is improving steadily. I’ve been dying of cancer for five years if you believe all the rumours,” she says in her soft Alabama drawl. A country girl, born in Tuscaloosa, Mrs Wallace left school at 15. She wanted to be a nurse but was too young. She attended the Tuscaloosa business college instead and then took a job as a salesgirl in a chain store. Chicken Shack She married Mr Wallace just before he went into the Army and spent the war years living in a converted chicken shack near an Army base in New Mexico. Although she campaigned actively for her husband when he ran for Governor, the campaigning was confined to presiding at teas for women’s groups all over the country. At the executive mansion she entertains in the best tradition of Southern hospitality. But she always remained until now out of the limelight, just a reflection of her flamboyant and controversial husband.