The Trouble With Gumballs by James Nelson

Although Guptill, up to the time of the convention, had served only as a minor functionary, addressing envelopes, licking stamps, and the like, it was not hard, as more became known, to see why he was selected. There they selected Frank Dolliver Guptill to head their 1968 slate. One week later, gleeful that the popular ex-President had been forced out of the race, the Democrats convened at Chicago. It then remained for the venerable Reston, in the Times, to bring to light the fact that Garrison, during the four preceding Democratic years, had suffered increasingly from nagging backache as well as from pain and distress of upset stomach. Easily a dozen Washington columnists carried the exclusive story that Garrison’s recent physical had turned up a mild anemia.

The aging Alsops were not the first to point out the hollowness of this explanation. At first this tended to confirm rumors that Garrison had prepared his charts with more enthusiasm than research. More than half the Republicans dying in office, Garrison declared, were struck down not by disease but by moving vehicles - of which, he added, 61 per cent were driven by Democrats! Bold though the speech was, two weeks later Garrison reached into the ring and withdrew his hat. He then produced an elaborate series of colored charts which purported to demolish the Democratic survey - first by demonstrating bias in the sample, and then by pointing out that the Democratic study took no account of the Accident versus Death from Natural Causes factor. In a friendly, informal television talk, he declared that not only was his own health sound, but so was the party’s. The following Monday, however, Garrison made the first major Republican rebuttal. The survey, coming on the heels of Republican ex-President Garrison’s announcement of his availability, was obviously timed to catch the Grand Old Party off balance.

They released a survey made for them by Impartial Research, Inc., which showed that during the past eight years - four Democratic, four Republican- 23.5 per cent more Republicans than Democrats died in elective office. The Democrats, eager to steal a march, fired the first big gun several months before their convention. IN THE 1968 presidential election, as a result of the three previous campaigns and their sequelae, the major parties acknowledged only one overwhelming issue: health. He li ves i n California, and his book The Trouble with (Gumballs is being published by Simon and Schuster. JAMES NELSON left editorial work in New York to become a full-time f ree lance.

The Trouble With Gumballs by James Nelson