The Daily Record

Four Oaks Delegate Lands In Spotlight

By LYNN NISBET Record Correspondent

The fellow walking along Raleigh's Fayetteville street early Thursday morning did not look like a nationally famous character. He was and is. He did look like a fairly prosperous farmer from eastern North Carolina. He is.

He acquired nationwide fame a few days ago when a picture taken of him shaking hands with General Eisenhower in New York and committing his support to the general was published all over the country.

The man was Joel A. Johnson of Four Oaks, Republican candidate for commissioner of agriculture on the state ticket, and fourth district delegate to the Republican national convention in Chicago next month.

Delegate Johnson joined a group of other Southern delegates for a conference with Eisenhower in the Big City. He told the general that he had not previously made up his mind, but that after talking with him he was ready to pledge his convention vote.

It was a natural for publicity men and photographers - a North Carolina tobacco farmer joining up with Ike. When the news picture got distributed, it was a natural for the letter writers, too, and Johnson said when he got home he found a stack of mail a foot high and every mail delivery since has added to the stack. Letters have come from all over the country, a lot of them from North Carolina.

In most instances there is no way to tell whether the writers are Democrats or Republicans, but many of the missives state that they are traditional Democrats who want to vote for Ike this time. Johnson believes most of his correspondents are Republicans, and some of them are very emphatic in their comments. He estimates that the ratio of approval and disapproval of his commitment is approximately two-to-one. Some of the one-third who criticize and condemn his course are pretty mean about it. "I've been called everything from an angel of salvation to the prince of devils working for the damnation of America," he said. Certain it is that some of the newsmen who covered the Republican fourth district convention at Asheboro on March 17, where Joel Johnson was chosen as a delegate, and the State Republican convention in Charlotte next day, where the full slate of delegates was completed, were surprised at his positive commitment for Eisenhower. Just as certainly some strong Taft supporters who voted for Johnson as a delegate were disappointed. Impression was general at the district and state conventions that he was in the Taft column, although every attempt to obtain a public statement of his position failed. TAFT MARGIN DROPS Two or three other delegates who had been counted for Taft have recently come out publicly for Eisenhower. Taft still seems reasonably sure of a majority of the Tar Heel vote, but his margin is less than had been expected. Opinion among both Democrats and Republicans with who your reporter has talked is that the growing Eisenhower sentiment is due to belief that many Democrats would vote for the general but for no other Republican candidate. It is not hard to find experienced political observers who think Eisenhower can carry North Carolina next November. VICTORY ONLY HOPE Majority opinion, however, is that the prospect of Republican victory in this state is no more than a hope, based upon a very insecure foundation. It is remotely possible that enough emotional prejudice might be aroused over positions of the respective party platforms and candidates on compulsory FEPC and sending an ambassador to the Vatican to bring about repetition of the 1928 prejudicial attitude, which took North Carolina away from Democratic Al Smith and gave its electoral vote to Republican Herbert Hoover. If the Republicans carry North Carolina this year it will be for emotional rather than political reasons.