Standing in the Rainbow (51 page)

And Carnie Boofer, who had been sitting in the wings waiting, was poised and ready to go. It was all done with the best of intentions, so everyone—or almost everyone—said. The motion had been passed to relieve a nice lady from an impossible situation so she could leave office and step down gracefully and with dignity. Betty Raye received a lovely letter from the Speaker of the House, thanking her for her valiant service for the past two years and stating that although she was no longer the legal governor, as a courtesy she and the boys would be allowed to remain living at the mansion until the election was over. They had even voted to allot her a lifetime pension of $10,000 a year.

Vita thought it was a lousy trick they had pulled but agreed that in the long run it was probably for the best. She did not tell Betty Raye this, but knowing Earl Finley as well as she did and how dangerous he could be, she understood his methods all too well. If he wanted someone out of office he would stop at nothing to see that it happened. Vita still had her suspicions about his involvement in Hamm’s disappearance but so far all Jake Spurling and his men had come up with was that Finley and all his cohorts had an airtight alibi that weekend—but then, they always did.

It never occurred to anyone, not even Betty Raye, that she would not step down.

At first, after the surprise of the thing, there was a part of her that was actually relieved. Now she could leave before she might make some terrible mistake and disgrace herself and undo all of Hamm’s good work. Now, finally, she could move into her own house. It was all furnished. She was almost beginning to feel grateful to them.

But a few days after she and Alberta Peets started packing up and getting ready to move, something slowly began to dawn on her. In essence, despite all the niceties, what had really taken place was that the state politicians, led by Earl Finley, had said, “Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry, and don’t let the door hit you on your way out.” She called Vita in Kansas City.

“Vita, I’ve been thinking. We don’t know for sure who was responsible for getting rid of Hamm but if it was any of the same people who are trying to get rid of me, I don’t think they should be able to get away with it. Do you? Not without a fight, at least for Hamm’s sake, if nothing else.”

Vita sat up and paid attention. “What can you do?”

“Well, if they say the last election was null and void, I’ll run again, on my own.”

“Do you know what you are up against?” Vita said.

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, I do. I know these people and they play rough.”

“Vita, what more can they do other than kill me? I know I probably won’t win. But I think I owe it to Hamm to at least
try
, don’t you?”

Vita smiled. “It would be fun. To see Earl’s face.”

“Can you come back up here tomorrow, Vita, so we can talk some more about it?”

“I guess so. But just to talk. I’ll be there for lunch.”

There was a pause on the other end.

“Oh,
all right
. . . make it breakfast.”

They say people two blocks away heard Earl Finley yelling when he heard the news.

Vita Green had called her good friend Peter Wheeler, whose wife had just died, and talked him into moving to Jefferson City to help her run Betty Raye’s campaign. It was an interesting choice, considering Peter Wheeler had run against Hamm in his first governor’s election and it was at a party at his home where Betty Raye and Vita first met.

Earl Finley vowed he was not going to take this sitting down. He had tried to get rid of Betty Raye in a nice, devious way but now he was taking off the gloves in an all-out assault. As head of the Missouri Democratic Party, he declared her candidacy invalid and refused to support her. This forced her to run as an independent.

Le Roy Oatman and the Missouri Plowboys geared up one more time. From the first, her polling numbers were so low they set a state record. As hard as she tried, she was still so shy that when she got up to speak everyone could see her knees shaking. And even when they hid her behind a larger podium, she frequently dropped her speeches to the floor. If there were men who would not vote for a woman even when she had Hamm behind her, almost
none
would vote for a woman without any man behind her. One editorial said, “It seems Mrs. Sparks, unlike the rest of the state, has forgotten that she was never considered anything more than a paper governor. One cannot help but suspect she is being used once more as a pawn and to what end is unknown. However, to prevent further embarrassment to herself, her children, and the memory of her late husband, Mrs. Sparks needs to step aside and go on about her real business, that of housewife and mother.”

Carnie Boofer and the rest of the candidates ignored her at first but as time went by Carnie could not resist taking a swipe at her. In his first paid-for television address he ended up by saying, “As far as the little lady that is running, first of all, let me say that most of us respect our females and do not question their abilities but who of us here would feel right about letting our wives or daughters be subjected to the rough-and-tumble world of politics? This is a world where tough decisions have to be made every day. I am sure Mrs. Sparks is a lovely lady but having said that, I must point out the fact that an ex–gospel singer and one-time cafeteria worker with barely a high school education is sorely ill-equipped to run a state. Mrs. Sparks needs to be home, where she belongs, looking after her children and leave the business of politics to the men. After all, it was the men that fought for our independence in this country. There was no such thing as founding mothers, only founding fathers. There were no minutewomen, just minutemen. Betsy Ross stayed home and sewed the flag. I suggest that instead of politics, Mrs. Sparks take up knitting and I’ll make a deal with her—if she won’t run, I won’t knit.”

Boofer got a lot of laughs. But not from the women.

In fact, it made Neighbor Dorothy mad—mad as she ever got, which could better be described as highly irritated. After his speech, she turned to Mother Smith and said, “He makes me tired.”

Mother Smith said, “He makes me more than that. If I had a gun, I’d shoot him.”

For Dorothy, having read so many unkind things said about Betty Raye by the other candidates, the Carnie Boofer speech was the last straw. The next morning, after her “nine out of ten movie stars use Lux Soap” commercial, she broke with all convention and went out on a limb.

“You know, we never delve into controversy here on our show but darn it all and please excuse my French over the radio, but I just have to say something this morning. I, for one, am tired of some men, and you know who they are, going on and on about how a woman should not do anything more than stay in the home and take care of their family. Now, you know I am not against that. I am a homemaker myself. But these men have got to realize that times have changed.” Mother Smith broke into a rousing rendition of “How You Gonna Keep ’Em Down on the Farm After They’ve Seen Paree.” “That’s right, Mother Smith, and the same holds true for the women. Men have got to realize that they did not win the war all by themselves, for heaven’s sake. During the war we all worked in factories, ran the trains, drove the buses, joined the army, did everything the men did. Our own Ada Goodnight flew planes. But when it was over the men came home and wanted everything to go back to the way it was. We understood that, but once people find out they can do a thing and like to do things, it’s not right to tell them they can’t. We are supposed to be about playing fair in this country and that doesn’t seem fair to me. And if you agree, I think we need to let them know how we feel, don’t you? Well, enough of me ranting and raving on and on but like Mother Smith says, women fought too long and too hard to get the vote to be told they shouldn’t vote for one of our own. Now, we don’t believe in throwing brickbats at the other fellow but we can make a stand on Election Day, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t think it’s right to attack somebody just because she’s a woman. As you all may know, we were lucky enough to have Betty Raye stay with us and let me tell you this—anybody that could get Bobby Smith to read thirty-four books in one summer can certainly run a state! And that’s all I’ll say on the subject.”

That is all she
had
to say. In truth, not many women had been interested in politics until Neighbor Dorothy’s call to arms, but the day after her broadcast letters began pouring into the Democratic headquarters, complaining about Carnie Boofer. The politicians had crossed the wrong bunch this time. They had hit a big, mad hornets’ nest with a rock and shortly both the Democrats and the Republicans were running for their lives.

Since
The Neighbor Dorothy Show
was heard statewide, all the other candidates, including the Carnie Boofer supporters, immediately organized a call in protest to the offices of the Golden Flake Flour Company, asking them to take her off the air. But Jack Mann, president of the company, did what his eighty-two-year-old mother, Mrs. Suzanne Mann, owner and chairman of the board, told him to do, and that was nothing. She was sweetly reasonable. “You’ll take Dorothy off the air over my dead body,” she said.

Along with her thousands of other listeners, when Norma’s mother, Ida Jenkins, heard Dorothy’s show she puffed up like a white-breasted pouter pigeon and said, “Oh, woe to you, Mr. Carnie Boofer. You have crossed the wrong woman this time.” As president of the Federated Women’s Club of Missouri, past president of three garden clubs, and a top Presbyterian, Ida had a lot of clout and she knew how to use it. She alerted all the members of the women’s clubs and garden clubs in the state to write in—and they did, by the sackful.

But perhaps the strongest message was a telegram sent to Missouri Democratic headquarters by one man, whose mother and whose wife, Bess, were faithful
Neighbor Dorothy Show
listeners. A man with, you might say, a lot of influence with the Democratic Party in the state—and beyond. The telegram simply said:

LET THE LITTLE LADY RUN![BR /]HARRY S. TRUMAN

Earl Finley was in a fit. Not only was Truman on her side, but public sentiment was running higher and higher against them. As he paced the room he ranted at the top of his voice to the men at the table, who sat motionless. “Dammit to hell, they’ve got our asses in a sling. Why? I’ll tell you why. You can’t insult a widow with two kids on television, that’s why. You can’t touch her. If you don’t let her run like a man, you’re a no-good son of a bitch and if you do treat her like a man, you’re a no-good son of a bitch. It’s frigging emotional blackmail,” he said, stopping to pound the table with his fist.

At the end of the day, they had no choice but to dump Carnie Boofer and let the little lady run.

The Rooster May Crow but I
t
’s the Hen That Lays the Egg

E
ven though Betty Raye was now running on the Democratic ticket again, the public-opinion pollsters’ opinion was that she still had no hope of winning.

Vita had believed that. But when she saw what the response to Dorothy’s show had been, it gave her an idea to do something that had never been done before in the history of the state or in the entire country, for that matter. They would forget trying to convince and beg the men to take her candidacy seriously and go after the women’s vote. It was a slim chance but it was the only one they had. This approach had been an old trick of Hamm’s. Vita would run Betty Raye as the underdog and the more she was attacked for being a woman, the better.

The big push was on and the newspapers and the other candidates pushed back, making the same mistake Carnie Boofer had. Some said she was unqualified.

One man said, “All she has to offer the state is a ‘Kitchen Cabinet.’ ” Once the national press picked it up, as Vita had hoped they would, telegrams for Betty Raye started pouring in from everywhere.

GOOD LUCK. I AM PULLING FOR YOU.
—
MAMIE EISENHOWER BEST OF LUCK.
—
PATTY, MAXENE, AND LAVERNE ANDREWS WISHING YOU THE BEST.
—
MRS. LURLEEN WALLACE BEHIND YOU IN EVERY WAY.
—
LADY BIRD JOHNSON

But the telegram that absolutely floored Betty Raye was from a Missouri woman, the first movie star she had ever seen, when Anna Lee had taken her to the Elmwood Theater to see
Kitty Foyle
:

GIVE THEM HELL, KID—GINGER ROGERS

Women started to listen and read what Betty Raye had to say about how if elected she would not only continue her late husband’s policies but implement new ones of her own, of interest to them. She promised to introduce state laws forcing state monies to be spent on facilities for women and girls as well as the males. She talked about the inequities of the women’s salaries compared with the men’s, subjects that they had never heard another candidate speak about, and they liked what they heard. When Ada Goodnight and her sister Bess, who were now traveling around Arizona in their Airstream trailer, read that she was running all by herself and was being attacked, they turned around and headed home to help. Ada knew about the plight of women in a male-dominated world. In 1945, when the male soldiers started coming back home from Europe, she and all the other women pilots that had served as WASPs during the war were unceremoniously told to go home and never received a dime or even thanks from the government. When a WASP friend of hers had been killed flying a mission, the army had refused to pay to send the body back to the family. Ada was more than ready for a fight. When she got back she organized all her lady-pilot pals and they all went up in their counties all over the state and dropped thousands of leaflets, urging women to vote for Betty Raye. Bess organized the entire state’s ladies’ bowling-league teams to get out and roll for Betty Raye. Pretty soon the ladies’ auxiliaries of the Elks, the Moose, and the Lions and members of the Eastern Star got behind her. The wives of the Allis-Chalmers tractor company took out a full-page ad in the farmers’ weekly that went all over the state.