Hughes spurns role as GOP keynoter
Washington (UP) – (April 15)
A group of influential Republicans have considered offering to Charles Evans Hughes the important job of keynoting the Republican National Convention, but the former Chief Justice let it be known tonight that he was not interested.
The keynoter and the permanent chairman of the convention, which opens June 26, will be selected in Chicago on Wednesday by the GOP Arrangements Committee. House Republican Leader Joseph W. Martin Jr. (R-MA), who served as permanent chairman of the 1940 convention, will do so again this year.
It was reported that Rep. Clare Boothe Luce (R-CT) was gathering strong support as a potential keynoter.
Some GOP leaders are urging that the post be given to one of the party’s 26 state governors, but the difficulty, as one spokesman put it, is that so many governors “have their lightning rod up.”