Whether it was Alabama's landslide to Senator Heflin in the early hours of the New Lecture Hall Convention that started the merciless succession of events whose end is not yet, no one can say. While one of the delegates from another state was thundering, "You shall not crucify mankind upon a Cross of Rome" he never dreamed that a mighty blow was being struck for him only a few miles away. Heflin, ever the cunning strategist, covered his main point of attack by the blatancies of convention excitement. Meanwhile his benchmen were elsewhere, stabbing deep. When morning came the shamrocks in the blinds of ex-Mayor Curley's home looked down aghast at the great sign on the lawn: "Heflin for President."

Wily though he is, the Senator occasionally errs in the way of heroes: under estimating the power of his opponent. Swifter than he knew, the underground espionage system of Rome was at work. Yesterday morning when Senator Heflin sauntered into the President's room of the Capitol, he started back, and caught the arm of the nearest reporter. The room was draped in red.

The Senator was almost instantly his old collected self, and shouted in familiar tremorless way: "We used to have green colors hung in the President's room, but some smooth-fingered fellow near Alfred thought he would hang the room in red, the cardinals colors, so as to be ready for Al." The fact is that green to red is the signal from stop to go, and shows nothing more dangerous than the immutable Coolidge cast of mind, relieved by a certain love of symbolism in surroundings.