The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 12

The Boston Globe Monday, November 11, 1974 12 Ella Grasso: shrewd politician from way back legislative programs. A Republican observer insisted that "she will have to yield to pressure." Hammer predicts that "she won't dominate the legislative process, but when there are issues important to her, she will personally exert her influence." He added: (J i This is the second of two articles profiling Ella Grasso, the first woman to be elected in her own right as governor of a state. The first article, published yesterday, was about Ella Grasso and her personal life. Today's article concerns Ella Grasso the politician. By Maria Karagianis Globe Staff HARTFORD For two decades, ever since she was first elected to the Connecticut General Assembly in the early 1950s, governor-elect Ella T.

Grasso has carefully strived to develop a reputation as a politician with a conscience. In 1961, for example, as secretary of state, she broke with tradition by refusing to join a state-financed trip to a convention in Arizona of the National Assn. of Secretaries of State. The convention, she said, was "of negligible value." She not only refused to go, but also set a policy that other Connecticut officials be sent to national conventions only when the state could expect to benefit. ANN TAYLOR'S WAREHOUSE SALE NOV.

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SPECIAL OPPORTUNITIES It is our policy to markdown all merchandise from Vz to rds. In addition to these merchandise offerings you'll find the following: HUGE NEW OUTERWEAR shipment. Wool, Leather, Fur and Raincoats with 40 to 60 Reductions. VAST 2ND REDUCTION -Everything you've already seen has been further reduced. ANN TAYLOR'S WAREHOUSE SALE only at 872 Commonwealth Avenue November 12th through November 15th 10 A.M.

to 10 P.M. "The senior members of both houses of the legislature have worked with her and the magnitude of her victory is such that they will certainly not ignore what she is going to tell them, but she's not sufficiently interested in the patronage endTof things." Exactly what her legislative program will contain is something difficult to determine. It will not include a bill to ease abortion or to impose a state income tax. There are programs she rejected during the campaign along with stating the usual pledges of sound management and fiscal restraint. In fact, her Republican opponent, Congressman Steele, accused her of evading the issues.

There are conflicting views on the governor-elect's ability to compromise. "She listens, but then she makes up her own mind," one prominent Republican said. "And once she makes it up, that's it. Nobody can change it. Ella wants to be top dog." Mrs.

Grasso sees herself somewhat differently. In her own words; she is "idealistic, but essentially a realist." And she says that she has overcome the anger and impatience of her earlier years so that she no longer "gives vent to my irritation." Four years ago, she described her political style. "I don't go around making waves," she said, right after her election to Congress. "I just try to find a way through them. While Bella (US Rep.

Bella Abzug of New" York) is rocking the boat, I might get to shore." i Years later, when she I was in Congress, she es Committee from 1956 to 1968, Mrs. Grasso was a member of the. National Platform Committee in 1960 and co-chairman of the resolution committee of the Democratic National Convention in 1964 and 1968. She started out, ironically, as a Republican. A League of Women Voters activist, she switched her party affiliation in 1951 to work for Democrat Chester Bowles in the gubernatorial race.

Two years later, nine months after the birth of her second child, she was running for office herself, and she easily won a seat on the Connecticut General Assembly. Ella Grasso Has always been a big vote-getter in Connecticut and that fact has never failed to impress party leaders. She may have been a woman running for office in an era when women didn't do. those things, but as long as people voted for her, she was a aluabk asset. As a state legislator, the diligent young mother from Windsor Locks first impressed party leaders with her willingness to work and with her facility for writing.

"They especially liked me," Mrs. Grasso recalls facetiously, "because I could type." But of all the people she impressed during those early years, the most important was a crafty Hartford lawyer who was, and who continues to be, the most powerful Democrat in the state. John Moran Bailey is 70 years old now, and during the 1974 campaign, he remained in Hartford Hospital where he was undergoing cobalt treatments for a serious throat ailment. Piles of old newspapers littered his room and a telephone buzzed at his elbow. Visitors waited, and there were many, to see him.

A television set was nearby and political posters Ella Grasso posters were taped to his window. As always, John Bailey, the enlightened despot who had ruled the Connecticut Democratic party for decades, remained in touch. In 1966, Joseph I. Liber-man titled his biography of Bailey "The Power-broker." More than anything else, Bailey, the first big city boss to support John F. Kennedy's presidential aspirations, could spot a comer and when he met Ella Grasso, he knew he had found a star.

"I've known Ella since a cog in party politics. tablished and highly publicized the "Ella-Phone," a 24-hour toll free service to make herself available to her constituents. She made national headlines when she sponr sored legislation in Congress designed to give Americans more access to public officials. As Connecticut secretary of state, she made hundreds of public speeches and gained a favorable press along the way. She also made visits to Connecticut's 169 cities and towns to explain new election laws.

There is one story, no doubt apocryphal, that she kept a copy of the state election laws under her bed so she could answer questions which came in late at night. mi SOMEBODY DOES CARE ASK THE GLOBE- a department headed by Ed Quill, assisted by Edna Shea, have the answers to thousands of everyday problems and if not they try until they find someone who does They don't fight City Hall but they do manage to, most times, find the right department to provide the service wanted or the answer needed Read Ask The Globe in the Globe ine image uwi vmo. Grasso had worked so long to create of honesty, ca- pability, and accessibility was emphasied in her ELLA GRASSO she's 1953," Bailey said. "I recognized her as a woman who was very devoted to the Democratic Party and to its principles. She was always willing to work.

She was very helpful to me in my position as state chairman. A very capable writer, she was always good with words." And Ella remembers John Bailey: "I first met him when I wanted to get on a committee in the General Assembly, a finance committee for which I was superbly qualified. John has always appreciated people with ideas, people willing to work and there was sort of a vacuum in the General Assembly when I got there." She calls him, "a prince my very good friend." He calls her "my very good friend." Mrs. Grasso's Republican opponent in last Tuesday's election, US Rep. Robert Steele, charged during NewHop 1 the campaign that she was Bailey's handpicked choice for the nominations, and he attacked them both.

His assault backfired, however, when Republican Sen. Lowell Weicker castigated Steele publicly for making the charges. Despite his role as her mentor and her role as his protege, Mrs. Grasso refused to go along with him in support of the Johnson Administration's Vietnam policies at the 1968 Democratic National convention. "John and I are the kind of friends who can disagree," said Mrs.

Grasso, "and when we do it's an event. No effort is made to conceal it. At the Demo cratic convention, I know he was not pleased with my stand, and the President Lyndon Johnson was not pleased. That was conveyed to me." Bailey doesn't remember Ella Grasso as- being "a yes person," either. "If she didn't agree with you she didn't mind telling you," said Bailey.

"The electorate realizes she is capable and they think of her as a friend." Bailey is proud of Ella Grasso, but there are indications that he sometimes viewed her as pushing herself too far. "Ella always was ambitious, and at times, I thought she was overreaching, so we would have a discussion on the subject," he said. The big question now is whether she has overreached herself in the governorship. As secretary of state, she kept a pot of coffee brewing in her office and reporters called it "Ella's Place." Her power to economize was limited to such devices as restricted trips to conventions and keeping her state Buick an extra year or two. As governor, she will find that the problems of balancing the budget, of meeting the demands for more state services, of responding to the needs cf business, labor, farmers and others, of working with the legislature, or getting the most Federal funds, will require wider skills.

Mrs. Grasso's experience-in the state legislature, as secretary of state, and in Congress will undoubtedly be helpful to the new chief executive. She understands the Washington bureaucracy. One of her former assistants, Deputy Secretary of State Harry Hammer, put it this way: "There is no qualification in my mind about her ability to deal with the substantive business of government." But he quickly hinted at possible trouble for the new governor: "Because of her high standards she may step on a lot of political toes. She's not going to run a spoils system from the State House and politically, or pragmatically, this may not be the most practical way of doing things." In other words, Mrs.

Grasso's high standards may sometimes conflict with her role as a party leader. She will begin her with a General Assembly about two-thirds Democratic. One of her tests will be whether she can hold that majority for her Buckley says negativism can't help GOP Middlesex County Sheriff John Buckley said last night the state Republican Party will not be able to rebuild itself by concentrating on negative aspects of the new Democratic administration. Appearing on Channel 56's "Point of View," Buckley, who was reelected last Tuesday, said the "people who have been elected should be given a chance to try their ideas and see if they work." "Right now, Mike Dukakis is taking office at a difficult time. He needs everyone's support and help and I won't speak out against him." Buckley said he will support the removal of William Barnstead as chairman of the state Republican Committee.

"I hope Mr. Barnstead will step down, but continue to be active in the party," he said. Asked if there were enough votes in the Republican State Committee to remove Barnstead if he refuses to step down, Buckley said: "I think there are enough votes to remove him." Buckley said he "will play a creative role" in rebuilding the party, but said he has no plans to run for governor in 1978. "We'll have to start on the local level, but we'll have to do it with positive ideas," Buckley said. "Republicans will have to develop social alternatives.

I did not hear one new social program by Mike Dukakis during. the entire campaign." Buckley also was critical of "liberal tinkering" in social programs, saying: "I don't think throwing 1974 campaign and undoubtedly was a factor in her victory. There is, however, an- other factor that has played a major role in Mrs. Grasso's political carreer. She was an integral cog in the Connecticut Democratic party machine.

Chairman of the Democratic State Platform New lor Beagles? 1 SAiBBS I 11 The elections are over and a new congress will have to deal with many issues and problems some old, some new. One such issue left as a legacy to the 94th Congress is the Pentagon's continued use of beagle puppies in poisonous gas experiments. An estimated half million humanitarians across the United States have made their voices heard in protest to the Pen tagon's Beagle Experiments. As a result of this massive protest, an amendment was attached to a Department of Defense Annual Budget, for the first time, banning the use of appropriated money for experiments on dogs. Although the amendment was carried 76 to 12, in the Senate, it was not carried by the House.

The final result by the Senate-House conferees was an amendment down to a point of In spite of losing a battle against formidable odds, the war against ending the posionous jjas experiments on the Beagles has only begun as Congressman Les Aspin intends to resume action against the Beagle experiments in the 94th Congress. Although we did not win tin all-out victory In the 93rd Congress, an enviable record has been established due to your compassion, cooperation and prompt action. Now more than ever, it Is important that we hold our hard won gains. A fresh avalanche of letters and telegrams to your newly-elected members of Congress In support of Congressman Aspln's Bill HR-15082, will play an Important' part in whether or not the new Congress will bend to the Pentagon's double-talk or heed their constituents' demands to cease the need I A 0. ess beaale experiments.

Action is needed MASS. 0Z1M Dept. New England Anti-Vivisection Society 9 PARK BOSTON, Please enroll me as: Associate Member. Active Member (Fifty cents of membership dues Is applied to subscription price of publication Rwtrencs for Life) new GnGmriD flnn-vivisecnon SOCIETY 9 PARK STREET, BOSTON, MASS. O2108 Name.

Street. I City. State. money at socM programs does any good.