Burke Stays Out Of Race

Burke Stays Out Of Race
Ann Arbor Democrat Refuses To Be Candidate For Senate
By Guy H. Jenkins
(News Staff Correspondent) CHICAGO - After a two-hour conference, which terminated at 2 o'clock this morning, George J. Burke, prominent Ann Arbor Democrat, declined for the last time to become the party's candidate for the United States Senate.
Democratic leaders apparently were disappointed with Burke's decision for they had really believed that he would respond to the call to serve his party.
"The answer still is no," was Burke's reply to newspapermen who sensed his visit to the national convention as part of the plan to draft him as one of the party's most potent candidates to oppose Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg, senior senator from Michigan.
Conference Held Burke went into the conference with Murray D. Van Wagoner, the party's gubernatorial candidate, G.. Donald Kennedy, Van Wagoner's chief political adviser, Charles S. Porritt, state chairman, Edmund C. Shields, national committeeman, and other leaders decidedly hostile to any suggestion of his senatorial candidacy. Federal Judge Frank A. Picard, of Saginaw, has taken the same view of the Michigan political situation as it relates to the senatorial election.
It was learned here on good authority that an effort was made to have President Franklin D. Roosevelt to suggest to Judge Picard that he resign from the bench to again enter the political arena.
It has not been divulged whether the President followed the suggestion of some of Michigan's leading Democrats.
It is known, however, that nothing has been heard from Judge Picard that would indicate he has taken a sympathetic attitude towards the suggestion.
Frank Couzens, former mayor of Detroit, to whom very flattering overtures were made, has remained aloof from the political suggestion, to give his undivided attention to the affairs of his bank.