The New Republican Party Chairman

The Republican National Committee unanimously elected Hugh Meade Alcorn Jr. '30 of Hartford, Conn., chairman of the party at its January 22 meeting in Washington, following the inauguration of President Eisenhower.

The personal choice of the President, Alcorn has been an all-out backer of Eisenhower since 1952 and is known as a member of the liberal ,wing of the party and a worker for the "new Republicanism." He assumed his national post in Washington on February 1 but will remain national committeeman from Connecticut and will get back to his home state frequently to engage in party affairs.

To Dartmouth contemporaries Alcorn is remembered as "Red" and also as a track star. He ran the 60-yard low hurdles in the world-record time of 6.9 seconds (since lowered to 6.8) and also performed in the high hurdles, dashes and mile relay. He was a Phi Beta Kappa student, graduating with honors in philosophy, and was a member of Palaeopitus, Green Key and Kappa Kappa Kappa.

After Dartmouth, Alcorn took his law degree at Yale in 1933 and joined the Hartford firm of his father, who was State's Attorney for Hartford County and Republican nominee for Governor in 1934. He succeeded his father as State's Attorney in 1942 but resigned in 1948 to run as Lieutenant Governor on the Republican ticket, an election which he lost by a narrow margin.

With politics so much a part of Alcorn family life, no one was surprised when Meade successfully ran as representative to the state legislature from his native town of Suffolk in 1936. Reelected in 1938, he became House majority leader in 1939 and Speaker in 1941. For all the Republican National Conventions since 1940 he has been a delegate from Connecticut, and in 1949 he became a member of the Republican State Central Committee.

In 1952 he was one of the early and out- spoken backers of Dwight Eisenhower for the nomination, and was chairman of the Connecticut Citizens for Eisenhower. The next year he became Republican National Committeeman from Connecticut. Last summer National Chairman Leonard Hall gave him the arduous job of being vice chairman in charge of arrangements for the GOP convention. Now that he has taken over the top job from Hall - vowing "to give it all I possess" - his immediate concern is preparing for the 1958 congressional elections, and always in the background will be i960 when a new Republican nominee will be chosen. Alcorn is firmly committeed to President Eisenhower's policies and programs, and he is expected to be in the thick of the effort to increase the dominance of the "new" and liberal wing of the Republican party.

The Alcorns live in a large Colonial house in Suffield, where tennis and golf (hunting and fishing on vacations) are family interests. Meade has a daughter Janet Eileen, 17, born of his first marriage to Janet Hoffer, who died in 1947, the year after they lost their 9-year-old son Thomas. The present Mrs. Alcorn was Marcia Powell of Hartford, whom Meade married in April 1955. She is no stranger to politics, having worked in the Hartford office of the Republican State Central Committee.

Meade Alcorn '30 (left) with Leonard Hall, whom he succeeds.