MISSOURI COMMENT: A QUESTION OF BLACK AND WHITE: WHEAT-ASHCROFT RACE EXAMINED

Missouri has been dancing around the subject for months and it's time the music stopped and we faced it.

Simply put, the question is: Will Missourians vote in November against the first black candidate seeking a statewide office simply because of the color of his skin?

For months now, journalists have been running to the dictionary to find synonyms for the Democratic candidate for the office of U.S. senator, Alan Wheat. Politicians have spent the past several weeks denying that the color of a candidate's skin had any bearing on his acceptance by voters. When the subject was discussed, it was in hushed tones, with a trace of personal embarrassment thrown in for good measure.

Unless we stop dancing, Wheat's ethnic background won't be mentioned in any detail until after the election. The time to discuss it, as the Mad Hatter noted in "The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland," is now.

Can a black be elected to a statewide office? The question can be answered in innumerable ways, oftentimes with another question:

Who's his opponent?

What office is he seeking?

Does he have a good record?

Can he raise enough money to run a good campaign?

The problem of answering a question with a question is you seldom get a real answer.

The Senate contest between Alan Wheat and his opponent, the former Governor of Missouri, the Hon. John Ashcroft, is one Missourians are likely to remember for a long time to come. In a sense, it is an historic one, if only because of the skin colors of the two men. Not since the days after Missouri's 1865 Constitution, when pro-Union forces threatened pro-Southern sympathizers with installing Negro officeholders in state offices, has Missouri seriously considered a candidate of color for one of the six statewide offices or one of the two seats in the United States Senate.

As a member of the General Assembly back in the early 1980s, Wheat decided to take his first historic venture into big-time politics by running for the congressional seat vacated by the late Dick Bolling in Kansas City's Fifth District. Bolling, an avowed and dedicated liberal, was one of Congress' most brilliant legislators, responsible for a score of reforms that sought to create a Congress more responsive to the public's needs. He came within a hair of being elected Speaker of the House, and had he been willing to compromise, he probably would have made it.

Wheat had served three terms in the Missouri House when he filed for Bolling's seat in Congress. The odds of his being elected were small, and initially he seemed to have little chance of succeeding one of the few intellectuals in Congress. Since Wheat's congressional win in 1982, I have never heard it suggested that he won because of the color of his skin. It so happens that about 65 percent of the Fifth Congressional District is white, which leaves only 35 percent of color, including a rather substantial Latin American population. The figures only suggest that Wheat couldn't have won five congressional elections because he was black. They only suggest that he could have lost five elections because of the color of his skin.

Like his predecessor in Congress, Wheat is a liberal. He is a Democrat who believes that government can change the lives of its citizens and should make every attempt to rescue the drowning in our society.

John Ashcroft is a conservative Republican with an impeccable reputation. He is as conservative as Wheat is liberal, believing government should be as limited as possible.

It is possible to like and admire both men, liking them because they both possess qualifications that make them suited for public office, admiring them because both hold true to their principles and advance them whenever and wherever it is possible.

Missouri, indeed the Congress, needs men both qualified and principled. We have enough, thank you, of the other kind.

I hope the election for U.S. Senate is settled on every issue but race. If it isn't, then Missourian's will have lost regardless of who wins.

Jack Stapleton is a veteran newspaperman in Kennett whose column reflects on statewide issues.