Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. FRIDAY. NOVEMBER 4, 1938. UNITED STATES ELECTION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 59, Issue 21, 4 November 1938, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. FRIDAY. NOVEMBER 4, 1938. UNITED STATES ELECTION.

The people of the United States will on Tuesday go to the polls for the biennial national election of the House of Representatives and one-third of the strength of the Senate. The House consists of 435 members, and thirty-seven members of the Senate are to be elected, including five to fill vacancies that will occur before the next election. The present House contains 328 Democrats. 88 Republicans and 19 others, including vacancies. The Senate comprises 76 Democrats, 15 Republicans and five others, including vacancies. Mr Roosevelt, who is a Democrat, will remain at White House until the end of 1940, when his second term of office will expire. As is the case in the election of President, the party candidates are nominated as the outcome of what are known as primaries. .Apart from their typically American feature of noisiness and forensic passion, these primaries resemble what are known as selection ballots in many places under the British flag; but, though of no real legal or constitutional significance, they are much more elaborate and more important. than any British process of selecting candidates. They were particularly so this year, when among the Democrats there were contests for the nomination turning on enthusiasm for, or hostility toward, the New Deal. There was further, the issue of “relief in politics” —the question whether allocation of relief funds is or is not being used by the Democrats in office to help their party’s campaign. Apart from such questions, the whole Roosevelt policy will be under fire, the results of the election will be taken as a test of its hold on the nation, and they will also determine whether the next Congress is to be for or against the President. The cabled review of the political situation, however, says that, in spite of the probable appearance of six new senatorial figures and a score or so of new members in the House of Representatives, through the nomination of new mep in the primaries, Mr Roosevelt will probably have to deal with nearly the same congressional body that has been in office since he began his second term —provided, of course, that there is no upheaval at the polls, and an upheaval is far from likely.