BIG DEMOCRAT GAINS IN U.S. CONGRESS

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27498, 4 November 1954, Page 13

BIG DEMOCRAT GAINS IN U.S. CONGRESS

Certain Lead In House; Close Fight For Senate

Press Association— Copyright) (Rec. 130 a.m.) NEW YORK, November 3. The Democrats today are certain to wrest control of the House 38 a r6SUIt ° £ retained COntr “ l “* . In nfrtlS® rf the Democra t s Sained 14 seats against a loss of ? Sams was.at the expense of the House’s only In- ? fnd>T h ? S net gai , nof to took the party’s total of seats ©decided 1 candld ates were leading in 20 of the 55 seats still ?X Ia f ter sta «e»of counting, there can be no doubt the Democrats will wm at least the four seats needed to take their total to 218 and to control the House. Evidence is that they will have a final majority of about

Th® Senate is a different matter. Each side has two gains at the expense of the others. Republicans wrested seats from Democrats in Colorado and lowa while Democrats ousted sitting Republicans in Kentucky and Nevada.

Thirty-eight Senate seats were contested. With counting still incomplete in eight of these, Republicans had won 11 and Democrats 19.

It seems that at best the Democrats can hope to win only three of eight undecided seats, giving them a total of 22 against the Republicans’ 16. Not up for election this time are 33 Republicans, 24 Democrats, and one Independent. -Thus the final count for. the Senate is likely to be: Republicans 49, Democrats 46, Independent one.

In the last Senate the Republicans held 49 seats to the Democrats’ 46 with one Independent. The composition of the House was 219 Republicans, 215 Democrats, and one Independent. All the House’s 435 seats and 37 of 4he Senate’s 96 seats were at issue in the election.

The vote is expected to be a record one for a mid-term election.

South Carolina produced the first dramatic surprise of the election by putting into office as senator Mr J. Strom Thurmond, a “write-in” candi date, over the official Democrat candidate, Mr Edgar Brown. Mr Thurmond gained world renown in 1948 by opposing President Harry Truman as a “Dixiecrat” candidate, gaining the support of several States that greatly reduced Mr Truman’s majority. The State Democrat Party nominated Mr Brown in a way that offended the South Carolina Governor (Mr James Byrnes), a former secretary of State, who had a bitter quarrel with Mr Truman. Mr Byrnes's powerful “machine” got to work in support of Mr Thurmond in his Senate candidacy. The result was a staggering blow to Democrat unanimity, for Mr Thurmond, a known rebel, could easily support the Republicans in the next Congress. Mr Byrnes helped to win South Carolina for Mr Eisenhower in 1952.

It was the first time a candidate had ever been elected to the Senate or the House of Representatives by means of a “write-in” campaign. South Carolina is one of several States in which voters are allowed to write their choice on the ballot paper when his name is not printed on it as a properly-nominated candidate. The Republicans seemed likely to lose a vital Senate seat—that in New Jersey. Mr Clifford Case, the Republican nominee, was running more than 60,000 votes behind his Democrat opponent, Mr Cha/les Howell, when returns from slightly more than half the voting districts had been counted. Mr Case, a former member of the House and recently a Ford Foundation official, had only the McCarthy wing of his party to blame. That section had bitterly assailed his choice as his party’s nominee and did more harm to him than Mr Howell’s campaign. Mr Howell was a member of the House for 10 years when he gave up his seat to run for the Senate. Senatorial stalwarts of the Democrat Party won with substantial majorities. They were the minority leader in the chamber, Senator Lyndon Johnson, in Texas, and Senator Robert Kerr, in Oklahoma. Mr Alan Bible gained a notable Democrat victory in Nevada. A friend of Senator Pat McCarran, he beat a Republican, Mr Ernest Brown, who

was appointed to the Senate by a Republican Governor on Senator McCarran’s death. This counted as a Democrat gain. Mr Henry Reuss, a Democrat, was elected to the House of Representatives in Wisconsin, defeating the incumbent Republican, Mr Charles Kersten.

This contest was considered a test of the home-State popularity of Senator Joseph McCarthy (Republican, Wisconsin), who was not himself standing for re-election this year. Mr Kersten campaigned on the same Communist issues that Senator McCarthy found so fruitful. One of Mr Kersten’s targets was the former United States Ambassador to Moscow, Mr George Kennan, also a native of Wisconsin.

Although Mr Kennan was declared persona non grata by the Kremlin, Mr Kersten had said: “Kennan’s policy is pro-Communist and people who follow it are pro-Communist.” Mr Reuss, who unseated him, is a Milwaukee lawyer. The contest had been described by Mr Gore, founder of the “Joe Must Go” movement, to seek Senator McCarthy’s recall from the Senate, as a “real testing ground for McCarthyism.”

Re-elected Senators Senators re-elected included: John McClelland (Arkansas), Richard Russell (Georgia), and Allen Ellender (Louisiana), all unopposed Democrats. Senators who won contests were:— Republicans: Henry Dworshak (Idaho), Andrew Schoeppel (Kansas), Margaret Chase Smith (Maine), who was elected in September, Carl Curtis and Roman Hruska (Nebraska), Styles Bridges and Norris Cotton (New Hampshire), and Karl Mundt (South Dakotr'. Democrats: John Sparkman (Alabama), Allen Frear (Delaware), Alben Barkley (Kentucky), James Eastland (Mississippi), Alan Bible (Nevada), Clinton Anderson (New Mexico), Kerr Scott (North Carolina), Robert Kerr (Oklohoma), Theodore Green (Rhode Island), Strom Thurmond (South Carolina), Estes Kefauver (Tennessee), Lyndon Johnson (Texas), Willis Robertson (Virginia), and Matthew Neely (West Virginia). New Hampshire remained solidly Republican. It re-elected Senator Styles Bridges for another six-year term with a decisive majority over Mr Gerard Morin (Democrat) and elected Mr Norris Cotton, a former member of the House, for the remaining two years of the late Senator Charles Tobey’s term against Mr Stanley Betley (Democrat). Voters braved wind, snow, and rain in various sections of the United States to get out and vote. Former President Truman, always an early riser, braved 23deg. weather to cast his ballot at 7 a.m. at Independence, Missouri. He told reporters: “It’s going to be the right answer again. The Democrats are going to win by a landslide.”