Evening star., 1938-09-16

v" PSSPAS wiz
know Maryland politics, for instance,
Will doubt that Representative Lewis
Is mucn stronger than the vote in
dlcated. Any man who has served
the public interest as well as has Mr..
Lewis these many years would have
Jared far better without the Presi-
dents help than with it.
Likewise in the three-cornered race
IN Georgia, won by Senator George,
the results show that even such a
bitter foe Of the Roosevelt admins
tration as former Gov. Talmade<
made better showing than did the
handpicked candidate of the admin
istration, Lawrence Camp. Here
again 1t was apparent that the people
appraised the candidates in their own
way and without regard to the ad-
vice OF Mr.. Roosevelt or any of the
other New Dealers in Washington.
Campaign Bad Flop.
The Presidents purge" campaign
has been very bad flop so far as
the voting results are concerned.
Whether 1t will serve to scare some
of the splneless members of Congress
or whether it will give some of them
new courage remains to be determined.
Certainly from a practical political
standpoint, the President may well
wash his hands of the whole purge
business now. He can readily say to
the amateurs at his side. the leftwing-
ers who deal in theoretical rather than
practical politics: well. I've tried
out your theory but parties are par
ties and congressional contests are
law unto themselves"
It will be interesting to see whether
the President soothes the wounds Of
the primary campaigns. He doesn't
have to do that in the Southern
States where nomination is equiva-
lent to an election but he certainly
will have to support Senator Tydings
in Maryland where there's a sizable
Republican vote. The chances are
he will ignore the individual contests
now and make general appeal for
q Democratic Congress, defending the
all-embracing nature of his appeal
with the argument that there are
many more New Dealers than anti
New Dealers running on the Demo-
cratic ticket and that the party label
can, therefore, be supported In its
entirety.
This does not mean that Mr.. Roose-
velt may not here and there support
liberal Republican Of the Norris tyne
but on the whole his energies may be
expected to be employed to help keep
the Democratic majority in both
houses of Congress From now on
attention will be centered on Repub-
lican versus Democratic contests in
stead Of conservative-l Liberal cleavage
within the Democratic party.
How Many Seats for G. p?
How many seats in the House will
the Republicans win? This is an
off-year election and 40 presidential
candidates are on the same ticket
with the congressional nominees. As
happened in the primaries, this makes
the election very largely a local affair
without very much emphasis on ma
tional issues except as the interests
OF a section or region may color the
controversy. Various estimates have
been made as to Republican victories
in the November test. 1t would seem
that a gain Of Is to 80 Republican
seats would be a considerable setback
for the New Deal because OF the trend
which it would show for 1940 Any,
thing above 25 or 80 would mean a
deep-seated reverse from 1895 and
would pe regarded as very significant
Of an underlying protest against New
Dealism.
Business men who have felt for some
time that only the election Of an in
dependent Congress would give the
economic system the stimulus it
needs have derived some encourage
ment from the Presidents failure to
carry the various primary contests
In which he made a personal issue
against incumbent Senators. There
can be no doubt now that even in
his own party Mr.. Roosevelt cannot
always command a majority. II this
indicates nucleus of Democratic
voters which may cast their ballots
for Republican nominees as against
rubber-stamp New Dealers who were
unopposed for their respective nomi-
nations, big upset may be develop
ing for the administration. Unem-
ployment will hurt the administration
candidates in the industrial districts
OF the North, though the New Deal
Is struggling desperately to overcome
this obstacle by putting more persons
on the W. P. A. rolls than any
previous time in the last five years.
After election considerable drop in
the w. P. A. rolls may be anticipated
(Copyright, 1889