The Charlotte News
Saturday, November 6, 1954
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that two opposing Senate veterans, Democratic Senator Richard Russell of Georgia and Republican Senator George Aiken of Vermont, both indicated that they believed the new Democratic Congress should be able to work harmoniously with the President for the ensuing two years. Senator Russell, who would succeed as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said that there would, of course, be some differences, but that the Democrats would provide the President with "fair consideration on his legislative proposals even though we may have some of our own to offer." Senator Aiken, currently chairman of the Agriculture Committee, appeared equally optimistic, telling a reporter, "We had a pretty good record in the 83rd Congress and I think there's a good chance of improving it in the 84th."
In Texas, the new Democratic leaders, Representative Sam Rayburn, again to become Speaker, and Senator Lyndon Johnson, to become for the first time Majority Leader, met at Mr. Rayburn's law office, after which Senator Johnson stated that the Democratic program would be "to maintain a united country rather than to have constant bickering among different groups," a theme also stressed by Mr. Rayburn, adding that cooperation would depend to a large degree on the attitude of the Administration, that if they wanted to go along with the Democrats, the House would support all measures for the good of the country. Both made it plain, however, that they would oppose the Administration when necessary, and did not like the Republicans' speeches which sought to label the entire Democratic Party as "pinks" and "left-wingers".
Senate leaders this date planned for the procedures to be followed in the special session set to start on Monday to consider the censure of Senator McCarthy, following the unanimous recommendation of the equally bipartisan six-Senator special committee that he be censured. Senator Johnson would meet this date with current Majority Leader William Knowland regarding the order of procedure. Senator McCarthy was said to be arranging with his staff strategy meetings with Senators believed to be friendly to his cause. He had said that he intended to provide a detailed presentation of his side of the case for the benefit of the public, but was not framing it as a defense. He predicted that the Senate would vote to censure him, as only a few Senators would enter the proceeding with an open mind. Senators estimated that the debate would last between one and two weeks before a final vote would occur. The charges facing the Senator were that he had been in contempt of the Senate Elections subcommittee which investigated his finances in late 1952 by refusing to testify before it, that he had denounced in vulgar terms former Senator Robert Hendrickson of New Jersey, and had unjustly abused Brig. General Ralph Zwicker the prior February during the latter's testimony before the Senate Investigations subcommittee, chaired by Senator McCarthy, regarding the promotion and honorable discharge of an Army Reserve dentist, then under the command of General Zwicker, who had previously been labeled by Senator McCarthy as a "Fifth Amendment Communist" for refusing to answer questions regarding his subversive associations in the past. Senator McCarthy gave indications the previous day that the often asked question as to who had promoted the Army dentist, would be a rallying cry in his presentation, sending a new letter to Secretary of the Army Robert Stevens, demanding that he inform the Senator of the identity of the person at the Pentagon who was "the silent master who rewards Fifth Amendment Communists." The Senator stated that a report he had received the previous Wednesday from Secretary Stevens was "a lot of gobbledygood [sic] and evasion", not revealing who had actually been responsible for the promotion and discharge of the dentist, presently a civilian. Meanwhile, Senator Arthur Watkins of Utah, who had chaired the special committee recommending censure, had accepted Senator McCarthy's invitation to appear before the Investigations subcommittee and tell whether he was aware of the identity of the person who was responsible for the promotion of the dentist, after the special committee had stated in its report that Senator McCarthy had wrongly blamed General Zwicker for having that responsibility. The ranking Democrat on the Investigations subcommittee, Senator John McClellan of Arkansas, said that he and the other Democratic members, Senators Henry Jackson of Washington and Stuart Symington of Missouri, would not object to Senator Watkins testifying, as it appeared to be an all-Republican matter and because Senator Watkins was not resisting the testimony.
Additional top Government officials were called this date to testify before the joint Atomic Energy Committee, chaired by Representative Sterling Cole of New York, regarding the controversial proposed Dixon-Yates contract with the Atomic Energy Commission to supply power via TVA lines to West Memphis, Ark., considered a threat to the long-term continuation of TVA public power. AEC chairman Lewis Strauss and AEC general manager K. D. Nichols were called to provide additional testimony, along with first time witnesses, Herbert Vogel, recently appointed as the TVA board chairman, and Frank Weitzel, acting Comptroller-General. Senator Albert Gore of Tennessee, a foe of the contract, testified the previous day, while another critic, Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, said this date that the President could show his willingness to work with the Democrats in the new Congress by withdrawing the contract and starting over from scratch. Democrats had attempted unsuccessfully to filibuster a bill to approve the contract before the Senate the prior July.
Secretary of State Dulles announced the dismissal of veteran diplomat John Paton Davies, Jr., on grounds of "lack of judgment, discretion and reliability", affirming the unanimous findings of a special five-man security board. The Secretary said that neither he nor the panel had found Mr. Davies "disloyal in the sense of having any Communist affinity" or that he "consciously helped" any enemy of the country. Mr. Davies had been a central figure in a decade old dispute regarding the country's policy with respect to China. He had been cleared of any disloyalty eight times during the Truman Administration, but announced that he would not contest the decision to dismiss him despite his belief that there were inadequate grounds for it. He had served in the diplomatic service for 23 years, much of that time having been in China. The decision did not state the specific points in his record which had been used as a basis for the decision to dismiss him. It had been reported by the New York Times that his dismissal would result in loss of his retirement benefits.
In Des Moines, Ia., Methodist Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam of Washington told the Iowa State Education Association centennial convention this date, "Men who declare that in every little red schoolhouse there is a little Red teacher bear false witness that is well-nigh treason." He said that the teaching profession deserved better treatment from the American people, that it was unfair and un-American to call on teachers to serve in crowded classrooms and in antiquated facilities for inadequate pay, but that it was even worse when the teacher had to face "the criticism of ignoramuses who have gratuitously questioned the teacher's patriotism." He said that "self-appointed illiterates have organized agencies under high sounding names for the alleged purpose of saving our schools from subversion" and had "contributed to undermining the very bastion of the free way of life." He suggested that Communists could not want more than to have Americans lose faith in their school system, and that it was the duty of each community to mobilize the necessary resistance to such forces. He also urged that religion be taught as a classroom subject, while no particular creed should be endorsed. He said that children had a right to know that there was a "common Father of us all, that we belong to one family, and that love must rule to the end that enduring social unity may emerge."
In West Berlin, the 81-year old former Nazi Foreign Minister in 1938 and Governor of Czechoslovakia during the occupation, Konstantin von Neurath, was released this date from Spandau Prison, the first of Hitler's lieutenants to be released from the jail set up for those convicted of war crimes but not sentenced to death by the 1946 Nuremberg tribunal. He was half-blind and suffering from a heart ailment, and his release had been suggested the prior Wednesday by the Russians, having joint responsibility of the prison with the other three wartime Allies occupying Germany, after the Western Allies had previously suggested his release and been ignored by the Soviets. His successor as Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, had been executed by hanging for his war crimes. Herr Von Neurath had served a little over eight years of his 15-year sentence for war crimes associated with his time as protector of occupied Bohemia and Moravia. The last prisoner of Spandau Prison would be Rudolf Hess, the Deputy Fuhrer who had fled the Nazi regime by airplane in May, 1941, landing in Britain, eventually sentenced to life imprisonment for earlier war crimes, committing suicide by hanging in August, 1987, though his putative suicide has been questioned by his relatives.
In New York, probes of the city's fire, police and housing departments got underway this date after charges of graft against three Brooklyn Fire Department battalion chiefs had spread to the Police Department the previous day, with the police commissioner denouncing "traitors" under his command, whom he said had not hesitated to sell them out for a few dollars. The housing commissioner said that an inquiry was underway to see if any of that department's employees were involved in graft. On Thursday, the three Fire Department battalion chiefs, each charged with accepting $100 bribes from a contractor who wanted to use fire to speed demolition work of a building in Brooklyn, were suspended from duty. Two of them said that the money had been forced on them, and filed for retirement, while the third, not yet eligible for retirement, denied the charge.
In Kalamazoo, Mich., an 18-year old mental hospital inmate, committed for offenses against girls and under treatment as a sexual deviant, this date admitted the rape and killing of a nurse at the hospital the previous night. After the rape, the nurse had been choked to death with a hospital-issued necktie in a basement laboratory, and her body then concealed in a locked room.
In Norwood, Mass., the district attorney said that a 15-year old boy had confessed to the slaying of a 15-year old girl, whose body had been discovered the previous day in a garage near her home. The former altar boy who confessed to the slaying lived around the corner from the girl's home. He confessed after all-night questioning that he had killed her in the cellar of her home and then dragged the body to the garage. Police had initially focused their investigation on a 25-year old rejected suitor of the girl who had lived near her home.
Near Midway, N.C., outside Winston-Salem, two men had been killed and a woman critically injured early this date in a collision between a truck and a car on U.S. Highway 52, the male driver of the car having been killed along with a passenger in the vehicle, with another passenger being the injured person. The truck driver, who was uninjured, told a Highway Patrolman that the car had crossed the center line of the highway before the two vehicles collided.
On the editorial page, "The Price Is Much Too High" indicates that shortly after the inauguration in 1953 of Governor William B. Umstead, he had suffered a heart attack and, in consequence, had been periodically hospitalized or forced to spend time in convalescence at home since that time, had the previous month spent three weeks in a Durham hospital, seeking relief from a persistent cough and insomnia which had exacerbated his heart condition. After that convalescence and treatment, he had felt better and returned to work, but immediately had contracted a severe cold.
Despite that condition, the Governor had mustered the strength to attend a meeting the prior Thursday of the Advisory Budget Commission in Raleigh, with the press indicating that he was under considerable strain and appeared more pallid than usual, exhibiting weakness. That evening, on doctors' orders, he returned to the hospital, and his doctors reported that his inability to get rid of the cold had aggravated his heart condition.
It indicates that the Governor was one of the most conscientious men ever to occupy the office, and had driven himself to continue the task when lesser men, beset by similar health conditions, would have faltered.
It suggests that he resign, however, so that he could take the complete rest which he desperately needed to regain his health, that the State's business would be placed in the capable hands of Lt. Governor Luther Hodges, and after a year or two of recuperation, Governor Umstead might be able to return to the service of the state as either Governor, Senator or a Congressional Representative. "The price he might pay, for continuing in office now, is much too high."
The editorial would prove precognitive of the death of the Governor the following morning from congestive heart failure.
"Mr. SNPA and 44 Million Readers" indicates that Walter C. Johnson, 76, from Chattanooga, Tenn., had, for half a century, worked tirelessly behind the scenes to promote the welfare and prosperity of the South through a vigorous press, and that the following week at the annual convention of the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association, he would retire as the secretary-manager of that organization, marking the end of an era. Since 1909, he had held every elective office in that organization, and had been secretary-manager for the previous 15 years. But he was known probably only to a few of the South's 44 million daily newspaper readers, despite his influence having been felt by all of them in one way or another.
He had made successful efforts to bring closer liaison among Southern newspapers, to promote better business and advertising practices, more efficient production methods, and better news coverage, plus had called attention to the South's great pine forests and their enormous value as a source of raw materials for the manufacture of newsprint, responsible for the South building a new industry which was still thriving and expanding, with the consequence of increased emphasis on forest conservation and tree farming. It concludes that Mr. Johnson's influence had been great, and that his long and unselfish service had been a primary factor in the growth of the SNPA.
"What Can Be Done about the Din?" wonders what could be done about the great "booming waves" of noise pervading the society in modern times, "an impertinent intruder in every form of life." It suggests that such noise made modern factories unbearable, modern offices insufferable, and cities unendurable. "For a musical nation, America does more bleating, blaring, blasting and bellowing than any other country on earth," supposed to be indicative of the vitality which people liked to call "Progress", with the noise level getting worse rather than better.
The Navy had announced that the sound created by 26 jet planes warming up was roughly equivalent to that of 1,000 symphony orchestras playing simultaneously, and, it adds, presently 26 jet planes were always warming up somewhere.
An editorial in the AMA Journal a few months earlier had recommended that problems related to modern industry required a study of the enigma of noise. Scientists had indicated that discontinuous loud mechanical noise and even soft music were far more disturbing to humans than continuous loud noise. Researchers had also discovered that in small groups, exposure to loud noise for several hours could cause "'extreme uneasiness, headaches, tremors, nausea, tenseness and insomnia.'"
A New England firm had developed an electronic ear which could dissect any sound it sensed into 84,000 bits of information per second for precise and accurate analysis. It suggests that all that was left was to invent a machine which destroyed that which the electronic ear dissected. Instead, however, inventors were developing more noises, such as the subway strap which played a tune when grasped by a passenger.
No football season was complete
without at least one half-time ceremony in which 40 high school bands
massed together to screech dissonantly "Stars and Stripes
Forever". Everything from banks to bowling alleys were being
wired for sound. No hotrod was complete without an altered muffler
designed to produce a snarl. A modern musical composition by Lou
Harrison called for utilization of 18 automobile brake drums
It concludes that almost nothing was being done about the excessive levels of noise, that there were occasional noise abatement campaigns, and a law had been introduced in the Pennsylvania Legislature to ban squeaky bed springs in hotel bedrooms. But all that was really necessary was occasional peace and quiet, suggests a Silent Sunday.
A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "Southern Manners", indicates that an urbane, New York-born young woman of its acquaintance had taken issue with someone who had stated, in defense of the South, its tendency toward manners, by indicating that there was no such thing as manners, that it was just another North Carolina myth, wanted to know what was meant by manners.
It indicates that it meant politeness in the approach, appreciation for others, based on long training.
The young woman had suggested that it could not mean the way women acted during a shopping spree in North Carolina stores on a busy day, nor how drivers behaved while waiting at a stoplight, racing their motors, nor regarding the fact that North Carolina led the nation in cases of assault, involving such instrumentalities as knives, shotguns, and icepicks.
It concludes that it could respond only that manners could not be universal in any society, but that, in reply, the young woman had said: "I assume not. And what was that you said about Southern Cooking?"
We know what both of you are talking about, and yet we know not.
Drew Pearson provides a number of political predictions, among them that Congressman Franklin Roosevelt, Jr., having lost the election for attorney general of New York to Congressman Jacob Javits, was finished in politics, that the President would be indispensable to the Republicans in 1956, with great pressure to be placed on him to run again, and that the President would not repeat his final barnstorming during the weekend prior to the midterm elections because of the four states he had visited, Kentucky, Michigan, Delaware and Ohio, only Ohio had voted Republican in the Congressional races. Senator Homer Ferguson, defeated for re-election in Michigan, would obtain his choice of new jobs in the Administration, as the President regarded him as a better leader than Senator William Knowland of California, and, if Senator Ferguson had won the race, had intended to support him as Republican leader in the Senate.
He also predicts that there would be a new drive in Wisconsin to recall Senator McCarthy, as it was plain he would have lost had he been up for re-election, his best friend in the House, Congressman Charles Kersten, having been defeated, while Republican Governor Walter Kohler had won only a narrow victory.
It had been the biggest Democratic
vote since 1932, and, he predicts, Senator McCarthy was finished as a
political campaigner. Illinois Senator Paul Douglas had won by one of
the largest margins in the country, after a campaign in which
McCarthy tactics had been used against him. Republican Clifford Case
had won the Senate race in New Jersey, after Senator McCarthy had
attacked him. But he also predicts that Vice-President Nixon was not
not finished as a "McCarthyite campaigner", as he had used
the Senator's tactics, but was "smoother and handsomer"—yet,
he could have observed, also suffered from the same 5 o'clock shadow,
making both appear as either closet drunks or, alternatively,
surreptitious bagmen for the Mafia, and, perhaps more significantly,
thereby lending themselves to nearly indistinguishable caricatures,
gradually melding
He goes on to provide a variety of predictions for the 84th Congress, to begin in January, starting with the suggestion that new Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and Senator Price Daniel of Texas, "Republicrats", would be invited to dine repeatedly at the White House, as both had supported the President in the 1952 election and the White House wanted to maintain their support. Others whom the White House would woo included Senator Allan Bible, a new Democrat from Nevada, replacing "Republicrat" Pat McCarran, and Congressman Thurman Chatham of North Carolina, who frequently voted with the Republicans.
He says that one of the most important members of the new Congress would be Congressman William Dawson of Chicago, to become chairman of the House Government Operations Committee, in which capacity he would not, as had Senator McCarthy as chairman of the Senate counterpart, concentrate on Communism but rather on inefficiency in the Government, the intended focus of both committees. He suggests that Mr. Dawson could cause plenty of problems for the Administration, but was an easy-going Congressman who deferred to colleagues and allocated most of the investigative work to Congressmen Chet Holifield of California, Porter Hardy of Virginia and Frank Karsten of Missouri.
He indicates that Congressman Carl Vinson of Georgia, who would head the House Armed Services Committee, would push for increases of Army and Navy spending, which he believed had been neglected in the Eisenhower Administration, as would Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, who would now head the Senate Armed Services Committee. There would be little change in the approach to taxes in the new Congress, that while new Democratic chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee, Jere Cooper of Tennessee, would push for greater relief for small taxpayers and seek an increase of the dependency exemptions from $600 to $700, he would not get far in those attempts, as the Senate and the White House would maintain taxes as they were. There would also be little change, he predicts, in the approach of the Congress to farm problems, as the Democrats would not be able to reverse the policies of Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson, though they would attempt to do so. In education, former schoolteacher Graham Barden of North Carolina, who would head the House Education Committee, would push for the school construction bill which the Administration had held back during the 83rd Congress.
He also predicts that if Senator Olin Johnston of South Carolina became chairman of the Civil Service Committee, he would have Civil Service chairman Philip Young testify before the Committee for several days, during which he would be accused of sabotaging the civil service program. The House Public Works Committee would likely investigate Secretary of Interior Douglas McKay's oil, timber and public lands giveaways, though it was possible that Congressman Clair Engle of California, the new chairman of the Interior Committee, would beat them to it.
Wallace Kuralt, in his tenth year as superintendent of the Mecklenburg County Public Welfare Department, writing in Public Welfare News, official publication of the State Board of Public Welfare, indicates that one of the greatest problems concerning welfare work in the county was that taxpayers generally did not understand the extent of the need for welfare in the population. He observes that most taxpayers became emotional when seeing an individual family problem and feeling that there was not much which could be done about it, that anyone would agree that a sick, homeless destitute old man could not live on $27 per month in the present economy, but nevertheless balked at paying even $27 per month as a taxpayer for all of the destitute elderly people who applied for welfare.
He informs that at present, the County was helping one-fifth of the elderly over age 65 with old-age assistance, whereas a few years earlier, it was helping only a fourth of that population, the Old Age Survivors Insurance program having enabled expansion of the coverage. He hopes that the Department would eventually be able to meet more adequately the needs of those eligible who did not qualify for Old Age and Survivors Insurance.
A difficult problem faced by the Department was illegitimacy, that many taxpayers believed that the Aid to Dependent Children program was responsible for illegitimacy, that the Department ought be able to control public morals, when actually the rate of illegitimacy was lower at present than it had been prior to the beginning of the program. Yet there had been unfavorable attention focused on ADC whenever a mother continued to have illegitimate children after having first received aid through that program. The Welfare Department believed that illegitimacy was not a reflection of ADC but rather of the culture, that lax morals became a concern to the public only when they were reflected in the tax rate. He informs that the illegitimacy rate among the black population of Charlotte was about half in 1954 what it had been several years earlier, for instance, in 1938, having been 30.38 percent, in 1948, 18.56 percent, with the rate continuing to decrease. The trend in the illegitimacy rate among the white population, however, had slightly increased, in 1938, having been 4.2 percent, in 1948, 8.89 percent, and more recently 4.5 percent.
He finds that the most frequent causes of financial need in ADC recipient families were desertion, abandonment or incarceration of a parent. Compared to the national average in ADC cases, the rates of desertion, death of the father, institutional care of the father and the unwed status of the mother were high in the county as reasons for seeking the aid. Compared to state averages for ADC cases, Mecklenburg had a high rate of desertion as a cause. But the county had a much lower rate than national or state averages in terms of physical or mental incapacity of the father as a reason for applying for the aid, possibly a reflection of the excellent vocational rehabilitation program in the county.
The Department was actively encouraging activities in the field of education for responsible parenthood, believed to be the most hopeful answer for solving problems of desertion and unwed mothers. It had been known for a long time that the greater number of recipients of public assistance in the county were relatively uneducated persons, that very few had been educated beyond the seventh grade. Placing emphasis on greater school attendance created the need for additional funds to help families, as having an adequate lunch program at school would be a greater attraction to attendance, while students who were well fed responded more readily to education. Children would respond equally well to an opportunity to attend school with decent clothing, enough money to purchase required books and supplies, and to pay the other educational fees, that it was questionable whether public education in the state was any longer free. He regards there being probably no preventive social work more productive than helping children attend and remain in school.
The County Department of Public Welfare was closely associated with other tax-supported services, such as Vocational Rehabilitation, group work and recreation, mental hygiene, public health, the State Board of Paroles, the employment service, Federal HEW, and local departments of public education.
It was estimated that for every dollar spent for vocational rehabilitation services, ten dollars were returned in Federal income taxes because of the individual's increased earning capacity after treatment and counseling. Recreation as a public program should not be considered desirable only for children or the poor, or as an outlet for the individual only, that it was a group activity for everyone in the community. The county had a mental health clinic equipped to diagnose and provide therapy for both children and adults, supported partially by Federal funds, made available locally through the State Board of Health, and partially by funds from the United Appeal and fees charged to the patients able to pay, as well as from the Mental Hygiene Association memberships. Public health services had been particularly meaningful in maternal care, venereal diseases and tuberculosis clinics, as well as in the field of sanitation. The foster home program depended heavily on sanitation engineers to aid in the licensing process. The vital statistics unit of the Public Health Department was indispensable to the administration of public welfare. The State Employment Service kept many unemployed people from having to apply for public assistance, and the success of the Parole Division, for which the County Department of Public Welfare acted as agent, was best demonstrated by the fact that since 1935, when the work had begun, no parolee under its supervision had been convicted of a major crime within the county.
The role of Community Chest agencies, civic groups, churches and other private organizations within the county supplemented the three million dollars in tax money spent each year for aid and social services by the Department. The preventive aspects of the work done by the Community Chest and other private agencies was significant, in addition to the supplemental aid. Through the years, the private agencies had moved away from meeting financial needs of families and toward offering the public richer, more enlightened living experiences. The Department was pleased that the public could choose between public and private agencies in matters of family counseling, adoptions, child welfare services and family case work.
Mr. Kuralt concludes that in the scheme of things, there had to be someone who believed that each individual was important and that a person could do almost anything for people if not caring who got the credit, that there needed to be ways to awaken community leadership by emotional as well as intellectual experiences, that leadership required seeing some cases and becoming nauseated over conditions to the extent that preventive social work measures received active support. He finds that if community leaders found it difficult to see conditions "at their own back doors", a part of the reason was that the public had not been educated to see them.
Mr. Kuralt, as we have pointed out previously, was the father of Charles Kuralt, who would join the News as a reporter the following summer, after graduation from UNC, where he was currently editor of the student newspaper, the Daily Tar Heel, and, of course, later would become a CBS news correspondent, for which he became best known to the public.
Doris Fleeson indicates that the Democrats, in the midterm elections, had made striking gains at the grassroots, ousting at least seven Republican governors, to have control of at least 27 governorships starting in January. The Democratic hold on state legislatures and county offices had similarly been strengthened. In contrast, Republicans had failed to pick up a single governorship from the Democrats, holding only 19 governorships, with two others, in Nevada and Wyoming, appearing slim.
She indicates that it was of first importance in presidential politics, as it had been the Republican governors in 1952 who, throwing their support to the candidacy of General Eisenhower, had turned back the late Senator Taft's bid for the nomination on the eve of the 1952 Republican convention. Governors also had the power to appoint Senators when vacancies occurred, especially important at present when there were nine of the 96 Senators who had died between the beginning of the Eisenhower Administration and the previous August when Congress had adjourned, of underscored significance where a shift in party affiliation of only one Senate seat could change the majority.
The immediate beneficiary of the Democratic gains was Adlai Stevenson, as Governor-elect Averill Harriman of New York had declared his support for Mr. Stevenson, saying that the latter's help was the biggest single factor in his election over Senator Irving Ives. Mr. Stevenson had also helped other new Democratic Governors, and, for the most part, they were the same type of Democrat as Mr. Stevenson. Former President Truman, who understood courthouse politics, had also stated his support for Mr. Stevenson for the 1956 presidential nomination.
Ms. Fleeson asks the question, however, why the Democrats had not swept the House and done better in the Senate, given their gains at the grassroots in the states, suggesting that the answer was in the President's appeal for a Republican Congress to help him pass his program during the remaining two years of his term. It had not been a completely successful appeal, as Democrats would control the House by 30 seats and have only a one-seat majority in the Senate. But they had to win 23 of the 38 Senate races just to achieve the same position they previously had in the present Congress, and had won at least 24 seats.
Vice-President Nixon had concentrated his stumping efforts in New York and Western states, but Mr. Harriman had won the gubernatorial election in New York, James Murray had won re-election to the Senate in Montana, former Senator Joseph O'Mahoney had won a new term in Wyoming, while Richard Neuberger had won the Senate race over incumbent Senator Guy Cordon in Oregon, where no Democrat had been elected to the Senate since 1912.
A letter writer quotes a statement from the newspaper attributed to Recorder's Court Judge J. C. Sedberry, unsuccessful candidate in the election for 10th district Congressman against incumbent Charles Jonas, regarding his views that if a person was a registered Democrat and voted Republican, or vice-versa, the voter could be challenged, according to law, in the ensuing primary, which this writer finds problematic, suggesting that Mr. Sedberry, had he been elected, might have sought to circumvent the secret ballot to discover Democrats who had voted for Mr. Jonas, so that the law he cited might be invoked.
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