National Affairs: A Study in Ballots

Every presidential election really is a self-portrait of America . . . Into that portrait go all their inherited traditions,’ the clashings of different economic, social and sectional interests; the tensions of race, religion and color, as well as the strivings toward tolerance and Americanization; the transitions of aging and rising generations, the tenacious grip of memories of the past; the ferments of hopes for the future.—Samuel Lubell in The Future of American Politics.

The dominant fact of last week’s American self-portrait is that Ike Eisenhower’s attraction crosses almost the whole varied range of U.S. sections, ethnic and religious groups and economic interests.

Eisenhower did especially well among three groups: 1) women, 2) suburbanites, and 3) new voters.

Statistical proof of the women’s vote is impossible because voting records are not filed by sex and there are no “women’s precincts.” But in traditionally pro-labor districts of Indiana, for example, election officials opened voting machines at noon “for repairs,” found Ike leading after a heavy morning’s vote by women. In Pawtucket, R.I., a Democratic poll-watcher cast his eye over long lines of women waiting to vote on election morning and commented: “Republican women always come out early. The only thing is that this time there are twice as many Republican women.”

Murder in the Suburbs. The enormous development of row upon row of new suburban homes was a postwar phenomenon familiar to any cross-country airplane passenger. Prewar suburbs were normally Republican. But the transplanting of hundreds of thousands of prospering city dwellers—many of them Democrats—raised the question of which way the suburbs wouldgo. The Volunteers for Eisenhower were the first to spot the possibilities of the suburban areas, turned in big Republican leads from New York’s bedroom counties all across the U.S. Even in deep-Democratic Georgia, Atlanta’s three suburban “fingerbowl” districts gave Ike a 3-1 lead. Said Chicago’s DemocraticBoss Jack Arvey (after the. Democrats had lost his Cook County): “The suburbs were murder.”

Some of Ike’s legions of first voters were young men whose adult memories began not in Depression, but during World War II. Said a young C.I.O. worker, as he tried to explain the election to C.I.O.-P.A.C. Boss Dan Bodell in St. Joseph County, Indiana: “You stood in bread lines but we stood in chow lines.”

Tapping the Coalition. Ike’s new blocs were not of themselves powerful enough to carry the day. To win, Ike had to get some of the vote away from the old Roosevelt coalition of Southerners, labor, farmers and Northern minority groups.

Farmers, who were frightened into Democratic columns in 1948 by the Administration’s grain-storage scare, flopped resoundingly back to the G.O.P. Example: in 1948 Truman carried seven rich farm counties in southern Minnesota. This time Ike got them all. Pocahontas County, in northwestern Iowa, is a cash grain area which has been Democratic since 1928. Ike got 64%. Indiana’s Hamilton County gave Dewey 63% of its vote in 1948; it gave Ike 73%.

Many labor precincts polled about as many Democratic votes as they had in 1948. Autoworking Detroit, by dint of tremendous C.I.O. effort, did somewhat better. But in the national picture, because of the overwhelmingly big vote, the Democrat-labor portion fell off drastically. In one organized factory after another, Ike buttons blossomed out after union leaders had made a pitch for Stevenson.

Republican Omen. Ike cut effectively into the Democrats’ minority strongholds. U.S. Roman Catholics have been voting about 75% Democratic, but this year many were concerned over the airy manner with which Democratic leaders dealt with evidence of Communist influence. Pawtucket, R.I., a center of Catholic population, gave Truman 75% in 1948, gave Stevenson only 59%. Polish Catholics of Chicago’s 32nd ward cut the Democratic margin from 74% to 66%. Chicago’s heavily Irish Catholic 18th ward (policemen, firemen, small-home owners) went for Ike by 55%, as compared with its 49% for Dewey in 1948. Probably, a majority of Catholic voters stayed Democratic, but the percentage was cut down at least to 60%.

The Jewish vote kept its big Democratic margin, but the edge was about 10% narrower than in 1948.

Of all the minority blocs, only the Negroes stood fast for the Democrats, in both the North and South. In many states Stevenson got a higher numerical Negro vote than Truman, but the total Negro vote did not increase as much as the total state vote.

A Popularity Contest. Ike generally ran well ahead of G.O.P. Congressmen and local office holders. Hence his victory was clearly more of a personal victory than a party victory. Complained a Democratic leader in Omaha: “We had the darkest horse in history,* and he was running against a household word.” But the election cannot properly be considered as a mere popularity contest between two men. Stevenson was stuck with the liabilities and the assets of his party’s record.

Among devoted Stevensonians a myth is growing that Harry Truman lost the campaign for Stevenson. Actually, it would be hard to say whether Truman’s speeches hurt more than they helped. Certainly, Truman was right when he called himself the key to the campaign. The Democrats had to stand on the New Deal-Fair Deal record, and Stevenson knew this: he vigorously defended the record and praised Truman’s campaigning. Of itself, Stevenson’s own record could never have been made the basis of a campaign against Eisenhower’s.

The campaign was “logical,” as logic goes in politics. It was happily not fractionalized into a host of little pressure-group appeals. The shifting industrial workers, housewives and Midwestern farmers were all moved by the same or similar arguments. Since this is not a homogeneous country, voting patterns always have to be examined by groups. Sometimes, such an examination shows groups moving the same way for different and even contradictory reasons. That was definitely not the case in 1952.

Therein lies the basis for a new national unity and a more vigorous domestic and foreign policy.

-A darker horse: Judge Alton B. Parker, Democratic presidential candidate in 1904, defeated by Theodore Roosevelt by 2,600,000.