THE SENATE: Two-thirds Plus

In these days when liberty is endangered and when intolerance seeks to stamp out the very suggestion of doubt, the country needs the Republican party as a virile organization more than ever, and it needs an adequate opposition in the Congress if our institutions are to survive.

So wrote Herbert Hoover in Palo Alto to New Jersey Republicans on the eve of last week’s election. Next day the nation which two years ago overwhelmingly ousted the 31st President from the White House rejected Mr. Hoover’s political advice with even greater emphasis and whittled the Republican opposition in the Senate down to a historic low. Democratic Boss James Aloysius Farley had asked for a two-thirds Democratic majority in the Senate to support President Roosevelt. With a roar of approval the country uprose to give him what he wanted—and more. So complete was the rout of Senate Republicans that Boss Farley could well remark on Election Night: “Famous Republican figures have been toppled into oblivion. In fact, we must wonder who they have left that the country ever heard of.”

Present Democratic strength in the Senate is 60 seats—four short of the two-thirds majority which can apply gag-rule and railroad through any legislation. Sure Democratic gains for the 74th Congress pushed this strength to 69, with belated returns of other Republican losses indicating that it may go above 70. Never before in the history of the U. S. has either the Republican or Democratic Party reached such a dizzy height of political power in the Senate. Significant steps in the 1934 election to that eminence:

Pennsylvania. In 1928 State Boss Joseph Francis Guffey thought he could carry Pennsylvania for the Brown Derby if National Boss John Jacob Raskob would give him $500,000 for the campaign. Boss Raskob put up the cash and Pennsylvania, as usual, crashed Republican. This year Boss Guffey thought he could get himself elected to the Senate if National Boss Franklin D. Roosevelt would help him. The President helped, to the tune of a White House luncheon at which Pennsylvania was promised all kinds of good things under the New Deal (TIME, Nov. 5). Result: Boss Guffey became the first Democrat to be elected to the Senate from Pennsylvania since 1875.

The defeat of Republican Senator David Aiken Reed caused particular rejoicing around the White House campfires. As a rich and reactionary Pittsburgher, as the Senate spokesman for Andrew W. Mellon, as the close ally of Pennsylvania’s manufacturer and bankers, Senator Reed personified to Roosevelt Democrats all the things the New Deal was against. Capitalizing to the limit on Roosevelt prestige and brazenly comparing the $678,000,000 poured into his State as relief and loans by the Roosevelt Administration to the $12,000,000 by the Hoover Administration, Democrat Guffey went about Pennsylvania lauding the President as “God’s inspired servant.” Even the belated and not altogether convincing support of Governor Pinchot for the G. 0. P. ticket could not save Senator Reed. As Senator-elect Guffey was loudly and truthfully proclaiming his success as a Roosevelt victory, Senator-reject Reed was sourly muttering: “I really don’t care. I’m sick of the whole mess.”

Ohio, “Come thunderstorm, war or election, I always go to bed at 9:30 sharp,” said Ohio’s small solemn Senator Simeon Davison Fess. And as the onetime chairman of the Republican National Committee slept, he was counted out of the Senate seat he has held since 1925 and Democrat Alvin Victor (“Vic”) Donahey was counted in. “Vic” Donahey is the only man in Ohio’s history to have served three straight terms as Governor. Though he beat one of the oldest of the Old Dealers, this tall husky 61-year-old Senator-elect was not an ardent New Dealer. During the campaign he promised: “I will support President Roosevelt—in every proper manner.” Father of ten children, Democrat Donahey makes no pretense at being an intellectual giant or a political wizard. As Ohio’s Governor, he used to employ a Columbus newshawk to write his speeches and State papers, used to staff the Executive Mansion with servants selected from “trusties” at the State prison.

New Jersey. Hamilton Fish Kean, 72, Wall Streeter and gentleman farmer, possessor of the finest set of mustaches in the last U. S. Senate and the finest set of conservative Republican opinions, offered himself for reelection. Against him New Jersey Democrats put up popular Governor A. Harry Moore who closed his campaign with eight words: “I will simply take a bow. Thank you.” Senator Kean’s chief hope was the unnumbered tribes of Jerseyites who daily commute to Wall Street. But they preferred a clean shaven man.

Rhode Island, It is almost as unpleasant to be called a skunkhunter as to be called a skunk. By carrying Rhode Island, Democrats hoped to end the State’s “rotten borough” system whereby the small towns (nominally Republican) control more seats in the State Senate than populous Providence. In his zeal for this reform one local Democratic candidate referred to the villagers as “skunkhunters.” A cry of rage swept the State. Meetings were held to which the villagers came by thousands leading tame skunks, dressed like back woodsmen, intent on making “skunkhunting” a title of honor. Felix Hebert hoped to be re-elected to the U. S. Senate, not as a Republican, not as a passionate music lover, but as a skunkhunter. Nonetheless Rhode Island turned to a onetime polo player and yachtsman, the present husband of George W. Vanderbilt’s widow—Peter Goelet Gerry who served in the Senate from 1917 to 1929.

New Mexico, Senator Bronson Cutting had the campaign distinction of being the only insurgent Republican to bolt his national ticket in 1932 and miss out on an endorsement from Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1934. But this lisping ex-Easterner had plenty of other radical support. Into New Mexico to campaign for him went Montana’s Wheeler, Colorado’s Cortigan, Wisconsin’s La Follette, Nebraska’s Norris. The A. F. of L. endorsed and Albert Bacon Fall called him ‘”unbeatable.” Yet last week Senator Cutting was beaten by Democrat Dennis Chavez. Strangely enough, Senator-elect Chavez could thank in no small measure for his success the efforts in his behalf of the tall greying daughter of the late great Republican Boss Mark Hanna. Outdone with Senator Cutting’s radical insurgency, Mrs. Ruth Hanna McCormick Simms, a thoroughgoing Republican, crossed party lines to back Democrat Chavez.

Connecticut. Francis T. Maloney, 40, was once a restaurant counterman. Later he reported for a newspaper, managed a semiprofessional baseball team, sold insurance, twice served Meriden as Mayor. Last week, as an ardent New Dealer, he became Connecticut’s Democratic Senator-elect when Republican Senator Frederick Collin Walcott, great friend of Herbert Hoover’s and wealthy wild life conservationist, was unceremoniously retired to very private life. Never before has Connecticut had two full-term Democrats in the U. S. Senate.

Maryland. The Democrats gained a seat and President Roosevelt a good personal friend when Maryland voters chose Lawyer George L. Radcliffe, 57, over Dr. Joseph Irwin France. Mr. Roosevelt used to work for Baltimore’s Fidelity & Deposit Co., of which Senator-elect Radcliffe is senior vice president. But Maryland expects to hear hardly more from its new Democratic Senator than it did from its old Republican one, Phillips Lee Goldsborough who fell to defeat trying to shift from Washington to Annapolis.

Missouri. Seventeen months ago a douche of bullets put out five lives on Kansas City’s Union Station plaza. Last week a Federal grand jury indicted Kansas City’s onetime Police Chief E. C. Reppert and two others, involved Kansas City’s Democratic machine in responsibility for the massacre. This was a bellyblow to Democratic Boss Tom Pendergast who was trying to elect his henchman Harry S. Truman as a New Deal Senator. Roscoe C. Patterson, Missouri’s Republican Senator, gleefully hammered it home. The well-aimed blow glanced off Boss Pendergast’s stout abdominal muscles, did not a bit of harm. Old Dealer Patterson was washed out in the election, Boss Pendergast’s Truman swept to victory.

Indiana. President Roosevelt & family have had no more cruel critic in the Senate than Indiana’s slim, beady-eyed Republican Arthur Raymond (“Li’l Arthur”) Robinson. There was no White House rumor too mean for this G. O. Partisan to keep to himself. But on the home stump Senator Robinson flayed not the National Administration but the State Administration of white-haired, handsome Governor McNutt. Robinson target was the Indiana parole of the late John Dillinger and the escape of that desperado from a Crown Point jail last March. In the closing week of the campaign Governor McNutt announced that the Dillinger escape had been “solved,” that the guilty had ‘”confessed.” Hoosiers seemed satisfied. They voted “Li’l Arthur” Robinson out of the Senate, voted Sherman Minton in. Democratic Lawyer Minton of New Albany rose to power through the grace of Governor McNutt who made him counselor for the Public Service Commission. A husky ex-footballer, he has been self-supporting since he was 12. Hereafter the White House and the New Deal will hear only kind words from the new broad-chinned, broadshouldered young Senator from In diana.

Also Wons: Democrat Edward Raymond Burke whose New Deal eulogies were feelingly quoted by President Roosevelt at Green Bay, over Republican Robert Simmons after a series of ten public debates; in Nebraska. Republican Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg over Democrat Frank A. Picard, descendant of French acrobats, who accused his opponent of trying to walk a tightrope on the New Deal; in Michigan. Farmer-Laborite Senator Henrik Shipstead for his third term; in Minnesota. Republican-Democrat-Progressive-Commonwealth Hiram Johnson, over a lone Socialist; in California. Democratic Senator Royal S. Copeland over an “Arrow-collar” Republican and Socialist Norman Thomas; in New York. Democratic Senator Burton K. Wheeler over Republican George M. Bourquin, a onetime Federal judge who once remarked: “This court may be in error but it is never in doubt”; in Montana. Republican Senator Warren R. Austin over Democrat Fred C. Martin, after a desperate Administration attempt to re peat the Pennsylvania victory in the land of milk and marble; in Vermont. Senator Robert Marion La Follette, running for the first time as a real Progressive, over Republican and Democratic nonentities; in Wisconsin.