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Show IP fASIIINGTON Scrutinizing thB election returns ,d apply'ns 11,8 conclusions d"an from thorn to the probabtl-ilies probabtl-ilies of the future, the best quali-d quali-d observers in Washington are L-caslinK that the two most vital ,ICS which will engage the atten-ioii atten-ioii of the 77th Congress will be Labor and Agriculture. 'The election of November 5 was ried bv the Labor vote. The electoral votes obtained by the Ro-mihlican Ro-mihlican candidae came chiefly from Agriculture. The situation thus created puts it up to the Administration Ad-ministration to try to find new says of bringing the farmers of the Middle West back into Democratic Demo-cratic fold and holding them there, and it gives the Republican and He anti-New Deal Democrats a definite target to shoot at, in trying try-ing to convince Organized Labor that all Republicans are not enemies enem-ies of the working man. Warning to New Deal The loss to the Democrats of the solid block of mid-western agricultural agri-cultural states, from the Canadian border down to Oklahoma, taking in Colorado on the west and Iowa on the east, is considered here as a definite warning to the New Deal that its agricultural policies have not been satisfactory to the great bulk of farm population. There is little doubt that strenuous strenu-ous efforts will be made to remedy the situation by amending the A. A. A., and the thought is rising in Republican minds of the possibility pos-sibility that Senator McNary's farm program, which was highly favored in the pre-Roosevelt days, may again come into its own. Though defeated for the Vice-Presidency. Vice-Presidency. Mr. McNary retains his seat in the Senate, with increased in-creased prestige; also, there are four more Republican votes in the Senate than there were in the 76th Congress. Whatever the Administration aid Its Congressional supporters undertake to do to appease the farmers, therefore, probably will have to be done with Republican Play smart enough politics they may como out with the greater share of credit. In the matter of the Labor issue, is-sue, the job before the Republicans, Repub-licans, as Washington sees it Is to take an advanced position' In matters of Labor legislation and also in regard to exemptions from taxation of Important industries The Republican ticket, analysts declare, was defeated by the votes of the workers In the great industrial in-dustrial centers. Interests Opposed? Members of organized labor groups had been sold on the idea that their interests and those of the Republicans were diametrically opposed. Therefore, while Willkie carried almost all the rural districts dis-tricts and smaller communities outside of the Solid South, he carried only one city more than four hundred thousand population. That was Cincinnati, the only industrial in-dustrial center in which the workers work-ers are not thoroughly organized. It is also one of the tightest strongholds of Republicanism in America. Perhaps the best illustration of the way in which the Presidential vote was distributed between urban ur-ban and rural areas was in New York State. Out of its sixty-two counties Mr. Willkie carried fifty-five; fifty-five; but the other seven included three of the most populous boroughs bor-oughs of New York City and the four great industrial cities of Buffalo, Buf-falo, Rochester, Schenectady and Troy. And in those counties the reports of all observers are that it was the labor vote alone which carried them for the President. The Labor strategy of the "Loyal "Loy-al Opposition" as Mr. Willkie has designated the coalition of Republicans Repub-licans and Independents, has not yet been clarified. For that matter, mat-ter, the attitude of the Republican members of Congress toward any kind of a program in which they would not take the leadership is still somewhat suspicious. They don't know how to figure the political poli-tical "amateurs" who played such a large part in the Willkie campaign, cam-paign, and who seem to be figuring figur-ing on taking a strong hand in the new opposition movement. Amateurs Helped Congressional pride does not incline in-cline members to cooperate with any outside groups, and party regularity balks at making political poli-tical bed-fellows out of citizens who were Democrats, or goodness-knows-whats before this last campaign. cam-paign. To which the obvious answer ans-wer is that the regular Republican Repub-lican Organization under Congres- I sional leadership didn't get very far politically until the amateurs stepped in. The suggestion has been made that Republican Chairman Joe Martin, who was safely reelected to Congress, has the chance of a lifetime to bring amateurs and professionals together to form a united front in preparation for the Congressional elections of 1942 and the next Presidential campaign. cam-paign. That this can be done without with-out any commitment to Mr. Willkie Will-kie as the 19 44 candidate is the belief of the shrewdest political observers in Washington, who are the newspaper correspondents who traveled on the Willkie train. |