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Show Parapsychology Could Do Just Fine on Election Bets By BAUKIIAGE News Analyst and Commentator, WASHINGTON. It won't be long now before you'll be able to settle those election bets. A few days after the release of the official record of the negotiations with the Russians over the Berlin situation, I was sitting in the club with e couple of members of the Democratic administration. Talk had grown pretty tall in Paris and that morning, every other person I met, it seemed, asked me: are we going to have war? But Washington was as calm as i sleeping tabbycat. The club dining , room window was rr" , open, and a lazy ' autumn sun y" sweeped down ' ' ? through the trees ' t. of the park. Scuirrel3 loafed ' 'f ' around, showing A t little or no inter- t i I 1 : est in preparing 4 V ' ' or wulter- ard , when I repeated the question I had I ' L',JL heard so often - f that morning to , ,t,,-J1iid my tvo Demo- BATJKHAOE cratic friends' U aroused very little Interest. Said they: "The Russians want Dewey. So we won't have war now. The Soviets know if they start- td a war at this time, it would cinch Truman's election." Naturally my friends didn't indicate that they had any doubts as to the outcome of the election, but when we started talking odds, I noticed the conversation con-versation was confined largely to the race for the senate. After all, said my friends, even some Republicans concede thatDewey might face a Democratio upper up-per house. It wouldn't take much of a push either way. The Democrats have 45 seats now, and the Republicans Dnly 51. The Democrats are confident con-fident that only one or two of their candidates are in danger. On the other hand, there are a aumber of stiff state fights in progress prog-ress in which the Republicans are oeing pjshed pretty hard. The Democrats feel that if they can get ut a large vote in these uncertain Itates, they have a chance of win-aing win-aing the four seats that would give Ihem the edge. In other words the count then would be: Democrats 49; Republicans, Repub-licans, 47. That two-vote margin wouldn't assure Democratic domi-lance domi-lance on all senate policy matters, if course, because too many sen-itors sen-itors are given to leaping out of lie party corral these days. On the ther hand, many issues are bound lo be settled along purely partisan ines. But far more important, the party of the majority gains control af the senate committees. The pre-election battles In which the Democrats seem to have the edge are in Oklahoma, West Virginia, Wyoming, and Kentucky. About in that order. Also Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa, and Idaho. The Democrats admit their weakest weak-est points are in Montana and Colorado. The Republicans by no aaeans concede New Mexico, Rhode Island, and Tennessee, but the Democrats don't seem too worried ibout those states. At this writing, it is useless to make predictions, for even between this calm moment and the time these lines are in print, skies may all or' some individual may stub ais toe. Bets are collected after, aot before, elections. It is fortunate, of course, that ill writers as well as all bettors ire not equipped with extra-sensory powers. If and when the day comes when we are, the fun will be taken out of reading, writing, and betting. And that day may come, believe It or not. I feel quite positive from the scientific proof offered, that most of the various forms of the supernatural are untenable. But, after attending a couple of lectures and reading considerable material m "parapsychology," I have be-:ome be-:ome convinced that certain things MAY exist which are at present considered impossible. 1 refer to extra-sensory perception, per-ception, clairvoyance, and psychokinesis. psy-chokinesis. And I see no reason why more scientists shouldn't give these subjects a more thorough thor-ough looking-into than they have deigned to indulge In up to now. Some have. Dr. J. B. Rhine, director of the parapsychological laboratory at Duke university, has been conducting conduct-ing experiments along these eerie lines for nearly two decades. He is a very modest man, and he leans over backward to avoid offering any conclusions or making any flat statements concerning these experiments. experi-ments. I have read his book( heard him speak to an intimate group, take part in a forum and later answer questions at a private gathering under the auspices of the Washington Wash-ington Society for Parapsychology. For almost two decades, as I said. Dr. Rhine and his assistants have been trying to determine whether or not there is a scientific basis for telepathy (the transfer of thought from one human brain to another); clairvoyance (the ability to visualize S : things or events taking place beyond be-yond the vision or knowledge); or for that ability which may involve both of the former, precognition the ability to predict things which will occur in the future. And also psychokinesis, the hardest one of all for the cynical to swallow. That is the power of mind over matter, e.g. ability abil-ity to make dice fall the way you want them to by thinking at them. Roughly, this is an example of what has been done by Dr. Rhine and others. After long experiment and mathematical calculation, it is determined that by chance alone anybody can pick correctly five cards out of a pack of 25. That is just guessing, and it is even money the subject can do it. If he is right oftener (and may have been right consistently more often than five in 25) that is MORE ' than chance. If he is right often enough, it is said that he has extrasensory extra-sensory perception. In other words, he is able to perceive what the card is without the use of his senses, but rather by some undefined, unmeasured, un-measured, unclassified ability which science as yet cannot explain. Clairvoyance is a common experience. expe-rience. An example might be of the mother who has a vivid and alarming alarm-ing impression of a train wreck. It may be a nightmare, a waking hallucination, hal-lucination, or just an intuition. The wreck seems to be connected with her son, perhaps with some definite place like a tunnel. It turns out later that her son was actually injured in-jured in a wreck at the spot where her dream assigned it. Careful checking of such experiences ex-periences is now going on, and Dr. Rhine feels that the results re-sults in these cases too, appear to show that some unknown process is involved, unexplained in terms of our ordinary senses. As to psychokinesis, experiments have seemed to prove that dice rolled in a mechanical cage could be made to fall, oftener than they would by the laws of chance, according ac-cording to the way the subject wished them to fall. Dr. Rhine and his associates are trained psychologists. They say they are not trying to convince anyone that the above-mentioned qualities are actuaUy possessed by certain individuals, but they are trying to investigate their apparent existence. And Now a Book On John Garner I had another adventure which might be called parapolitical. There was nothing psychic about it, but it included a piece of hindsight that is interesting. The hindsight is that of former Speaker of the House and Vice-President Vice-President John Nance Garner. He said he wished he had never left the house of representatives to run for vice-president. He felt that if Franklin Roosevelt had had a man like Speaker Joe Cannon in the speaker's chair a no-man Roosevelt Roose-velt could have avoided some of the mistakes Garner thinks he made. In other words, Garner would have liked to play Cannon to Roosevelt. This came out in connection with a gathering of a few of the news friends of that over-six-feet-tall-Texan who looks like Abraham Lincoln and talks like Will Rogers. A man who was brought up on a ranch, but thought cows were a novelty until he was 10 because all they raised on his father's ranch were buffalo. He is Washington correspondent for more dailies than any one I ever heard of, and once we wangled him one vote for the vice-presidential nomination for the lark of it. Now he's author of a book. I'm talking about Bascom Tim-mons Tim-mons and his book, "Garner of Texas," Tex-as," the only complete record of that fiery gentleman from Uvalde whose record for integrity and political po-litical ability in the house of representatives rep-resentatives is one few can rival. "Timmy" wrote it from his own notes and absolutely free hand. He probably knows Garner better than anyone on earth. It's a good book. It contains many interesting things including the "hindsight" I quoted. Timmons is not only popular among newsmen, but he's popular with congressmen, presidents, cops and cats. One of his cats had its portrait painted by Howard Chandler Chand-ler Christy; another was operated on by a specialist at Johns Hopkins, Hop-kins, both thereby setting up feline records in their respective fields, as their master has in his. If you're interested in "Garner of Texas," you'll be interested in what Timmons Tim-mons of Texas has to say about him. |