Show weekly news reviews american political tradition decreed republican upsurge by joseph W bailine I 1 base map 0 arne can map co republican GAINS IN NOVEMBER ELECTION states shown in black showed definite swing away from democratic party by giving victory to republicans in two out of possible three divisions governor senate house states shaded gave republicans minor victory in house or guber notarial na tortal election states shown in white failed to record substantial change in political status or Al maryland aryland california north dakota showed democratic gains politics like all natural phenomena and many not so natural U S political fortunes run in cycles of liberalism and conservatism thus every lengthy republican administration has been succeeded by a shorter democratic one attesting to the american people s inherent consert since the republican party reached its latest low ebb under candidate alfred landon in 1936 none but the most optimistic expect ed anything but a minor gain so early as 1938 but it has proved otherwise thanks to 1 a growing belief that the roosevelt adminis tra tion s expensive recovery efforts have been unsuccessful and 2 a fear that new deal policies were en cou raging the growth of radicalism moreover it has been apparent that the public must eventually pro test against the political corruption which unavoidably gathers around so large a financial project as though the roosevelt administration may be blameless in this respect such political machines as that of pennsylvania s gov george H earle have unsavory reputations another consideration one that re less attention than eventually proved justified was dissatisfaction among america americas s numerically im farmers since the agrical tural vote can control congress it looked bad for the administration when this year s highly touted farm program failed despite secretary of agriculture henry A wallace s sincere efforts new deal farm leg isolation has left producers in north ern states without permanent relief almost without exception the no vember general election has there fore made the U S return to its most normal political alignment in 15 years see map alap always dem socratic the solid south has clung tenaciously to tradition but this tradition does not mean the south will line up per cent behind president roosevelt for south car ohna georgia and maryland elect ed senators partially unsympathetic with the new deal several other southern senators and congressmen not up for reelection re election this year are also unsympathetic though in many cases the lican trend is not so great as the above map might indicate cally all northern states have shown a surge back to conservatism this was especially marked in minnesota and wisconsin where farmer labor and progressive partisans were ousted after long incumbencies michigan swung away from demo cratic gov frank murphy largely because he sympathized with the radically tinged committee for in du dustral organization in all north western states the swing to lican ism was due partly to agrical tural dissatisfaction new england s industrial population rebelled against allegedly oppressive taxa tion and the C 1 I 0 while this ter atory s traditional conservatism also played an important role sub ly the same explanation can be made for votes in ohio and pennsylvania the only important new deal gains have come in california where a rock ribbed republican governor was ousted in north da kota whose notoriously unsettled political situation has freakishly placed a democrat in the governor s chair and in maryland but such a resume does not tell the entire story for even those states which remained democratic have shown an amazingly strong re publican upsurge new york s gov herbert H lehman won by only 70 votes over his republican op youthful thomas E dewey whereas two years ago mr leh man had a margin illinois which remains predominantly new deal increased its republican house representation and returned a much larger conservative vote than in 1936 having gained at least 8 senators 75 house members and 11 governors the republican party once more has hs a vocal minority in congress more over its 1940 presidential hopes are better despite the defeat in new york of tom dewey once consid ered a likely candidate if the 1938 election has created any new dennial possibilities they are ohio s republican sen robert taft and missouri s democratic sen bennett champ dark clark what the republican upsurge will do for the U S remains conjectural but post election stock market actie ity has been encouraging to aid industry the american federation of labor is already banking on G 0 P congressional aid in amend ing the wagner labor relations act the outstanding fact is that 1938 s republican party has emerged a I 1 liberal beral 1 entity well spanked for its former ultra conservatism foreign that a state visit can hold much international importance is some times hard to believe since state visitors make a studied effort to avoid shop talk with their hosts but diplomatic great britain refuses to minimize the significance of king george georges s visit to the U S next summer and every sign indicates the english reasoning is correct coupled with the U S visit is an invitation for french president al bert lebrun to drink tea in bucking ham palace next spring thereby re turning the honor accorded by george georges s visit to pans paris this past summer while all this sounds like social pother it really means that france and england are desperate ly trying to give the world a cle of democratic solidarity offset ting the trumpeting of premier be nito mussolini and chancellor adolf hitler though king george s visit will not result in a U S british pact it will certainly tighten the bonds between england and amer ica this means that next spring and summer italy and germany will go 90 into eclipse while world democrat cy stages its show there is every KING GEORGE VI how important is his wita reason to believe the fascist nazi nations appreciate this and realize they must gain their concessions from france and britain within the next six months that is why hit ler is pressing his demands for a return of british mandated colonies and why mussolini is urging inter nationalization of the suez canal people the death of turkey s dictator president kemal removes the most colorful totalitarianism of our era A man whose passion was violation of every accepted rule of human behavior he customarily stayed up all night ate every food that disagreed with him had an amazingly large capacity for raki liquor and champagne was tur keys key s champion cigarette smoker and drank gallons of coffee every day he detested exercise more benevolent and less anxious for self aggrandizement than most dicta tors mustapha kemal established a model nation out of the postwar post war debris of turkey at his death the nation he founded looks in beail derment for a successor while eu rope fears southeastern bound adolf hitler may seize the opportunity to I 1 establish his economic strength in I 1 the dardanelles Darda nelles business government prosecution of corn com bi bmat nations ions in alleged restraint oi of trade was known as trust busting in the days of president benjamin harrison in 1890 the sherman anti trust law began hacking at financial octopi in what was shown to be a legitimate campaign to keep amen ameri can industry from killing itself by mushroomed growth modern trust busting is an out growth of the new deal its in tended victim is not the listic trust of bygone days but ally a group of powerful corpora eions which dominate an industry but though the 1938 1933 model trust buster can be credited with success 17 victories 12 cases still pending out of 42 filed since march 4 1933 he might also be charged with mak ing political capital of his job thus it has been hinted that so lichtor general robert H jackson once an assistant attorney general joined the anti trust crusade last year largely in the hope of winning new york s democratic gubernath gu bernato rial nomination if politics was the inspiration for some anti trust suits these same suits have now become such hot potatoes that a vanished political purpose does not justify the justice department departments s dropping them one possible example may be the trust case against the aluminum company of america to date this year old in tion has failed to uncover much ex capt a re hash of testimony and evi dence from the 1935 federal trade commission commissions s probe and a private litigation of a decade ago from which the company emerged with a clean bill bi of health today s anti trust division of the justice department has 90 lawyers compared with 15 in 1933 handling 81 e L THURMAN ARNOLD new technique price policing monopoly cases and proceedings connected with 31 other major acts of congress trust busting boss is thurman arnold whose fetish is in vesti gating the price policies of in austry says mr arnold we are being forced to take control of in flexible price structures and coer chions in restraint of trade today just as in 1933 we were forced to take control of the financing and market mg ing of securities much interest now centers in the justice department departments s newly rated suit against Dela delaware wares s co lumbia gas electric corporation for allegedly conspiring to lize the natural gas industry of kentucky ohio west virginia and michigan but in accordance with his probe of price policies thur man arnold is probably more inter ested in oil since crude oil prices recently plummeted in the wake of alleged over production by refiner ies both the president and mr ar nold favor a program for state con arol over oil production and drefin ing harking back to the trust busting days when standard oil s case first made the U S monopoly conscious the new probe will examine every phase of the oil industry from pro to marketing though oil men will welcome an intelligent gov program to stabilize crude oil prices observers fail fall to see great consistency between this program to raise prices and other monopoly quizzes which prosecute men for allegedly raising prices religion after 31 months of strife four months of which cost 1317 1 lives and left 1 wounded palestine s holy war is still not ended the british mandated territory has been arabic for centuries but was set aside as a homeland for jews fol lowing the world war only to arouse moslem fears that hebrews would soon dominate the land using ter as their weapon arabs have attempted to force an immediate settlement on slow moving great britain but london has just an bounced its refusal to make an im mediate decision great britain proposes to call a conference of jew ish and arab leaders whose corn com promise agreement would wash great britain s hands of all cespon sivility lity for the holy land this would be fine except that arabs re fuse to arbitrate in this fashion which leaves palestine s problem still a hopeless muddle miscellany an evanston ill woman has been granted a patent for a pair of pockets to be hung over her cocker spaniel s head carrying his ears for him a in 12 months just past the meth odist episcopal church of america increased its membership by approximately I 1 per cent |