Democratic Senate

When President-elect Roosevelt moves into the White House March 4, a Democratic Congress will come into being at the Capitol. Thus as a result of the election both arms of government were placed solidly in control of one party, paving the way for positive legislative action in the next two years.

In the Senate the Democrats ran their strength up to the record-breaking figure of 58 and possibly more--a clear gain of eleven seats over their present membership. This startling increase was secured mostly at the expense of Republican Old Guardsmen who suffered defeat not only because they had been "ins" for many a long year but also because they were identified in the voters' mind as conservative supporters of the unpopular Hoover regime. Dean of the Senate in point of service (29 years) and chairman of its powerful Finance Committee is long, lanky, lugubrious Reed Smoot whom Utah voters summarily retired for Democrat Elbert D. Thomas professor of political sciences at the State University. The defeat of 70-year-old Senator Smoot whose name adorns the discredited Republican tariff, was attributed in part to his failure to get something done at Washington to up silver and copper prices.

Indiana's James Eli Watson, long-legged, large-stomached, small-eyed leader of the present Republican Senate majority of one, was defeated by Democrat Frederick Van Nuys, Indianapolis attorney. President Hoover, campaigning in the State, had made a warm personal appeal for Senator Watson's reelection. Watson entered the Senate in 1917, succeeded Charles Curtis as G. 0. P. leader in 1929. Long a Dry, he ran as a Resubmissionist. Senator-elect Van Nuys, a longtime Democratic worker, favors Repeal and beer. There was a real partisan revenge in the defeat of New Hampshire's Senator since 1919, George Higgins Moses, whose tart tongue has made many a Democrat wince.* Victor over him was Democrat Fred H. Brown, onetime Governor, new Public Service Commissioner. The Brown attack: "Moses is a hireling of the power interests. The Insulls and others paid Moses' campaign expenses. He hasn't been a square-shooter in New Hampshire politics in a generation. He votes dry and drinks wet, pats the War veteran on the back with one hand and cuts his throat with the other." Husky Senator-elect Brown chews Navy cut plug, makes a thundering speech.

Another Old Guardsman who apparently went down into the dust was Washington's Senator Wesley Livsey Jones, author of the "Five & Ten" liquor enforcement law. In the lead was Democrat Homer Truitt Bone, labelled a "radical" because he advocates public ownership of power. In Iowa Republican Senator Smith Wildman Brookhart lost in the Primary to Henry ("Himself") Field, famed radio merchandiser from Station KFNF at Shenandoah. In the election Field lost to able hustling Democrat Lewis Murphy who favors Repeal. As an independent Brookhart ran a very poor third. When a loud young Ashland editor named John Bowman Chapple took the party nomination away from insurgent Senator John James Blaine in the September primary, stalwart Republicans in Wisconsin thought that for the first time in years they could put one of their own kind in the Senate. But they failed to count on the anti-Hoover swing of the LaFollette forces which resulted in the election of Democrat Francis Ryan Duffy. In California Senator Samuel Morgan Shortridge dropped out of the Republican picture when he was defeated for renomination by wealthy young Tallant Tubbs, ardent Wet. Last week Nominee Tubbs also dropped out of the picture when Democrat William Gibbs McAdoo easily defeated him for the Senate. Rev. Robert Pierce Shuler, rampant Prohibitionist running as an independent, failed to alter the McAdoo trend.

Caught in the anti-Hoover tide which rolled across Illinois, Republican Senator Otis Ferguson Glenn, able and conservative, was unexpectedly defeated by Democrat William H. Dieterich. Though President Hoover carried Connecticut, thin, towering, white-shocked Republican Senator Hiram Bingham, red-hot beer advocate, lost his home State to Democrat Augustine ("Good Boy") Lonergan, onetime Representative. The independent Republican candidacy of Milton Conover, who fought the tough-knuckled G. 0. P. machine of Boss J. Henry Roraback, helped to account for the Bingham defeat. In Nevada big, bald Republican Senator Tasker Oddie lost to Democrat Patrick McCarran. In Idaho Republican Senator John Thomas, down with typhoid fever, left his campaigning to his colleague Senator Borah. But Senator Borah fell down on the job and Democrat James P. Pope, wringing Wet, was elected. In Missouri Democrat Bennett Champ Clark, son of the late great Speaker of the House, won from Republican Henry Kiehl, onetime Mayor of St. Louis. In New Jersey kinky-haired, sporty Republican William Warren Barbour trailed Democrat Percy Hamilton Stewart, Manhattan attorney whose wife is the granddaughter of the late Alexander Smith Cochrane, carpet tycoon.

*It was he who tagged the insurgent Republicans as "sons of the wild jackass."

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