"Good Old American Way"

If, in 1944, Republicans keep all their present seats in the House of Representatives, they have only to win nine more to become the majority party, and the Republican Governor and legislature of Pennsylvania are doing their best to help. By a hoary political operation made famous by Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry,* they have now all but clinched five of the nine seats.

On the outskirts of Pittsburgh, scattered among three Congressional districts, are labor votes which in 1940 were sufficient to elect Democratic Congressmen from all three districts. Fortnight ago, Governor Edward Martin signed a bill, passed by the legislature after an eight-day Democratic filibuster, which neatly amputated these Democratic areas, added them superfluously to the safely Democratic Pittsburgh district. A similar operation was performed on two Philadelphia districts.

Democrats moaned in the immemorial anguish of the gerrymandered. Cried they: "Steal," "dastardly," "foul blow." Replied Governor Martin: "It's just the good old American way. When we Republicans were in the minority, we bellyached when they ran over us. It just has to be done."

In Congress, balding, soft-spoken Representative Herman P. Eberharter, New Dealer from Pittsburgh, introduced a bill to forbid between-census reapportionment. But even he admitted sadly that: 1) his bill had no chance of passing; 2) it was too late anyway. He and other Democrats threatened a court fight. Republicans stayed smug and happy.

*Elbridge Gerry (1744-1814), signer of the Declaration of Independence, fierce antiFederalist, ran unsuccessfully for Governor of Massachusetts four times, was elected on his fifth try, subsequently reelected. He approved a bill which carved a state senatorial district in Essex County into an absurd shape, but gave the Federalists no chance of winning. At a Federalist rally, an artist (legend says it was Gilbert Stuart) drew a head, wings and claws on a map of the district, shouted: "That will do for a salamander." Cried a voice in the crowd: "Gerrymander!"

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