THE FIGHT FOR CONGRESS

IN Louisville last week, old (76) Alben Barkley stood up before a milkmen's meeting and pointed out that Winston Churchill is now 79, that Cato studied Greek at 82 and that Oliver Wendell Holmes resigned from the U.S. Supreme Court at 91. Burbled Barkley: "I feel like a kid." In Illinois, U.S. Senator Paul Douglas was roaming the countryside being folksy with farmers, militant with miners, professorial with college groups and hearty with luncheon clubs. All across the U.S., the politicians, like bees in a hive warmed by the spring sun, were beginning to stir and buzz. The reason: the congressional election battle of 1954 had begun.

For the next eight months, candidates for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives will be hurling charges and countercharges about everything from foreign policy to the Government support price on tung nuts. After the vocal exercises are over, the voters will elect 35 Senators* and all 435 members of the House of Representatives. But the question of party control will turn on a far smaller number. More than half of the Senate seats and more than 70% of the House seats to be filled are all but certain to be retained by the party now holding them, if not in every case by the individual incumbent. The real battleground is surprisingly narrow.

Of the 35 Senate seats to be filled, 13 are now held by Republicans and 22 by Democrats. With nine fewer seats to defend, the Republicans have a basic arithmetical advantage. But an analysis of each party's hold on its seats shows that the advantage is not so great as it appears to be, and illustrates the limited nature of the contest. Of the Republicans' 13, six seats are safe, seven doubtful. Of the Democrats' 22, 13 seats are safe, nine are doubtful (see map).

The Pocketbook Issue. Almost everywhere in the U.S., the pocketbook--the level of income on the farm, the level of employment in the cities--will be a big issue. A Republican seat that will be heated more than-most others by economic factors is that of Michigan's Homer Ferguson. Increasing unemployment in Michigan, particularly in the automobile industry, and C.I.O. President Walter Reuther's cries on the subject are hurting Ferguson. The Democrats have yet to pick their candidate, but the leading prospects are two former U.S. Senators: Blair Moody (1951-53) and Prentiss M. Brown (1936-43).

The recession issue may help Democrat Paul Douglas, whose seat is one of the most doubtful on the Democratic list. On recession, Douglas has stuck his neck far out (TIME, Feb. 22), and a rise in employment between now and November will hurt him. Although he is unopposed in the primary, Douglas traveled 3,000 miles through northern and central Illinois last fortnight, made 24 speeches to some 20,000 voters. He is inviting voters to "coffee hours," an adaptation of Massachusetts' Senator John Kennedy's teas in 1952. (Says Douglas: "But of course teas would not do in the Midwest.") Illinois Republicans seem to agree with Douglas that his seat is vulnerable: ten of them are battling for the nomination to oppose him.

One of the shakiest of all the seats is that held by one of the ablest men in the U.S. Senate: Kentucky's Republican John Sherman Cooper. His problem is not one of issues, but the fact that the state is normally Democratic. His opponent will probably be former Vice President Barkley, a hard man to beat.

Internal Rumbling. Each party has at least one recognized case of noisy internal rumbling in a doubtful state. For the Republicans, this symptom appears in New Jersey, where party leaders would like to discard bumbling Senator Robert Hendrickson. Some hope to replace him with Representative Robert Winthrop Kean, a Livingston banker, who has become Capitol Hill's recognized expert on social security. The Democratic case is in Delaware, where organized opposition has been developing against J. (for Joseph) Allen Frear, whose drab, one-term record has been notable only for his terrierlike yip of yes or no on roll call. Some party leaders hope to replace him with State Supreme Court Justice James M. Tunnell Jr.

Other races in doubtful states are shaping up this way:

P:In Idaho. Republican Henry Dworshak will have some trouble, although the only candidate the Democrats have to offer so far is guitar-playing Glen H. Taylor, who was Henry Wallace's candidate for Vice President in 1948.

P:In Massachusetts, Democrats have not yet found a strong candidate to go against Republican Leverett Saltonstall, but they may eventually give him a hard race.

P:Three Western Democrats--Iowa's Guy Gillette, Montana's James Murray and Wyoming's Lester Hunt--will have stiff opposition, but may be able to win on the farm price issue. if In Minnesota, Democrat Hubert Humphrey, once considered highly vulnerable, is running far ahead and will be out of reach if the Republicans do not find a strong candidate soon.

P:In California, young, energetic Republican Thomas Kuchel, appointed to Vice President Richard Nixon's seat last year, is still so little known that probably less than half of the voters can pronounce his name (it's Kee-kul), will have some trouble with noisy Democratic Representative Sam Yorty.

P:In Oregon, Republican Senator Guy Cordon is likely to face a real threat from one of the best-known public figures in the state, Free-Lance Writer (and State Senator) Richard Neuberger, who has an added campaign asset--a smart politician wife who is known as Oregon's "Oleo Lady," (because she pushed bills permitting the sale of colored margarine through the state legislature).

P:In Colorado, Democratic Senator Ed Johnson has the look of a sure winner, unless Republican Governor Dan Thornton, a close friend of President Eisenhower, runs against him.

P:In New Mexico, Democrat Clinton Anderson, who could beat almost anyone else, may have difficulty getting past popular Governor Ed Mechem.

If the elections were held this week, there would probably be a few new faces but little net change in the Senate's narrow balance (47 Republicans, 48 Democrats, and one Wayne Morse). What happens before November may change the picture considerably, but there is little prospect that either party will have a big numerical margin in the Senate when the 84th Congress convenes next January.

The Narrow Battleground. If the House elections were held this week, both Democratic and Republican prognosticates agree, the Democrats would win control. On a national level, the confident Democrats are doing little about House seats. In contrast, Republican Congressional Campaign Committee headquarters is already running in high gear.

The Republicans are proceeding on the principle that control of the House will turn on comparatively few districts. A study of 1952 House election results supports this view (see chart). Of the 435 seats, the Democrats won 158 (mostly in the South and in industrial areas) and the Republicans won 153 (mostly in the Midwest and Northeast) by more than 58% of the vote.* Nearly all of these seats are safe even if 1954 brings a political upheaval--which now seems unlikely.

Down the scale from these safe seats, the Democrats won 39 and the Republicans won 53 seats in the bracket between 52% and 58%. Most of these are likely to stay where they are. So the real battleground narrows to 17 Democratic and 14 Republican seats, which were won in 1952 by 52% or less. In some of these marginal districts, purely local issues, personalities and situations will be more important than the big national issues.

Many a Representative may win or lose on a point as narrow as that which preoccupies Republican Representative Frank Small Jr. of Maryland's Fifth District, who was elected in 1952 by just 1,039 votes. Almost every time it rains, the Peace Cross area on the northeast outskirts of Washington, in Small's district, is flooded. Deep in the flood is the intersection of U.S. Highways 1 and 50, where 100,000 vehicles cross on an average (dry) day. This year Small succeeded in getting a $1,000,000 item in the Eisenhower budget to start an $11 million flood-control project. If he can steer that million through Congress, his chances of re-election will be excellent.

In nearly all of the 31 marginal districts of 1952, there will be fierce campaigns this year. Harry Byrd's Democratic organization has pledged to "redeem" the three Virginia seats that Dwight Eisenhower helped to pull into the Republican column in 1952. In some districts, the campaign for this year's election began the day after the 1952 result was final. But, strangely enough, no opponent has yet appeared to challenge Democrat Wayne Aspinall of Colorado's Fourth District (western slope), who won his seat by 1952's smallest margin -- 29 votes.

Some seats won by comfortable margins in 1952 will be threatened by local issues and situations in 1954. In Philadelphia, Democrats have begun to worry about the seats of five Congressmen, although none was under the 52% line in the last election. The problem: a local party schism. The forces of high-principled Mayor Joseph Clark Jr. are feuding with the patronage-minded party organization headed by U.S. Representative (and Democratic City Chairman) William J. Green. The Clark forces are fighting a Green-sponsored proposal to amend the city charter so the party can reap more patronage.

The Delicate Balance. Despite the uproar about the drop in farm income, the Republicans' toughest problem this year will not be to hold the rural districts.

Strictly farm districts hardly ever elect a Democratic Congressman unless there is a deep depression in farm prices; outside the South, Democrats now hold only three purely rural districts. The Republicans' real problem is how to hold or increase their share of the urban and semi-urban districts.

Nationally, the G.O.P. will campaign against the record of the Roosevelt and Truman Administrations (particularly Communist infiltration of the Government), and will point with pride to the Eisenhower Administration's record. The Democrats will concentrate hard on recession. If the economic issue fades out, they will turn chiefly to criticism of the Republican Administration as "do-nothing."

As they begin the battle of '54, both Republicans and Democrats can find a historical reason for confidence. For Demo crats: since the turn of the century, the minority party has gained seats in every nonpresidential election except one. For Republicans: that one exception was 1934, the last election in which the political situation was somewhat like that of 1954, i.e., the first election after a new Administration broke the longtime grip of the other party.

One of the questions politicians are now pondering is whether Dwight Eisenhower's kind of political revolution will carry into the elections of 1954 as Franklin Roosevelt's carried into 1934. He is expected to make some well-timed trips and television appearances in aid of embattled Republican candidates. Said a G.O.P. National Committee spokesman last week: "We've got the big horn now, and we're going to toot it all out." No matter what horns are tooted, the 1954 congressional elections--from a calendar distance of slightly more than eight months--appear to be delicately balanced on the economic issue. If economic indicators are still moving downward when Election Day arrives, the Democrats will have a great advantage. If the economy has turned upward, the G.O.P. may be able to strengthen its tenuous hold on Capitol Hill.

-Three more than usual, to fill unexpired terms caused by one resignation (Richard Nixon) and two deaths (Robert Taft and Charles Tobey). -Not included in these figures: the one House seat held by an Independent, Frazier Reams of Ohio.

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