Old Line-Up, New Scrubs

The 35 million votes cast for senatorial candidates last week yielded surprisingly unspectacular changes in the U.S. Senate. Democrats won the right to organize it come January, but only by the margin of a handful of votes in Multnomah County, Ore. (see below), which gave them, with the help of Wayne Morse, a 49-47 majority. Although 37 seats were on the block, there were only eight shifts from which the Democrats eked out a net gain of two Senators. Some of the changes (Nevada, Wyoming, Ohio) were a return to a status quo ante, i.e., before a temporary appointment by a governor to fill an unexpired term.

Senatorial Unemployment. Only four previously elected Senators were defeated for reelection. Among them, the Republicans suffered one stunning blow, the sacking, after twelve years in the Senate, of Michigan's able, gentle, white-maned Homer Ferguson, chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee. Republicans also lost Kentucky's John Cooper (who had twice been elected to the Senate for two-year terms, never for a full term) and Oregon's Guy Cordon. Iowa's Guy Gillette was the only casualty among Democratic Senators who had previously been elected to their seats.

Twelve new faces and two reappearing ones will adorn the Senate of the 84th Congress. His Veepship Alben William Barkley, 76, won back the Kentucky seat he had held for 21 years (1927-48), and Joseph Christopher O'Mahoney, 70, was elected to represent Wyoming, as he had for 18 years until the 1952 Eisenhower landslide forced him to spend two years as a Washington lawyer (one client: Owen Lattimore).

Under a Bushel. The rest of the fresh man group (average age: 55) does not stand high in national renown. Two, South Carolina's J. Strom Thurmond and North Carolina's W. (for William) Kerr Scott, 58, have been governors of their states. Of the seven new Republican Senators, all but one are or have been Congressmen. The one: Colorado's Gordon Allott, 47, whose light, as lieutenant governor, has been hidden under the bushel-basket showmanship and popularity of retiring Governor Dan Thornton. Allott, a liberal Republican and onetime Stassen-for-President booster, scored a minor upset by trouncing ex-Congressman John Carroll. Among the other senatorial newcomers:

Nevada: Alan Bible, 44, onetime Senate elevator operator and state attorney general, defeated Senator Ernest Brown, who was appointed last month to fill the late Pat McCarran's seat. Bible, McCarran's protege and law partner, has promised to carry on the McCarran tradition by plugging for higher wool, lead and zinc tariffs.

Michigan: Democrat Patrick Vincent McNamara, 60, outdrew Senator Ferguson at the polls on the coattails of popular Governor "Soapy" Williams and with the help of unemployment in the automobile industry. A hearty Irishman with a toothy smile, McNamara is a member of the Detroit board of education, president of a local pipefitters' union and customers' contact man for a construction firm.

Nebraska: Republicans Carl Thomas Curtis, 49, and Roman Lee Hruska, 50, had little trouble winning as the state's two Senators. A veteran of 16 years in the House, Curtis is a lackluster conservative. First-Term Congressman Hruska is expected to lend strong, thoughtful support to the Eisenhower program.

Iowa: Republican Thomas Ellsworth Martin, 61, scored the election's big success for the Ezra Benson farm program by upsetting Old Campaigner Guy Gillette. Lawyer Martin waged an energetic but unimaginative campaign, spouting hog-price and corn-hog-ratio quotations across the state. He will move up to the Senate after 16 unspectacular years in the House.

Ohio: Republican George Harrison Bender, 58, was elected for the unexpired term of the late great Robert A. Taft by unseating Senator Tom Burke. Burke, a habitually effortless winner of Cleveland's mayoralty, found bushbeating all over Ohio a chore, while Bender sang and shouted his way through all 88 counties. Burke lost by 9,355 votes. Remembered as cheer leader in the 1948 and 1952 Taft-for-President campaigns, George Bender is boss of the Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) Republican machine and a veteran of 14 years in the House. Long an isolationist, he has hungrily swallowed President Eisenhower's policies, foreign and domestic.

New Jersey: Republican Clifford Case Jr. carved out a razor-thin victory in the face of a strong Democratic attack and McCarthyite desertions. Election night, Case's opponent, Congressman Charles Howell, claimed that he had won. But by morning Howell's early 100,000-vote lead had been wiped out, and the Case-Howell race became a case of cliff-hanging suspense. By next day, as corrections were made and absentee ballots counted, Case's 200-vote margin widened to 3,308, equal to about one-fifth of 1% of the 1,700,000 votes cast.

New Hampshire: Republican Norris Cotton, 54, after eight years in the House, won a promotion to the unexpired term of the late Charles Tobey. He has backed the Administration program down the line, except on public housing and the St. Lawrence Seaway project.

In all, the Democrats won 24 Senate elections, the Republicans 14. Of these, the Democrats re-elected 16 incumbent Senators, including eight from the South and Minnesota's Hubert Humphrey, Montana's James Murray, New Mexico's Clinton Anderson, Delaware's Allen Frear and

Rhode Island's 87-year-old Theodore Green.

The race that had attracted the most nationwide attention turned out to be a clean sweep. Democrat Paul Douglas piled up almost a quarter million more votes than his Republican challenger, Lobbyist Joe Meek. Ex-Professor Douglas' hard campaigning won the votes of many Republican and independent city dwellers, especially in Chicago.

Republicans re-elected six Senators. Among the six: New Hampshire's Styles Bridges, the Senate's president pro tempore, South Dakota's Karl Mundt and Idaho's Henry Dworshak, who swamped Democrat Glen Taylor, Henry Wallace's banjo-playing running mate on 1948's Progressive ticket.

In Massachusetts, lanky Leverett Saltonstall faced trouble from an eager challenger, Democratic State Treasurer Foster Furcolo, but came away an easy winner. Furcolo did well in Boston's Italian neighborhoods, but dropped much of the normally Democratic Irish vote.

In California, Republican Senator Thomas Kuchel squeezed out a narrow score over Congressman Sam Yorty in a campaign characterized by Kuchel's drab speeches and Yorty's attacks on the Administration's "new look" defense policy. Yorty hoped that his cries against cuts in defense spending would help him in Southern California's airplane manufacturing centers, but returns from Los Angeles and San Diego disappointed him.

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