The Seventy-First

The People elected last week the 71st Congress of the United States, but the first meeting of this Congress does not occur until December, 1929, unless President Hoover should call a special session, which, he indicated might conceivably be necessary to deal with the farm problem. In order to elect this Congress it was necessary for the People to choose 435 members (all) of the House of Representatives, and 36 out of the 96 members of the Senate. This the People apparently accomplished, as the Election did not bring forth any controversy such as surrounded the election of Pennsylvania's Vare in 1926. In doing so the People gave to President Hoover an unmistakably clear Republican majority in both House and Senate. During the Coolidge administration, the House has always been solidly Republican, but the Senate has teetered, owing to the fact that a bare Republican majority included half a dozen insurgents who could not be relied upon to support party measures.

The Senate of the present (70th) Congress contains 47 Republicans (including irregulars). Of these only 13 had to be replaced either by re-election or election of successors. Of these, all were re-elected or Republicanly replaced.

The present Senate contains 46 Democrats. Of these, 20 had to be replaced. And of these, 8 were replaced by Republicans and not by Democrats.

Thus, the 71st Senate may contain (barring death) 56 Republicans, 38 Democrats, as well as the lone Farmer-Laborite Henrik Shipstead of Minnesota, who was reelected. Also, one vacancy (Vare).

The following individual triumphs were notable either for the contest or the personality involved:

Theodore Elijah Burton, 77 most famed and revered of all active Ohio Statesmen, strong of voice, quick to action. He has been in the Senate before. And both before and after his previous Senatorial term he served as Congressman, being thereby unique in U. S. history.

Phillips Lee Goldsborongh was Republican Governor in the pre-Ritchie era. Last week he defeated bumbling Senator Bruce. The Goldsborough name is one which, by some analyses of ancient Maryland society, is even more elect than the great name of Carroll. Another Goldsborough, this one a Democratic cousin of the Senator-elect, was re-elected to the House.

But in Delaware, a name which has been in the U. S. Senate for a century was defeated by Republican John G. Townsend. The defeated name was Bayard,--in this generation carried notably by extremely tall Thomas Francis.

And in that other small state Rhode Island, another name went down, for Peter Goelet Gerry, extremely rich and extremely active supporter of the Brown Derby failed of re-election to the Senate because Felix Hebert, a Dry Republican defeated him.

To carry on the tradition of Walcott service to the state and of the State's contribution to the U. S. Senate, Connecticut proudly elected Frederic C. Walcott, of old Yale and Republican ancestry.

Robert Marion La Follette, 33, was, of course, re-elected in Wisconsin, much to the satisfaction of his mother, Belle, able widow and onetime helpmate of the last great La Follette.

That great Democratic vote-getter David Ignatius Walsh, Wet Catholic, retained his Senatorial Seat from Massachusetts. Also, in New York, Democratic Dr. Royal S. Copeland survived. But in New Jersey, Wet Democratic Edward I. Edwards fell before mild-faced Hamilton F. Kean. In Montana, bitter was the battle and sweet the victory for famed radical Democrat Burton K. Wheeler. But in West Virginia bitter was the battle and bitter the defeat of War Hero M. M. Neely by Republican Henry D. Hatfield.

The House. Aside from the prospect that the Republican majority manipulated by Wet Speaker Nicholas Longworth and Leader John Q. Tilson will be bigger than ever, it was noted that the House of Representatives in the next Congress will include a Negro, Oscar De Priest of Chicago. Also, it will contain seven women, four who were re-elected and three Ruths (see p. 11). It will also have a newspaperman, Louis Ludlow, of Indianapolis, onetime Washington correspondent, but there will be no Socialist since Wisconsin's Berger was defeated.