Mopping Up

ELECTION

By last week most U. S. citizens had recovered their normal temperature after a feverish election. Once again World War II took over the headlines. The radio returned to straightforward entertainment. Here & there a deadlocked election still awaited the final count. There were the customary post-election cries of fraud, demands for recounts, for changes in the rules. But for most people the campaign was over and done with. Some tag ends:

How Much? Republican and Democratic National Committees closed their campaign books with bland, canary-swallowing announcements that their expenditures had been kept tidily within the $3,000,000 limit set by the Hatch Act. Their combined outlay for the 1936 campaign had been $14,544,000. To those who considered 1940's tremendous activity, its hours of high-cost radio time, its scores of expensive full-page advertisements in hundreds of newspapers, it was obvious that others besides the national committees had spent a lot of money. It looked like one of the most expensive U. S. campaigns ever. If so, the Hatch Act was another noble but unsuccessful experiment.

Republicans. Away for a fortnight's holiday at Jupiter Island, off Florida's east coast, went ex-Candidate Wendell Willkie, his future unknown and unannounced. To his 10,000-odd Willkie Clubs went the word that a respite from politics until mid-December was in order, then, for those with crusaders' stomachs, a new organization aiming at 1944. Probable new name: "We the People."

Kansans wondered when they would learn who their new Governor was. Week ago Democratic Candidate William H. Burke had apparently defeated Republican Governor Payne Ratner in a State that went Republican. But some 16,000 absentee ballots remained to be counted. This week, with about 5,000 uncounted ballots left, Burke's lead had been whittled to 1,310 votes. What disturbed him most was that his opponent had been getting 70% of the absentees. If that trend held up he would lose by a hair.

Washington. Upsetting all pre-election odds, Seattle's Arthur Langlie, businessman and political amateur, beat out Democrat Clarence Dill, ex-Senator, by a meagre 8,885 votes as the last absentee ballot was tallied.

Minority Parties. Last week the total votes for minority-party candidates--Communist Browder, Socialist Thomas, Prohibitionist Babson, Socialist-Labor Aiken, National Greenbacker Zahnd (TIME, Oct. 21)--were still unknown, were not likely to be tallied for a fortnight. In Manhattan, Communists called a special convention, went through the motions of disowning Moscow. Reason: the Voorhis Act that requires registration of groups under foreign control.

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