Race for the House

What was the statistical basis for the prediction that Republicans will take over the House? Last week TIME correspondents reported from crucial districts in crucial states. A compilation of their reports, based on local polls and the best guesses of local experts, disclosed that Republicans, who now hold 192 seats in Congress, would make the following net gains: California (2), Illinois (3), Indiana (1), Michigan (4), Missouri (2), New York (6), Ohio (2), Pennsylvania (6), Washington (1), West Virginia (2).

Total: 29, which would enable the G.O.P.

to organize the House. Connecticut, Wisconsin and Oklahoma, where races are too confused to guess, may add to the margin.

To the Ashcan. Behind the impersonal figures are some colorful personalities.

The report from Michigan means that Frank E. Hook, belligerent spokesman of labor, is probably headed for the ashcan.

In Indiana, it means the end of Louis Ludlow, aging, ailing, rabid isolationist.

The Republican counted on to beat him: young Albert J. Beveridge Jr., son of the great orator and Progressive.

It means that the Missouri seat held for 20 years by able Jack Cochran, who scarcely had to lift a finger to get elected and who recently retired, will now go to a Republican.

In New York, it means that the seat of the late William B. Barry in Republican Queens will go to the G.O.P. It means that Donald O'Toole, leftist, will be beaten in usually solidly Democratic Brooklyn; that Charles A. Buckley will go down to defeat in Democratic Bronx.

In short, Democrats who had held control by combining the solid South with their strength in Northern industrial centers showed signs of cracking in the cities.

Landslide? In the privacy of the voting booth, contemplating 14 years of Democratic rule, voters may dump many another Democrat overboard. Then such candidates for re-election as radical Hugh De Lacey, of Washington, able Mike Monroney, of Oklahoma, gracious, conscientious Emily Taft Douglas, of Illinois, handsome Helen Gahagan Douglas, of California -- all of whom are hotly engaged -- will also disappear. Not only would there then be no question of Republicans organizing the House; the Republicans would have solid, unassailable control.

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