Defeat

Last week Kenneth Farrand Simpson, 45, had had his first 23 days as Congressman from Manhattan's silk-stocking district. He had started briskly: he offered a substitute measure for the President's Lend-Lease Bill, along the lines of Wendell Willkie's suggestions, limiting the Presidential powers to two years, giving Congress greater control. The stocky, outspoken, ex-Republican boss of Manhattan seemed the most dynamic Republican freshman in a decade. He was counted on to bring to Republican counsels a liberal spirit, fruitful imagination and good-natured common sense.

Kenneth Simpson spent his weeks in Washington, his weekends in Manhattan.

There Republican affairs had gone against him; last December he felt compelled to resign his last important party post, the county chairmanship. Thomas Dewey, once Simpson's ally, later his bitter foe, emerged in complete control of the New York County Republican machine, with only the still potent Simpson voice to be heard from the outside. Last week the voice was silenced. Sitting in his Manhattan study, Kenneth Simpson collapsed with a heart attack, managed to call to his wife for help before he died. Tributes poured in from many he had fought--from President Roosevelt, Tom Dewey, Mayor LaGuardia. The short story of Kenneth Simpson's national career was over.

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