Monday, Nov. 16, 1942
New Faces in the House
When the House reorganizes next January, there will be a generous number of new and important personalities who will add statesmanship, experience, life and color. Some of them:
Howard Johnstone McMurray, political science professor at the University of Wisconsin, who beat Republican Isolationist Lewis D. Thill in a Milwaukee German district which sent Socialist Victor L. Berger to Congress in 1918 as an anti-war representative. Son of a Baptist preacher, short, sturdy Democrat Howard McMurray, 41, is a licensed pilot, onetime Interstate Airlines operations and sales manager, onetime insurance statistician. Socialite women worked in his campaign headquarters, labor leaders supported him on the radio. His platform: post-war internationalism.
Will Rogers Jr., serious-minded son of the late, famed humorist; youthful (29) publisher of the Beverly Hills (Calif.) Citizen; now a second lieutenant with a tank destroyer battalion at Camp Hood, Tex. To beat labor-baiting Leland M. Ford, Democrat Rogers made only one recorded speech, which was broadcast four times. While in the Army, he continued to write a column for his paper. Excerpt from last week's: "The first time I cranked and fired the 75 ... I couldn't hit my hat. Cranking the blooming thing is like patting your head and rubbing your stomach. ... But after a little practice I got better ... at the finish hit 10 out Of 10 -- a feat I would have announced as impossible."
Clare Boothe Luce, onetime managing editor of Vanity Fair, playwright (The Women, Kiss the Boys Goodbye, Margin for Error), front-line war reporter, elected from Connecticut's Fairfield County. Said novice Politico Boothe: I have campaigned for fighting a hard war--not a soft war. Therefore this election proves how the American people want to fight with their eyes open, not with blinders. They want to fight it efficiently and without bungling. They want to fight it in honorable, all-out, plain-spoken partnership with all our Allies."
Dr. Walter H. Judd, able surgeon, who returned to the U.S. in 1938 to stump for an embargo against Japan, after spending the better part of a decade as a medical missionary in China. Elected from Minnesota, dark-haired, bespectacled Republican Dr. Judd, 44, will give House stenographers a busy workout; his customary rate of speech is 240 words per minute (the norm: 120).
Robert Hale, forthright Portland (Me.) lawyer, former Rhodes Scholar, former State representative, member of a family that has represented Maine in the U.S. Senate almost continuously since 1881. An all-out supporter of the Roosevelt foreign policy, Republican Robert Hale, 52, had to defend himself in the election against an article he wrote for Harper's Magazine in 1936 entitled: But I, Too, Hate Roosevelt* revived by toothy Democrat Louis J. Brann. Maine's voters liked Bale's defense: "I am probably the most outspoken advocate in Maine of President Roosevelt's foreign policies. Also, I guess I am the most outspoken critic of his domestic policies."
Michael A. Feighan, shy, bespectacled Cleveland lawyer, son of a Republican banker, able onetime Democratic minority leader in the Ohio Legislature. Graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School, forward-looking Mike Feighan, 37, beat New Deal-hating Martin L. Sweeney in the primary, coasted to victory in the election despite Ohio's Republican revolution.
James Coats Auchincloss, bluff Republican Wall Streeter from New Jersey's Monmouth County, where he beat deaf, red-mustached Democrat William H. Sutphin, author of the amendment to a Navy appropriation bill which eliminated $5,000,000 for fortification of Guam. Nephew of Sir James Coats, founder of Britain's thread trust (J. & P. Coats), Broker Auchincloss, 57, bought a seat on the New York Stock Exchange for $92,000 a few days after his graduation from Yale in 1910. His only previous political experience has been as three-time Mayor of Rumson (he says he has never fixed a traffic ticket). He lives on a 15-acre estate, putters in his garden, collects American glass, makes "the best darned mashed potatoes in Monmouth County."
Cameron Morrison, wealthy, red-faced, tobacco-chewing former Governor of North Carolina, former U.S. Senator. A stiff-necked Southern gentleman down to the ends of his swallow-tailed coats, fire-eating Cam Morrison, now 73, was pushed out of the Senate in 1932 by roaring Bob Reynolds, who informed the shocked hillbillies of North Carolina that Cam eats "cah-vi-ah--you know what that is, fish eggs." Cam Morrison will be the third ex-Senator in the House. The others: New York's James W. Wadsworth, Kentucky's John M. Robsion.
Christian Archibald Herter, Back Bay Bostonian, sportsman, speaker of the Massachusetts Legislature, who replaces New Deal-hating, British-hating George Holden Tinkham, owner of the scraggliest beard in Congress. Paris-born, Harvard-educated, Republican Herter, 47, was an attache in the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, onetime assistant to Herbert Hoover. He also edited the Independent (1924-28), was co-founder and associate editor of The Sportsman (1927-36), lectured on international relations at Harvard. His hobbies: tennis, golf, duck shooting.
Paul Stewart, Democrat, fat, jovial, red-nosed newspaper publisher and onetime State Senator from Antlers, Okla., who is a dead ringer for Funnyman W. C. Fields.
* In answer to Washington Correspondent Marquis Child's They Hate Roosevelt
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