The Senate

In the Republican upsurge, four of the Administration's main senatorial pillars were ripped out while Robert A. ("Mr. Republican") Taft, the man the Administration most wanted to beat, won in Ohio by a spectacular majority of around 400,000. Of the Fair Deal's pillars in the Senate, Majority Leader Scott Lucas fell with the most resounding crash.

Lucas went down because Boss Jake Arvey's Chicago machine failed to deliver its usual huge Democratic majorities. Canny Jake had made a dreadful mistake; the Arvey machine had tried to ram through Dan ("Tubbo") Gilbert as Cook County sheriff (TIME, Nov. 6), despite Tubbo's barefaced explanation (grain speculating) of how he had piled up a $300,000 fortune with no fixed income beyond his $9,000-a-year salary as investigator in the state's attorney's office. Lucas never got out from under Tubbo's hulking shadow. In came rumpled-haired ex-Congressman Everett Dirksen, trumpet-voiced critic of the Administration's foreign policy. Out went Scott Lucas, after twelve years in the Senate, blanched with anger at his defeat.

Echoes of McCarthy. Almost as spectacular, even more unexpected, was the defeat of elegant, sarcastic Millard Tydings, chairman of the powerful Armed Services Committee, who had served Democratic Maryland as a Senator for 24 years. The thing that chiefly beat him was the charge that he had whitewashed the McCarthy investigation of Communism in the State Department. He was almost solidly opposed by Maryland Roman Catholics. Tydings was beaten by a man who had never run for office before, Republican John Marshall Butler, 53, topflight Baltimore attorney.

Utah's venerable (67), scholarly Elbert Thomas, chairman of the Senate Labor Committee and staunch supporter of organized labor, a Senator for 18 years, was beaten by a fellow Mormon, Wallace F. Bennett, 52, Utah paintmaker and last year's president of the National Association of Manufacturers.

The fourth pillar to go was Fair Dealing Francis J. Myers of Pennsylvania, Senate majority whip, faithful and undeviating Administration supporter for twelve years. Myers was upended by red-haired Governor James Duff, 67, onetime Bull Mooser, who had defied the Grundy machine to win the nomination.

Loss of Leaders. With the liquidation of Lucas and Myers, Harry Truman faced the problem of finding a majority leader and a whip to handle Administration bills in a Senate now actually stacked with a majority of anti-Administration members. In the 82nd Congress, 22 of the 49 Democrats will be Southerners. Harry Truman will have to go, hat in hand, to a Senate now completely dominated by the conservative coalition of Southern Democrats and Republicans.

Taft's victory in Ohio bowled over the nonentity Joe Ferguson, who gave up with a philosophic, "Many great men went down to defeat today." Organized labor had rung doorbells, scattered anti-Taft comic books and spent large sums to defeat its No. i target. Taft even carried the industrial centers. The vote, said a gratified Taft, was "an omen for 1952."

Other Republican victories: P: Richard Nixon, 37, congressional bloodhound of the Hiss case, who decisively beat Fair Dealer Helen Gahagan Douglas in California by making the Administration's failures in Asia his major issue.

P: Eugene Millikin, jovial, conservative G.O.P. stalwart, showed surprising strength in defeating Fair Dealer John Carroll in Colorado. P: Bourke Hickenlooper of Iowa, Alexander Wiley of Wisconsin and Homer Capehart of Indiana, three conservative Midwest Republicans, beat their Fair Deal opponents. Three members of the G.O.P.'s progressive wing, Oregon's Wayne Morse, New Hampshire's Charles Tobey and Vermont's George Aiken, also won handily.

Administration consolations for Senate races:

P: In Missouri, Thomas C. Hennings Jr., onetime Congressman, defeated dogged, conservative Forrest Donnell, became the only Democrat to turn a Republican out of a Senate seat. Truman opposed Hennings in the primary in his home state, was glad enough to get him in the finals. P: In Connecticut, Adman Bill Benton squeaked through over Wall Street Banker Prescott Bush, while Benton's old advertising-agency partner, Chester Bowles, was losing the governorship (see below). Brien ("Mr. Atom") McMahon, who ignored both Benton & Bowles, was easily reelected.

P: In Oklahoma, Mike Monroney was an overwhelming winner over the Rev. Bill Alexander, pastor turned circus-style politician.

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