KEY STATE--MASSACHUSETTS

One of the pivotal states in the 1952 election is Massachusetts, with 16 electoral votes. This is the situation there:

Background: Massachusetts has gone Democratic in every presidential election since 1928, and seven of its last eleven gubernatorial elections have been won by Democrats. Since 1944, however, both Massachusetts Senators have been Republicans, and since 1948 eight of the state's 14 Congressmen have been Republican. In 1952, for the first time in years, registered Republicans (715,958) outnumbered registered Democrats (703,740) in Massachusetts. These statistics are deceptive, because another 700,000 Massachusetts voters not formally enrolled in either party vote far more heavily Democratic than Republican. Two-thirds of the state's potential voters are Roman Catholics, and more than half are foreign born or first-generation Americans. In the past, state Democratic leaders have worked hard, and sometimes successfully, to convince voters that the Democratic Party is the secular arm of the Catholic Church.

Massachusetts politicians, however, differentiate sharply between the racial groups making up the state's Catholic population. Most numerous are the Irish (750,000 or more), who are also the staunchest Democrats. Republicans have had the most success with the increasingly important Italians (300,000), but Democratic Governor Paul Dever has been working hard to mend his Italian fences.

For Governor: Democrat Dever, 49, who is generally conceded to be one of the smartest politicians ever to sit on Beacon Hill, is a moon-faced bachelor with a hearty Irish smile. During his two terms as governor, he has loaded the state payroll with his supporters and has thereby created Massachusetts' most formidable personal machine. Dever can and does point with pride to a $400 million highway program and construction of schools, hospitals and public housing. But many Massachusetts TV owners who watched the corpulent governor keynote the Democratic National Convention were distressed at his resemblance to any cartoonist's conception of an 1890 Republican plutocrat. Other voters were angered when Dever attempted to ignore public outcry against an overgenerous pension bill for Massachusetts politicians (TIME, Sept. 15). He finally yielded to public pressure, called a special session of the legislature, which last week repealed the bill.

Dever's Republican opponent, Congressman Christian Herter, 57, has an excellent record as a leader of Republican internationalists in the House of Representatives. In his campaign Herter has put great emphasis on informal gatherings, and cannot hope to match the old-school political oratory which will be unleashed when Paul Dever's campaign gets fully under way. In an effort to keep Irish, Italian, Polish and French-Canadian voters away from Herter, Democrats have labeled Herter a "Yankee," which in the strict New England sense he is not; his paternal grandfather came from Germany and he was born in Paris, where his father was studying painting. Democrats are also whispering that Chris Herter is opposed to state-financed buses for parochial schools, which he is not; he opposes buses for such schools as Groton and Andover. The pension scandal gave Herter an issue with which to club Dever, but the effectiveness of Herter's attack is still uncertain.

A month ago Paul Dever seemed a sure winner in November. Now Christian Herter is given a chance.

For U.S. Senator: Republican Henry Cabot Lodge, one of Massachusetts' outstanding votegetters, was first elected to the Senate in 1936. He has an excellent war record (World War II service in Libya, Italy and France). Heir to one of Yankeedom's most patrician names, he is also heir to the good will earned by his famed grandfather, the first Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, who espoused the cause of the Irish in the days when some Massachusetts shopkeepers still put up signs, HELP WANTED. NO IRISH NEED APPLY. The younger Lodge has used all his political skill to maintain that good will, but this year he is up against the scion of Boston's only "Irish Brahmin" family, Democratic Congressman John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Grandson of Boston's famed mayor, the late John ("Honey Fitz") Fitzgerald, and son of former Ambassador to the Court of St. James's Joe Kennedy, the 35-year-old Democratic candidate also has good looks, charm and an impressive war record as skipper of a PT boat. Accompanied by his regal mother and winsome sisters, Jack Kennedy has effectively capitalized on all these assets at campaign "teas," attended altogether by about 20,000 Massachusetts women (TIME, Aug. 18).

Although Kennedy has been campaigning one way and another for nearly a year and a half, Lodge opened his formal campaign only about two weeks ago. The Lodge forces have published throughout the state advertisements disclosing that Jack Kennedy has been absent or not recorded on 47% of the votes held in the House of Representatives this year.

Coming from behind in the last two weeks, Lodge is now neck & neck with Kennedy.

For President: Neither presidential campaign is off the ground in Massachusetts. Stevenson has spoken there once, Ike not at all. Ike's popularity in Massachusetts has slipped since last spring's primary, but not long ago a Massachusetts Republican reported to Eisenhower headquarters in New York: "The state will go for Ike. I can feel it in my bones." Replied a top Ike strategist: "I hope your bones can vote. If Ike can carry Massachusetts, he's in."

Bones aside, Massachusetts is a tossup and neither side has any basis for confidence in how the presidential battle will come out.

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