Warning from Wisconsin

Almost to a man, politicians and pundits thought the Republican candidate would win the special election in Wisconsin's Ninth Congressional District. In all its history, the Ninth had never elected a labeled Democrat to Congress. But when the votes were counted last week, Democrat Lester R. Johnson was the winner over Republican Arthur L. Padrutt, 27,929 to 21,133. The result brought out black headlines from coast to coast and some black crepe at Republican national headquarters. Many Democrats and quite a few Republicans leaped to the conclusion that the 6,796 votes that separated the winner and the loser represented a national trend. It was a long leap.

A Progressive Tradition. Wisconsin's Ninth, which lies in the west-central section of the state along the Minnesota border, is traditionally a La Follette Progressive district. It has a strong membership in the Farmers Union, the left wing of farm organizations, and a substantial C.I.O. vote. It was long the personal barony of Representative Merlin Hull, whom it elected to eleven terms in Congress, six as a Progressive and five as a Republican. Though he wore the Republican label from 1947 until he died last May, Congressman Hull had voted more like a Democrat on domestic issues. In two primaries, the Republican organization had tried, unsuccessfully, to purge him.

In his campaign this year. Democratic Candidate Johnson promised the voters of the Ninth District that he would vote as Hull had voted.

Democrat Johnson, 52, a stolid district attorney from Black River Falls (Hull's home town), was a Scandinavian-American running in a Scandinavian district, had more personal standing than his opponent. No orator but an accomplished handshaker, he brought in an array of outsiders to speak for him: Tennessee's Senator Estes Kefauver, who was Johnson's candidate for President last year, and two former Secretaries of Agriculture, Charles Brannan and Claude Wickard. He also had a recorded endorsement from Adlai Stevenson. Johnson pitched it as a straight anti-Republican campaign: "Stop the Republican Recession."

Republican Padrutt, 36, an ex-schoolteacher from Chippewa Falls who had served in the legislature for 13 years, sold his photographic supply shop to make the race for Congress. He conducted an active campaign, had the help of a four-day tour in his behalf by Republican Governor Walter Kohler. He said little about the farm issue until late in the campaign. Then he blamed the farm squeeze--rising cost of living and falling farm prices--on old Democratic policies, and promised to help develop a better plan. He campaigned on the President's coattails: "Help Ike to help you . . . Vote Republican."

"Times Are Tougher." Obviously, many of the Ninth's voters did not view this election as they saw the presidential election last November, when Eisenhower got 84,000 votes to Stevenson's 46,000. Considerably less than half as many voted. There was no doubt that some farmers who had voted for Eisenhower voted against the man who was running on his name. In the dairy-farming district, farmers were worried about the slump in prices of cattle and other farm products. They were disturbed because Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson, who spoke in the district three weeks before election, had not come forward with a specific farm program, but had again and again indicated that he had grave reservations about the present (i.e., the Democratic) farm program. Benson seemed to threaten a change, but he had not said to what.

Farmer Carl Wulle, who has 50 cows on 160 acres near Colfax, explained why he voted for Democrat Johnson. Said he: "I voted Republican last year. I liked Eisenhower's speeches and promises then. There was that Korean mess, and Ike said he could finish it--and he did. I thought he could do something about farm prices, too, but he hasn't yet, and times are getting tougher .. . Two weeks ago I shipped two cows . . . One cow brought me $90 and the other $120.80 . . . That's $210 for two cows. Why, under Truman, you got that much for one ..."

Farmer Wulle's kind of analysis shook the Republican organization from New York to California. After the bad news on election day, some G.O.P. members of Congress, e.g., North Dakota's Senator Milton R. Young, shouted that Secretary Benson must go because "he has lost the confidence of the farmers." Others cried that the Wisconsin results meant that Congress would not and could not abandon rigid support of farm prices at 90% of parity. Democrats, and some Republicans, said that the Eisenhower Administration had already lost the farm vote.

The defeat in the Ninth District will have an enormous effect in Washington next year, may scare the Republicans away from any changes in price supports. It is much too early to say, as some Republicans and many Democrats were saying last week, that the Administration has already lost the farm vote. What it has lost through overconfidence in Wisconsin and insufficient energy among Republican farm leaders, including Benson, is the initiative in the fight for a more sense-making farm program. Wisconsin's Ninth puts Benson on the defensive, and he will have a hard time getting out of the trenches.

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