Attempted Suicide

Attempted suicide is a misdemeanor in New Jersey, and last week New Jersey's Republican Party was looking somewhat misdemeanant. When Senatorial Candi date Clifford Case rose to speak at the Morris County Fair one night, sign-carrying pickets marched around the fringe of the crowd. "You're off base if you vote for Case," said one. Outside of New Jersey it would have been considered strange that signs attacking Republican Case were carried by Republicans.

The demonstration in Morris County was but another step in the New Jersey Republican Party's efforts toward self-destruction. In 1953 G.O.P. leaders threw away the governorship by putting up a weak candidate, New Jersey Turnpike Builder Paul Troast. This year a party faction that had learned the lesson of 1953 got able, popular Cliff Case to resign from a $40,000-a-year Ford Foundation job and take the nomination for the U.S. Senate. A short time later, after Case issued a statement attacking Joe McCarthy, the Old Guard faction began to make trouble.

Aim for the Future. Its chief argument against Lawyer Case is that his voting record in Congress (1945-53) was more Democratic than Republican. A group represented by Publicityman James P. Selvage, onetime pressagent for the National Association of Manufacturers (1933-38) and for the Republican National Committee (1943-44), has attacked Case as a darling of the Americans for Democratic Action and the C.I.O. By last week Republican State Chairman Samuel L. Bodine considered the attack serious enough to issue a point-by-point reply. Selvage's material, said Bodine, was a collection of "false statements, distortions and misrepresentations." Example: Selvage said Case "voted to kill the Taft-Hartley Act." Bodine pointed out that, in fact, Case voted for the Taft-Hartley Act, against recommittal, and for its passage over Harry Truman's veto.

The announced aim of the anti-Case forces is to drive him out of the race. A suggested replacement: former U.S. Representative Fred Hartley Jr. (of Taft-Hartley). But even the leaders of the movement know that they cannot force Case out. Their long-range aim: to make Case look weak so that they can seize control of the party if he loses.

While the Republicans fight on, Jersey Democrats are cheering and chuckling on the sidelines. Smirked U.S. Representative Charles Howell, the Democratic candidate for the Senate: "I hesitate to interfere in someone else's family quarrel, but it is hard to remain silent when I hear Republicans saying things about one another which I have never dreamed saying about my opponent."

The G.O.P. suicide attempt in New Jersey is hurting Cliff Case, but he has the wholehearted backing of the White House and is still a strong contender. Always a big vote getter in his own congressional district, he ran 10,000 votes ahead of Dwight Eisenhower in 1952. His basic political philosophy: the U.S. should .follow a great middle way, and the Republican Party is the instrument to find that way.

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