Newcomers in the House

THERE will be 62 new members of the House of Representatives when the 92nd Congress convenes in January. Among the more interesting newcomers of both parties:

RONALD v. DELLUMS. They ate watermelon and cheered a tap dancer at Ron Dellums' victory party in prideful put-on, as a black militant triumphed at the polls. The new Democratic Congressman from California, one of twelve blacks elected to Congress last week, offered his thanks to "my public relations expert, Spiro T. Agnew." His comment was far from gratuitous, for when the Vice President attacked Dellums as an "out-and-out radical," Agnew rattled the voters in the white liberal community of Berkeley and the black ghettos of Oakland into the voting booths. Democrat Dellums, 34, social worker and member of the Berkeley city council (who had often acted as go-between for the council and campus radicals), drew vice-presidential fire for his defense of the Black Panthers. While Democratic candidates elsewhere scampered toward the moderate center under a Republican law-and-order blitz, Dellums stood his ground: "If it's radical to want an end to war and violence so that we can devote ourselves to the challenges of peace, then I am pleased to call myself a radical." His stance added Berkeley to his almost monolithic black base in Oakland, and he won by 25,000 votes. Dellums campaigned in the union halls of the district's blue collar areas, too, arguing that "you do not leave the blue collar worker out there screaming for help."

BELLA ABZUG. One of the fall's liveliest campaigns produced a colorful new Congresswoman. Mrs. Bella Abzug, 50, trademark brimmed hat pulled over her head, canvassed Greenwich Village, Lower East Side and West Side streets of Manhattan's 19th Congressional District seeking support for her antiwar, Women's Liberation views. She upset a longtime Democratic incumbent in the primary, then turned her energies on her Republican opponent, Barry Farber, a local radio interviewer. Farber (who is Jewish) accused Mrs. Abzug (who is Jewish) of being anti-Israel. But Mrs. Abzug said she had long been active in Zionist causes and had underscored it by campaigning on the Lower East Side--in Yiddish. A lawyer who traveled to Mississippi to defend black clients in the mid-'50s, an organizer of Women Strike for Peace and an architect of the "Dump Johnson Movement," Mrs. Abzug was the darling of the city's ultraliberals. She sloganeered, "This woman's place is in the House . . . the House of Representatives." And after winning her seat she vowed to go to Capitol Hill and wage war on the seniority system.

JACK KEMP. President Nixon can find comfort in Buffalo's new Congressman Jack Kemp. Not only is Kemp a staunch backer of the President's policies, he is a football fan too. Kemp left a $50,000-a-year job as quarterback of the Buffalo Bills to run for the House and turned out to be as successful in politics as he had been on the field.* He had help from an old friend of his days on Governor Ronald Reagan's staff, White House Adviser Robert Finch, and from Nixon's director of communications, Herb Klein. Kemp, 35, who campaigned for Barry Goldwater in 1964, pointed his campaign to the right of center, wiring the President his support of the Cambodian invasion and calling for a moratorium on criticism of the Administration's war policies.

LOUISE DAY HICKS. "You know where she stands" was a campaign slogan of Boston Democrat Louise Day Hicks. Indeed they know. All they need to do is to remember Mrs. Hicks' unsuccessful but formidable 1967 campaign for mayor, in which she clearly explained her views on neighborhood schools, her admiration for blue collar workers, her enthusiasm for law-and-order. This time Mrs. Hicks, 52, barely bothered to campaign. She limited her appearances to small gatherings in constituents' homes, eschewing debate with Republican Laurence Curtis, a former Congressman, and Independent Dove Daniel J. Hou-ton, a Viet Nam veteran endorsed by the New Republic. She still won by more than 32,000 votes in a race that had but one element of doubt: whether or not Mrs. Hicks would serve out her term or return for another run at the Boston mayor's office.

THE REV. ROBERT DRINAN. While the Boston working-class neighborhoods went for conservative Mrs. Hicks, the suburbs sent to Congress a Jesuit priest who is an outspoken dove. The Rev. Robert Drinan, 49, will become the second priest ever to serve in Congress.* Drinan's antiwar campaign sagged after a primary victory over a longtime Democratic incumbent, and in the closing days he turned to economic issues to rescue his race. Drinan relied on a corps of youthful volunteers and smoothly ran a computerized campaign to fulfill the hopes of a catchy election-night placard that read OUR FATHER WHO ART IN CONGRESS.

PIERRE S. DU PONT IV. The power of the Du Pont name in Delaware moved in fresh ways with the election of Pierre S. du Pont IV, 35, to the state's at-large seat in the House. Du Font's background includes America's Cup yachting, Phillips Exeter, Princeton and Harvard Law School, and a stint as an executive in the family's chemical company. Republican Du Pont ran a strict party-line campaign, stressing law-and-order and withdrawing his earlier support of Charles Goodell when the White House opened its attack on the New York Senator. The scion of one of the country's largest fortunes also stressed environmental issues during his campaign, advocating stiffer fines for industrial air and water polluters--which included Du Pont. Pierre will be a commuting Congressman. Said his wife after the election: "That's what the Metroliner is for."

* Kemp led the Bills to two league championships (1964-1965) and was the A.F.L.'s most valuable player in 1965.

* The first was the Rev. Gabriel Richard, who in 1823 was elected as a nonvoting member from Michigan, when it was still a Territory.

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