The Sunday Star (October 20, 1946)
GOP may gain 6 seats from Democrats in election in Illinois
Former House member opposes Mrs. Douglas in statewide race
By Gould Lincoln, Star staff correspondent
CHICAGO, Oct. 19 – Democrats and Republicans in Illinois are fighting today over the election of 26 members of the House in the new Congress which assembles next January.
As of today, it seems entirely probable the Republicans will take at least three of the House seats now occupied by Democrats, and there is a strong possibility they may gain three more.
The Democrats are striving not only to hold the seats they now have, but also they believe they may upset the Republicans in the 19th and 23rd districts.
Only one contest in Illinois this year is statewide – for representative-at-large. This race between Mrs. Emily Taft Douglas, incumbent Democrat, and former Rep. William G. Stratton, Republican, is attracting wide attention.
Served one term
Mr. Stratton, who served one term in the House from January 1941 to January 1943 as representative-at-large. was an isolationist. Some of his speeches in Congress were sent out, the Democrats stress, by George Sylvester Viereck, Nazi propagandist. The Republicans reply that Mr. Stratton’s isolationism was before the Jap attack on Pearl Harbor and that Mr. Stratton is a veteran of the recent war – a lieutenant, junior grade, in the Navy, with services in the South Pacific. He was nominated for Congress this year while still in the Navy.
Mrs. Douglas has been a strong supporter of the Roosevelt-Truman New Deal policies. A graduate of the University of Chicago, she was at one time an organizer of the Illinois League of Women Voters.
Her husband, a former professor and city councilor, enlisted at the outbreak of the war as a private in the Marine Corps, saw much service in the South Pacific and came out as a major.
Elected two years ago
She was elected to Congress two years ago, defeating former Rep. Day, Republican – also dubbed an isolationist – by 191,245 votes. In the 1942 election Mr. Day had been elected, despite his isolationist stand, by 86,366. Mrs. Douglas, running on the ticket headed by President Roosevelt and with the war in full swing, administered an overwhelming defeat to Mr. Day. Mr. Roosevelt carried Illinois that year with a lead of 141,165 over Gov. Thomas Dewey of New York, due entirely to the huge plurality of 417,000 which Mayor Ed Kelly, the Democratic boss, ran up in Chicago. The Republicans carried the down state area and Cook County outside of Chicago.
The interest in the Douglas-Stratton race lies in the fact that it is the only statewide test of the feeling of the electorate toward the Truman administration, a kind of forerunner of what may be expected when President Truman, if he is renominated, goes to the polls in 1948. While Mr. Stratton has gotten away from the isolationist position he occupied when he served in the House, his victory or defeat will be considered a test of sentiment on foreign policy – and a victory by him will give the Chicago Tribune a chance to crow.
Vote will be tighter
A number of things operate in favor of a Stratton victory. In the first place, this is an off year election and the vote will be materially lighter than it was in 1944. There is no Roosevelt heading the ticket or in the White House to give the Democrats a boost. The general discontent of the voters is militating against Democrats here as in other states.
Mr. Stratton, only 32, has a pleasing and friendly personality and is no slouch as a campaigner. In fact, a Stratton victory is considered “entirely probable,” if not certain.
The other two Republican House victories over incumbent Democrats, considered “entirely probable,” are in the 22nd (East St. Louis) District where Cal Johnson, Republican, is running against Rep. Price and in the 3rd District. In the latter, Fred Busbey, Republican, is opposing Rep. Kelly. In 1944, in the 22nd District, the Democrats won by less than 3,000 votes, and in the 3rd District by 12,000.
May win 3 districts
Republicans also are given chances of winning in the 2nd, 7th and 9th Districts. Indeed, one Republican leader gave it as his opinion that GOP victory in these districts was “highly probable.”
The 1st District, in the heart of Chicago, the Loop district, is represented by a Negro Democrat, Rep. Dawson. The Republicans are claiming a change of political heart on the part of the big Negro vote in this district, and that their candidate, also a Negro, will be elected. This is firmly denied, however, by the Democratic leadership.
What happens in regard to the Negro vote this year will hold great significance, not only in Illinois but in other big Northern and Eastern states. The late President Roosevelt took the Negro vote away from the traditional Republican fold.
Another big bloc of votes in Chicago is the Polish-American. The Poles turned to the Democratic Party in a big way in the days of President Woodrow Wilson, who had a big part in’ the re-establishment of Poland as an independent nation. Many of the Poles today are hostile to the Truman administration, on the ground that it sold out to Russia on the Polish issue. The Republicans are hoping for a good part of this vote.
Voting rules changed
The Democrats are counting on the adoption of permanent registration downstate – heavy Republican territory – to cut down the GOP vote. In the past, residents have been able to vote without going through the form of permanent registration. Farmers have been able to vote by absentee ballot and even by affidavits over the telephone.
Mayor Kelly believes that this may reduce the Republican vote downstate by 100,000 votes. Werner Schroeder, Republican national committeeman, while admitting this new registration may have some effect on the vote, says that it will be slight and pointed out that it may cut into the Democratic vote as well as the Republican. He insists the Republican vote downstate will be of landslide proportions.
The voters downstate have had two years in which to prepare for permanent registration and to get themselves on the poll lists. Peoria County, he points out, has the largest registration today it has ever had.
Both sides are waiting anxiously to see what the effect on the campaign will be of the lifting of controls on meat and increases in prices. Also the threats of many labor organizations to demand higher wages, and to strike if necessary to get the increases, give the Democrats an uncozy feeling.