National Affairs: Opposites in Illinois

Illinois ranks as a key state in U.S. politics by virtue of its size (pop. 8,712,176, the nation's fourth largest), its strategic location in the heart of the Midwest, and its recent history as the bitterly disputed battleground of a strongly liberal Democratic Party and a strongly conservative Republican Party. It is a state in which such political disparities as Adlai Stevenson and Colonel Robert McCormick exert great influence. Its present U.S. Senators —Democrat Paul Douglas and Republican Everett McKinley Dirksen—stand at extreme political poles, representing almost equal segments of Illinois opinion. This year Illinois voters again have the clear sort of choice they seem to demand: Incumbent Paul Douglas is in the fight of his life against Republican Joseph Meek, for almost 20 years a retail merchants' lobbyist. Rarely, even in Illinois, have two candidates differed so greatly, both politically and personally—and nowhere are these differences so evident as in the day-by-day campaign styles of Paul Douglas and Joe Meek.

Joe v. the Perfesser. At 5 o'clock one morning last week, Joe Meek bounded out of bed, put on his glasses, and sat down to write his own speeches for a 15-hour campaign day. Finished with that, he gulped his breakfast and took off in a battered station wagon on a tour of four central Illinois county seats. His entourage consisted of a driver and a newsman. In Lincoln,* Meek worked both sides of the street, entering bars, shops, hotel lobbies, and every place else with an unlocked door. To all, he carried the same friendly, beaming message: "I'm Joe Meek and I'm doing a little politicking."

In Lincoln's white-frame Recreation Hall, Joe manfully downed his ham, scalloped potatoes and Jello salad. Then he got up to deliver an oration, heavily larded, as usual, with references to Paul Douglas, onetime faculty member at the University of Chicago, as "The Perfesser from the Midway" and the "Senior Socialist Senator from Illinois."

"I've seen three wars under Democrat ic regimes,'' said Meek. "I've seen the Democrats impose an income tax, even though they were warned that the power to tax is the power to destroy. I've seen three New Deal Presidents trying to wreck the nation. I've seen Mr. Wilson.

Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Truman shedding the blood of American boys. I don't blame Mr. Wilson as much as the other two—at least he didn't work with Communist Russia. I'm against price controls that have no real purpose. I don't want American boys to die on foreign battlefields. I'm very fond of this tax-reform program which my opponent, the Medicine Man from the Midway, in true demagogic fashion, says is a disaster for the country. I believe in collective bargaining. I want to slice foreign handouts. I'm for our flexible farm program, which is not going to hurt the farmer. If all this makes me an old fogy, that's O.K. with me."