JUDGMENT & PROPHECIES

ON THE CAMPAIGN

ABOUT THE ELECTION

THE ISSUES

JOSEPH C. HARSCH, Washington correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor: The issue least mentioned on the American hustings this autumn is the one uppermost in the thoughts of the practical professional politicians of both parties. On Nov. 2 the voters of the United States, largely without being aware of it, will decide whether the enormous investigating enthusiasm of their federal legislators will be turned against Democrats or against Republicans over the next two years. The object over the past two years has been to manufacture Republican ammunition for this campaign out of the record of the Roosevelt-Truman era. The object during the next two years, if the Democrats win, will be to manufacture Democratic ammunition for 1956 out of the record of the first two Eisenhower years.

Fair-Dealing Columnist DORIS FLEESON : This is a pocketbook election. The emotional issues which swept Gen. Eisenhower into the White House have receded far into the background. The American people may not be proud of the truce in Korea but they have apparently thrust that unpopular war into the back of their minds. They seem to have similarly discounted the setback in Indo-China. Sen. McCarthy is another dead duck. The campaign is lethargic in large part because these emotional, highly personal issues have been superseded by economic questions. And there is no doubt the Democratic trend results from the economic picture.

WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST JR., in his "Editor's Report": The consensus would seem to indicate Democratic dark horses as the probable winners in most of the races. There is no doubt that the failure of divergent factors in the [Republican] party to reconcile their differences and form a united front is one of the prime reasons for the present state of affairs. I think the answer can be stated: McCarthy. In 1952 Joe McCarthy was a tremendous Democratic problem. In 1954 Joe McCarthy is a tremendous Republican problem. Whereas the Democrats were unable to steal the anti-Commie ball from the Republicans, the latter seem to have kicked it around until they have lost it.

WHO WILL WIN?

ROSCOE DRUMMOND, New York Herald Tribune Washington bureau chief: Most of the forecasters are in agreement : the Democrats will win the House by twenty to forty seats, take control of the Senate by three to five seats, win several important governorships from the Republicans, including Pennsylvania and possibly New York, and will lose none of the governorships they now hold. The party in power almost always loses [House] seats in the mid-term voting. If [the Republicans] can hold their losses to, say, twenty seats, that would be considered a Republican victory, since the average loss of House seats by the party in power in the off-year elections has been thirty-eight. The Republicans had hoped to hold their thin control of the Senate. Unless the forecasters are nearly all wrong, it does not look as though they would.