JUDGMENT & PROPHECIES

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RALPH McGiLL, editor of the pro-Stevenson Atlanta Constitution: A diagnostician, putting his ear to the hairy chest of the South, can hear enough murmurs, burblings, wheezes and croakings to come up with a fairly confident political prognosis. The basic question no longer is whether the South, after a great surge for Gen. Eisenhower in 1952, will return "for good" to the Democratic Party in 1956, a sadder but wiser prodigal son. As of now the answer to that question is, "Yes, it will return to what the party leaders refer to as the 'house of our fathers.' But it will not be 'to stay.' "

WILLARD EDWARDS, Washington political correspondent of the Chicago Tribune: A highly placed Republican officeholder said his party apparently would lose both houses of Congress [because of] a party split caused by Republican sponsorship of attacks on Sen. McCarthy. "We have been split wide open on the McCarthy issue," he told a reporter. "At a time when we needed party unity more than ever before, we allowed ourselves to be maneuvered into a position of investigating a Republican senator who has a great national following. We will get our reward on election day when voters resentful of the treatment of McCarthy stay away from the polls in great numbers."

WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF...

PAUL R. LEACH, top Washington correspondent for the Knight papers: One of the perplexities of the campaign is a feeling among some Democrats that winning control of the House and Senate for: the next two years could weaken their 1956 presidential election chances. Whether [Eisenhower] has a Republican or Democratic Congress to contend with next January, his messages are going to propose the same sort of middle-ground program that he has been advocating. He had to have—and got—Democratic support in the present Congress to get across the legislation at which he and his party have been pointing with pride. Should the Democrats organize House and Senate, and regain committee chairmanships, that same sort of unofficial coalition will prevail for a good many of Ike's recommendations. The items of his program that are enacted would be more likely to reflect credit on his administration than upon the members of Congress who further them. And his opposition would have to take blame from him for defeat of his bills which happen to hit popular favor.

JOHN O'DONNELL, pro-McCarthy pundit for the pro-Eisenhower New York Daily News: Come a Democratic victory, and Ike's chief of staff in the White House, former Governor Sherman Adams of New Hampshire, will retire or be given a fat federal appointment. Adams has made more personal Senate enemies, Republicans and Democrats, than any other presidential top assistant in modern history. In the event of a G.O.P. defeat, the strength of McCarthy on Capitol Hill will be tremendously increased at the showdown session of the Senate starting Nov. 8 to debate his censure for unbecoming conduct. The reason, of course, is that the treatment of McCarthy will be blamed for the Administration rebuff at the polls.