THE CONGRESS: New Faces of 1956

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In U.S. politics, the thundering cannonade of the presidential campaign often drowns out the staccato rattle of small-arms fire along the front lines. Yet it is in the outcome of small, deadly skirmishes in the 435 U.S. congressional districts that control of the House of Representatives lies-and control of the House can make or break a presidential administration. In 1956, with both parties struggling desperately to control the House (the Democrats now have a 29-vote margin), Republicans and Democrats have come up with fresh, fascinating faces to run for congressional office -and to an astonishing degree the newcomers are involved in the closest House contests.

In district after district, rosy-cheeked freshmen are giving oldtimers the closest shaves of their lives. California's Eleventh District is a case in point. There, seven-term Republican Representative Leroy Johnson, 68, is hard pressed by 38-year-old Democratic State Assemblyman John J. McFall. Incum bent Johnson, World War I combat pilot, is running mostly on his House seniority and is reliving his long past ("I don't think they should have killed the League of Nations"). Challenger McFall is running on his own energies and ambitions, and, like many another Demo cratic House candidate, is not depending on the national ticket's coattails. Says he :"I'll let Stevenson take care of Ike. I'm just talking about Johnson."; Similarly, Minnesota's scholarly, seven-term Republican Representative Walter Judd, 58, has been scared stiff by Democrat Joseph Robbie, a 40-year-old Hubert H. Humphrey type (right down to being, like Humphrey, an import from South Dakota). Although he still has the edge in the state's Fifth District, Walter Judd may nave been hurt by the fact that many of his constituents were thrown out of work by a shutdown of the Minneapolis-Moline Co. farm-implement plant. In Missouri's Sixth District, Democratic In cumbent William Hull Jr., 50, is threatened by Republican Stanley I. Dale Jr., 35, who scored a remarkable upset when elected mayor of Democratic St. Joseph in 1950 and another impressive victory when re-elected in 1954.

Even in the Democratic South, some relatively young Republicans are giving Democratic incumbents a rough go. In Georgia's Fifth District, Atlanta Lawyer Randolph William Thrower, 43, former filling-station attendant, FBI agent and Marine captain, is close on the heels of arch-segregationist Representative James C. Davis, 61, who was Georgia's presidential nominee at the Democratic National Convention, and has since held carefully stacked House subcommittee hearings on integration in the District of Columbia's schools (TIME, Oct.1). In Kentucky's Sixth District, Fayette County's Republican Sheriff Wallace ("Wah Wah") Jones, 30, is making headway against Democratic Incumbent John Watts, 54-Reason: Wah Wah's reputation as a star on Kentucky's famously infamous 1948-49 basketball team.*In Virginia's hot "Fighting Ninth" District, Republican William Wampler, a Representative in 1952 at 26, defeated in 1954, is a strong challenger against Incumbent Democrat William Pat Jennings, 37.