National Affairs: Class B Candidate

Five States have Representatives-at-large because their small populations do not legally support more than one House member.* Only one State, Illinois, has two Representatives-at-large, in addition to 25 regular Congressmen tucked away in their own districts, because it is gerrymandered and does not choose to carve out two new districts, at the risk of upsetting Republican preponderance, to meet its exact allowance of House representation. Illinois' Representatives-at-large are sort of Class B Senators: their pay is the same and they are chosen by the same State-wide electorate. But on the House floor they behave like other Congressmen.

Last week Frank Leslie Smith of Dwight, Ill., announced his candidacy as Republican Representative-at-large to succeed Mrs. Ruth Hanna McCormick who is running for the senatorial nomination in the April primaries (TIME, Jan, 27). As all the world knows, Mr. Smith, now a Class B Candidate, was elected to the Senate in 1926 only to be rejected by that body because of improper campaign contributions and excessive expenditures.