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Were the diners at the Union League deluding themselves? Not according to expert analysis (see below). The signs of a historic reversal were all around. By the most conservative estimate Ed Martin would beat old Senator Joe Guffey, slavish follower of his Democratic masters, by 200,000 votes. The margin might be a lot more than that. Ed would carry with him Pennsylvania's Attorney General James H. Duff, his own hand-picked candidate for governor. Of 33 Congressional seats, Pennsylvania's Republicans stood to win 25.
But even better than that, by all the signs, Republican triumphs would be nationwide. G.O.P. chieftains like National Chairman B. Carroll Reece babbled about a Republican Senate. With harder-headed realism they talked about a Republican House. What might not be the results? A Republican President in 1948? The immediate results were easier to see.
Solid & Orderly. Massachusetts' Joe Martin, a politician's politician who as leader of the opposition has had little to do in the last decade except try to keep his guerrillas in hand, would reap his reward and become Speaker of the House. Indiana's Charlie Halleck, a repentant Willkieite now in the Chicago Tribune fold, would become Majority Leader. Illinois' Leo E. Allen, an undistinguished but faithful GOPster, would become chairman of the powerful Rules Committee which controls the House's business.
Other Republicans who would step into House chairmanships: Appropriations—New York's arch-conservative John Taber, loudmouthed, long-winded but an expert on government finance; Ways & Means—Minnesota's bullet-headed Harold Knutson, small-minded and vindictive, who believes that the graduated income tax and the excess profits tax are the devil's work; Foreign Affairs—New Jersey's white-haired Charles A. Eaton, delegate to the San Francisco Conference which set up U.N.; Banking & Currency—Michigan's
Jesse P. Wolcott, eloquent, smart, the man who helped push Bretton Woods through the House; Military Affairs—New York's Walter G. Andrews, reticent, unassuming and trusted by the War Department.
These were key spots. The Republicans who would move into them were perhaps no better and no worse than such present Democratic committee chairman as Andy May, Sol Bloom, Muley Doughton, et al. Committee chairmen all get there the same way—by seniority, which brings experience* but not necessarily ability.
Of course, as the Union League prophets knew, the undiscriminating sun would shine on all Republicans. The Chicago Tribune's isolationist Robert McCormick would bask in it. But the Democratic sun had warmed the backs of even stranger interlopers. This was one of the unpleasant and confusing results of a two-party system.