f Special to the Tribune

. CR8tan facts stand out in
| the Nov. 8 election returns.

The Vietnam war hawks
Were repudiated wherever they
Challenged ‘advocates of peace
Or deescalation.

Edward Brooke won the race
for U.S. Senate from Massachu-
Setts, becoming the first Negro
to sit in the body since 1871,
4nd other Negro candidates were
elected, thus marking a new
gree of the Negro people for
Tull political representation.

€d governor, and in Florida,
Where Republican Claude R.
tk, Jr., was elected.

The

tion, “backbone of Democratic
flectoral . successes since 1932,
hoved Signs of disintegrating
Ut the so-called Republican’ up-
ode was of such a mixed char-
tei that it cannnot be consi-
Tight a victory for the ultra-

Wherever voters had the op-
Portunity to cast a meaningful
Fallot On the Vietnam war, ad-
cates of peace, of cessation of
‘2ombing, of deescalation won,
T war hawks lost.

y In Oregon, Republican Mark
a atfield defeated Robert Dun-
ee who had called for support
®! Johnson’s Vietnam war.
_-n Montana, Democratic Sen.
© Metcalf, one of 15 Senators
oe © appealed to Johnson not to
| ,“sume bombing of North Viet-
_ 4m, won easily.

q ao Kentucky, Democratic John
inweman Young, who accused
Shambent Republican Sen. John
ean Cooper of being a dove
Vietnam, was soundly beaten.

a N.Y, State, Democratic, Rep.
ohn Dow, one of the seven Con-
8tessmen who voted against
‘ore appropriations for the Viet-
i War, defeated Republican
 igelS Mills, who made his main
ae the support of the war.
4 ec in Albany, Daniel Button,
-} ;*Mdidate of the Republican and
| (‘eral parties, who campaigned
for an anti-Vietnam war plat-

orm, defeated his Democratic

- ponent.

a N.Y. voters, in reelecting Gov.
no. fefeller as a minority gover-

4 or (he received 42 to 44 percent
oy the vote), demonstrated more

as fir rejection of Frank O’Con-
oe the machine and Johnson-

oned candidate, than their ap-
"oval of Rockefeller.

Not a single one of the Liberal

Ee pe een gra ane eee

liberal-Negro-labor coali-:

freshment Congressmen elected
jn the 1964 anti-Goldwater sweep
were defeated by their reaction-
ary opponents, even in places
where there were independent
_ peace candidates.

Thus. not a single hawk was
elected to Congress in New
York.

By any means not the least
important indicator that the po-
litical spectrum has not moved
to the right was the impact reg-
istered by the strong campaign
of Herbert Aptheker who ran
‘as a known Communist.

Approximately 3,000 peace
and civil rights votes were re-
corded for Herbert Aptheker, a
prominent Communist running
as an Independent in the 12 C.D.
Brooklyn.

It is not yet possible to ana-
lyze the vote and campaigns of
the many independent peace
candidates but they added a new
and important element to the
New York political scene.

. The most disturbing new de-
velopment ‘in New York which
_will have its. impact nationally
was the police-racist-ultra-right-
ist defeat of the civilian review
board, by a vote of 1,307,738 to
768,492, with only Manhatten
going for the review board.

What makes this racist vic-
tory all the: more menacing is
that it marks the emergence on
the political scene of the police,
who by their very set-up are
stragically situated to play an
effective role in politics.

This development,
dented in U.S. politics, augers
ill not only for New York but
the nation. ae

Unless the alarm is sounded
and the menace met this prec-
edent will not go unheeded by
the police of the nation who
were not only interested in the
anti-review board campaign in
New York but made substantial
contributions to the drive led by
the Patrolmen’s Benevolent As-
sociation-Conservative Party and
John Birch Society. The pattern
established in New York, of a

police alliance with racist ultra--

rightist groups, adds a new and
dangerous element to the men-
ace of the ultra-right.

The victory of this coalition
can be largely explained by the
absence, in time, of a people’s
coalition to expose its fascist-
like menace and to combat it as
such.

Where a coalition of civil
rights, church, civic and some
labor groups came into existence
a few weeks before the elections
and went on the offensive on
the issues of Birch leadership of
the anti-civilian review board
movement only about 3 weeks

unprece-"

ago, the police-racist-ultra-right-
ist coalition was intensely active
for more than a year.

While some unions, notably
Local 1199, Drug and Hospital

"Employees Union, Fur Workers

and the National Maritime Un-
jon were actively involved in de-

fense of the review board, most -

of the unions took a hands-off
attitude, thus allowing the racist
poison to infect large sections of
labor’s ranks unchallenged.

Neither the Central Labor
Council nor the State AFL-CIO
took any position on the issue.

Nor did the Left unitedly
sound the alarm and concentrate
sufficiently on this as a fascist-
like. menace.

In New Hampshire, retired
Gen. Harrison Thyng, Republi-
can, who advocated allout bomb-

‘ing of North Vietnam, lost.

In Illinois, where Republican
Charles Percy unseated Sen. Paul
H. Douglas, part of Percy’s mar-
gin was attributed to his advo-
cacy of a softer policy on Viet-
nam as opposed to Douglas’s
complete support of President
Johnson’s Vietnam war. This was
true in a number of other races
throughout the nation.

Of particular significance was
the balloting in Dearborn, Mich.,
where the electorate was allow-
ed to vote on whether to with-
draw U.S. troops from Vietnam
40 percent voted yes, despite the
fact that this is the most ad-
vanced ofall: propositions for
peace in Vietnam.

The so-called white backlash,
which was expected by the poli-
tical pundits to be a great factor

in a Republican comeback and .

in the South, proved in many
cases to be a weak reed. Wher-
ever it did win, as in California
and in Florida, or wherever it
helped to influence the vote, a
great deal of the blame for this
rests with President Johnson
himself, with his threats against
the Negro people for engaging in
struggle for their rights; with the
leadership of the labor move-
ment, which refused to cam-
pain among its white member-
ship to combat white-suprem-
acist propaganda; with the
various state Democratic organi-
zations, which capitulated to the
racists.

LONDON * PARIS $ MOSCOW @ RIO DE JANEIRO © PEKING * NEW DELHI.

As a matter of fact, it was
those Republican candidates,
who. campaigned on an anti-
racist platform who scored the
greatest victories for the G.O.P.,
except in California and Florida,
Among these was the Negro,
Edward Brooke, who was chos-

en by an overwhelming major-

ity of whites, of Winthrope
Rockefeller, who beat Jim John-
son, the rapid Democratic segre-
gationist in Arkansas, of Spiro
Agnew, who defeated the racist
Democratic candidate, George
Mahoney, in Maryland.

In both Arkansas and Mary-
land, the GOP won as the result
of a coalition of the Negro peo-
ple, white liberal Democrats and
“moderate” Republicans. That
this is true was made clear by
the fact that the other statewide
candidates of the Democratic
party won easily in their races.

In South Carolina, the Demo-
cratic party showed that it is
possible to win through a coali-

tion of “moderate” white Demo-

crats and the Negro people.
There the Republicans, led by
the racist Sen. Strom Thurmond,
sought to seize complete con-
trol. But the state Democratic
ticket, led by Gov. Robert
McNair, and Senatorial candi-
date Ernest L. Hollins, who cam-
paigned on a platform of racial
peace, won.

Even in those states where the
racist agitation was expected to
have significant impact, this was
not completely true. Im Chicago,
a number of Negro leaders, op-
posed to the Democratic ma-
chine of Mayor Richard Daley,
supported Percy. In Michigan,
Gov. George. Romney received
the votes of many Negroes. Cer-
tainly, in New York, Gov. Nel-
son Rockefeller was backed by a
large section of the Negro peo-
ple in his election victory.

The. claims by Republican
leaders, particularly of the ultra-
rightist stripe, that the elections
showed a great upsurge for

‘them do not hold up on exam-
ination. In ¢he first place, the’

GOP gain of 40 seats in the

‘DJAKARTA

War hawks and Johnson

rebuffed in U.S. vote

House at the expense of the De-
mocrats, does not look so great.
Of these, eight were in the
South, and are only racist re-
placements for white-suprem-
acist Democrats; at least one of
them is a liberal anti-Vietnam
war man. :

When it comes to the gains in
the Senate, John Tower, the con-
servative Republican in Texas,
won only because the Negro
people, Mexican-Americans,
labor unionists and liberals re-
fused to vote for his reactionary
Democratic opponent, Waggoner
Carr, who had been supported
by Johnson.

_ Evidence of the weakness of
the claims of the Republicans
can be seen in the victories of
Governor Rockefeller in N.Y. and
of Republican Sen. Clifford Case
in New Jersey. Both of them had
the overwhelming support of the
usually Democratic-voting labor
movement: And neither was able
to swing the election of Repub-

lican congressmen in their
States. ; ure
It is, however, when one

comes to the wresting of eight
governorships from the Demo-
crats that one becomes most
aware of the weakness of the
Republican claims of.an upsurge.
In all eight cases, they were not
Republican victories, they were
Democratic defeats. These de-
feats were fashioned out of the
bitter fights that took place in
the eight state Democratic par-
ties and left their organizations
badly divided and directionless.

The source of this division was
the abandonment by the state
Democratic leaderships of the
liberal - Negro -labor: coalition,
which has always been their
only source of strength. Pan-
icked by the racist propaganda,
the Democrats spurned the
Negro voters. The liberals were
alienated by the support by the
state Democratic machines of
the President’s Vietnam war.
And the leadership of the Jabor
movement, instead of giving
direction to the coalition, abdi-

‘cated its independence.

SELF-PORTRAIT

November 25, 1966—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 9