Young Republicans Herald Ike's Victory With Beer and Banners

With elephants leering down from all four walls and with "Peace, Prosperity, and Progress" strewn liberally around the room, the HYRC held its election night jamboree in the Hotel Continental last night.

Hundreds of Ike backers crowded into the Continental to drink the HYRC free beer and to throw out an occasional cheer as the election landslide came in. The discordant sounds of the "King's Men," an instrumental quartet of sorts, mingled with the mumblings and chatterings of the 300-450 present to make the whole affair something less than a spontaneous exhibition of political enthusiasm.

All hopes for any displays of wild cheering vanished when the hotel ran out of beer at about eleven o'clock, leaving only Pepsi-Cola to lift the souls of the assembled Republicans.

There was a slight outburst of fervor when Javits moved ahead of Wagner, another as Ike moved out of reach in Oklahoma. The first sign of honest enthusiasm came at 11 p.m. when McKay took a lead over Morse in Oregon. Someone observed that McKay was ahead in Washington. "No, he's from Oregon," was the reply. "Who cares? He's a Republican," volunteered some party-liner to sum up the general attitude of the gathering.

By 12:15 a.m. the walls had been stripped bare of their posters, and the number of "Let's Back Ike" buttons had visibly diminished. When the announcement of Ike's win in Massachusetts came over the two television sets at 12:30 a.m. there were only about 120 people to offer a feeble cheer.

Finally at 1:20 a.m., Adlai conceded and the remaining handful of people tried to be enthusiastic, with no noticeable success. It was all over, for four more years. Hotel workers began to clean up the vast litter of beer cans and banners which had accumulated on the floor.