The Democratic Majority

After most elections the nation can sit back, sift the results, and say that this and that have been proved. By these standards, Tuesday's balloting was the All-Purpose election. It gave each party's machine enough material to grind for a while-Democrats can say that the Administration is slipping and Republicans can say that the close figures indicate the G.O.P. is very much alive but the fact is that nothing really has been proved. Unemployment, apparently, was enough of an issue to win for the Democrats in Michigan, yet it could not bring them victories in two other industrial states, Ohio and Massachusetts. the game farmers who voted Republican in Iowa voted Democratic in Minnesota. Isolationism carried California and lost in Oregon.

If the democratic party can draw much cheer from its victory it is not because the President's program has been repudiated. It has not: the Democrats failed to win as many seats as an opposition usually does at mod-term. But they can celebrate their right to organize Congress.

Senator Johnson and Representative Rayburn have pledged that their party will work in harmony with the President. But party discipline in this country is a myth: a real sense of responsibility, not only promises, is needed to eliminate all the political hackwork that can come from a divided government.

Much of the policy the President has outlined for the next two years will have more appeal for Democrats than republicans. These areas of agreement should receive the same support that democrats would give their own Administration-the G.O.P. will not be able to make 1956 campaign capital from legislation driven through by Democrats. Where there is disagreement with Administration policy, the majority should exercise its investigative power to probe and air out issues. But it should not be needlessly obstructive. The era when an opposition majority can safely hamstring an administration is long past. It the Democrats are worthy of complete victory in 1956, they must first show, in the next two years, that they will not put party polities above the national interest.