Massachusetts Congressman Leads Voting

Congressman John W. McCormack piled up a lead of almost two to one over Adlai Stevenson according to early returns on the Democratic ballot of yesterday's Massachusetts primary, which was marked by only ten percent attendance of the registered voters.

With one half of the Democratic precincts counted, McCormack polled 18,902 write-in votes over Stevenson's 11,416. Other contenders for Democratic write-ins are Estes Kefauver, who had announced his support for McCormack, with 2505; President Eisenhower with 1441; and Senator John F. Kennedy '40, a Stevenson backer, with 609 votes.

The G.O.P. results predicted an over-whelming victory for Eisenhower, who had 13,005 of his own party's write-ins. Governor Christian A. Herter '15 received 251 and Vice President Nixon 82 votes. He was followed by Stevenson, who had 57 Republican supporters.

Since the city areas were first to report the primary results, McCormack's lead over Stevenson is expected to decrease. Supporters of the two candidates finished yesterday with the most heated controversy of the campaign.

Democratic state chairman William H. Burke wound up the campaign for McCormack with an attack on Stevenson's supporters. "You can bet," he stated, "that the great mass of Stevenson's promoters will not be here Thursday but down at Princeton University listening to Alger Hiss."

Samuel H. Beer, professor of Government and chairman of the state ADA, answered Burke by saying "It is a basic principle of clean politics that the chairman of a state committee should never interfere in a primary."

Burke is a "destroyer," Beer stated, "who is trying to bust up party unity." He also denied that the ADA had endorsed any candidate for the presidency."