'Gop Has Lot of Hard Work to Do,' Sen. Flanders Tells Republican Club

Sen. Ralph E. Flanders (R-Vt.), told the Young Republican Club that the G.O.P,'s chances in next November's Congressional elections are "not too good." "We've got a lot of hard work to do," he declared.

The Vermont senator, who delivered the Godkin Lectures here in 1949, also said that the situation in Indochina will be "critical for long years in the future," that chances of a $200 raise in income tax exemptions are "very dim" for this year, and that "everything Senator McCarthy says is irresponsible."

"Go Home and Elect Republicans"

Addressing a closed meeting of the H.Y.R.C. in Dunster Junior Common Room, Flanders described the current Democratic majority in the Senate as "an impossible legislative situation." "The Democrats will not be able to dodge responsibility for scuttling most of the Eisenhower program," he added.

Flanders suggested that the present Congress should "get the appropriations and tax bills out of the way, and then go home and elect Republicans."

A member of the Senate's Finance and Armed Services committees, the Vermont senator criticized the Administration's policy in Indochina as not positive enough. "If we were going to support military action in Vietnam at all, it should have been stronger and more definite," he asserted. Flanders conceded, however, that we can no longer do anything to save Vietnam, where "the desire for independence was so great it led to union with the Communists."

Regarding possible U.S. military action to save Laos and Cambodia, the other two Indochinese states, from the Reds, the Senator said we must first have assurance that these peoples want our help.