The New Hampshire Election

Voting Republican is an ancestral birthright in New Hampshire, but in this election the state might swallow its pride and elect some Democrats. If this happens, it will not come from a popular demand for reform or even for change, but from discord within the Republican party. While only unprecedented dissatisfaction could force reorganization of the state's outmoded governmental machinery, the election could bring a return of the two-party system.

The contest for governor is the main attraction, chiefly because of the Republican candidate, maverick and conservative Wesley Powell. A perennial candidate in the primaries, Powell finally edged out the incumbent two years ago by a few hundred votes and repeated the performance again this year in a pair of battles that have left no trace of harmony in the party. With the backing of the vituperative, reactionary Loeb newspapers, he is trying to usurp complete control of the party and the Executive Department. He is feuding bitterly with Attorney General Louis Wyman and the 450-member Republican legislature and has even alienated the national party. In the primary last March he demanded that he be Nixon's campaign manager, then said Kennedy was "soft on communism," and did not back down when Nixon repudiated the charge.

Powell is campaigning openly for Democratic votes, and both his belligerence and wide popular appeal promise to erode party lines. The Loeb papers are meanwhile claiming to be "independent and dispassionate" in backing Democrats for governor in Massachusetts and Vermont. But political virginity is not easily assaulted. In an editorial endorsing the Democrat Boutin for governor and Republicans for everything else, the Concord Monitor felt it necessary to maintain that "there is no moral or legal compulsion" to vote a straight ticket.

Since the electorate is dedicated to the status quo and stringent economy, the Democratic candidate, Bernard L. Boutin, promises no radical change. New Hampshire's tax system needs reform badly, for its main sources of money--liquor revenues, a $5 per capita head tax, and a levy on merchandise stocked by storekeepers--are actually regressive with respect to personal income. As one of the five states that have neither a sales nor income tax, it has a constitution that forbids excise duties or any progressive tax, and no candidate for governor since Sherman Adams has suggested reform of the tax structure.

A broader tax base responsive to growth would be necessary to finance the greater educational aid that the towns need so badly. Boutin is against the sales and income taxes, but has spoken of possible replacement of the head tax in two or four years. Powell has attacked Boutin's "fantastic" tax program and spending, and urges the state to "continue a government of ALL THE PEOPLE--reject the special interests.

Senator Styles Bridges finds himself challenged by the chairman of the Dartmouth History Department, Herbert W. Hill. Although Hill is running as a liberal and his chances of election are nil, even Loeb's Manchester Union admits that he is a good campaigner. Bridges' wife provided a classic issue of example of innuendo when she told a women's group that "Kennedy is not a communist--at least I don't think he's a communist--but his record is soft." Hill called the statement "the most treasonable utterance of the campaign" and he Senator found it wise to give an opinion on it, only to stand up for women's rights.

While Kennedy could conceivably carry the state, he will probably only succeed in cutting Nixon's margin to 10,000 votes, compared to Eisenhower's 86,000 edge in 1956. Strafford and Coos counties, which have voted with the national winner for a half century, are reported leaning to Kennedy and the Democratic House candidate from the Southeastern district has a good chance. But in the other House contest and in the election of the huge Legislature the Republicans will predominate as usual.

The one issue that this election will affect immediately is the Willard Uphaus case. Wyman has indicated that he may reopen investigations of the New Haven pacifist who was jailed for refusing to divulge names of people who attended his summer conferences in North Conway. Boutin does not think Uphaus's conviction was unjust, but says that the Subversion Act under which Wyman operated "isn't a good law."; Boutin's backers will probably influence him to forget the case. Uphaus may return unharassed to New Haven if Boutin wins on Tuesday, but there won't be a revolution in New Hampshire.