HOW DID THEY VOTE?

...Amlie is by his own record eminently qualified to write such a book...

...Amlie's method is this: he uses 666 roll calls on fourteen key issues, involving 531 members of Congress, and analyzes the votes as liberal or conservative, drawing a conclusion on the basis of these actua^ voting records as to which Congressman belongs to what political camp...

...All Congressmen and their votes are listed in the appendix, an average of 145 roll calls per member and a total tabulation of more than 75,000 votes...

...In its total effect, his book is about as convincing as anything can be...

...In 1942 he compiled a report of Congressional voting records that proved to be an effective piece of campaign literature...

...I know that my copy will become a part of my permanent library, and that it will be referred to a good many times a year, whether they be election years or not...

...The Republican Party, the record shows, has been by his interpretation more completely conservative in the past 20 years than any conservative party in any other governing body...

...there are, of course, some subjective judgments involved in the choice of key issues and in the interpretations of votes on them, but both liberals and conservatives will find it hard to disagree with most of the standards Amlie has set up...

...I assume that many readers of The Progressive will find it equally stimulating and useful...

...The technique he developed, displayed to best advantage in this book, has been widely copied and is in itself a valuable contribution to political science, as well as to the education of the average voter...

...Reviewed by Russel B. Nye THIS book is an attempt to deter- mine, in concrete and unmistakable terms, the difference between liberals and conservatives in Congress, and to determine in the same way the difference between the two major parties over the period of the past 20 years...

...The vote tabulations are also keyed to the text, so that in reading the author's discussions of the issues, the reader may quickly check the vote of any individual Congressman on a specific issue...

...This study, however, covering as it does more than two decades of Congressional voting, has much more permanent value than any study of a single year's record, and deserves the attention of every person who wants to be informed about political matters...

...If they knew the voting records of their own Congressmen, he feels, they would probably retire about 75 per cent of the present members of Congress...

...The key roll calls involved in the book are those on legislation concerning taxation, equality of war sacrifice, foreign trade, foreign policy and national defense, the farm program, labor legislation, relief and social welfare, economic planning and housing, public power and REA, big business, civil liberties, personnel policy in public service, and additional - votes on taxation and social security...

...Presented in this form, however, the line becomes extremely clear...

...Each vote is recorded by date, so that it may be found in the Congressional Record and the debates examined...

...the majority of the voting public, in Amlie's opinion, would classify themselves as to the left of that line on most issues...

...That this is a tremendous job of research goes without saying, and the weight of the evidence, as it appears in cold print, forestalls argument...

...He served in Congress himself in 1931-33 and 1935-39, and during the thirties was active in the formation of several progressive political groups...

...As Amlie points out, most of us know in a general fashion that on important roll calls in Congress, ones involving questions of social and economic policy, a line can be roughly drawn between liberal and conservative votes, and that the records of individual Congressmen tend to show fair consistency over a period of years...