ABSTRACT
The role of the veteran in American politics has long been a topic of considerable interest. Popular and scholarly writings abound with speculation about the role of veterans’ organizations, 1 but little attention has been devoted to the significance of veteran status in the electoral process itself. This is surprising, for the belief that veterancy is a valuable campaign asset has become one of the more widely accepted dogmas in our political folklore – a notion which the composition of the House of Representatives seems to support. From 1950 to 1954, for example, 55 per cent of those elected to the House were veterans. Yet veterans comprised only 40 per cent of all males who had attained the age of 25. 2 On the fictitious but statistically conservative assumption that only males were eligible for the House, 3 the “over-representation” of veterans in the lower chamber has recently averaged some 65 seats per Congress. 4 (The term “over-representation,” it should be stressed, is employed only to indicate a mathematical disproportion between the percentages of veterans in our total population and in the House; no invidious connotation is intended.) This study represents an attempt to determine by statistical analysis the significance of veteran status in nominating and electing candidates to the House of Representatives in 1950, 1952, and 1954. The detailed and rather technical tabulations on which our findings are based lead us to depart from the usual mode of exposition and discuss the (1) method of investigation, (2) findings, and (3) supporting data in that order.
