ize on a volunteer basis and I think the same thing would have been true on the Democratic side as to the roughly $6 million reported. Those committees do raise and expend their money and stay within their ceiling. Before the end of the year the Democratic committee will surely be bumping its head against the $3 million limitation. I think that money is one of the reasons, or that the limit is one of the reasons for the separate organizations.

Mr. KEATING. How do you feel about the limitation of expenditures in preelection campaigns in presenting various candidates to the respective parties, either through presidential preferential primaries or by convention or otherwise? Do you think that Congress should in some way enter that field?

Mr. MITCHELL. I really do not know how to answer other than to state my agreement with principles. I agree with the principle that any man should be allowed to seek office and people should have the right and the liberty to associate together, people of like mind, to support a candidate.

I do think that there must be some protection against people of large financial means controlling a nomination or controlling an election. That has happened, and it can happen. I believe that the legislation passed by the Congress generally has been helpful. There are more people participating in political campaigns financially now than there were before the enactment of that legislation. That is true on the Democratic side.

It is a matter of history that following the 1928 election, the Democratic Party had a substantial deficit, $1,500,000, and of that $1 million was raised by approximately 15 men. Now, in the last election, the Democratic Party received contributions from over 126,000 individuals. Obviously, those 15 men gave large amounts of money, some of them quite large. Most of them are dead now, and I do not see any point in mentioning their names here, unless it serves your

purpose.

Mr. KEATING. You did not have any deficit this year?

Mr. MITCHELL. Yes; we do have a deficit. We have it now. I was going to say, of this total, 95 percent of the contributors-95 out of 100 contributors to the Democratic Party this year gave less than $500. That 95 percent gave 35 percent of the money. The larger contributions are important.

But going back to your question about nominations and controls, I think you have to approach them very gingerly and not limit the liberty and the right of any man to run for office and at the same time to keep the control from going to the group which has the most money.

The same thing is true as between political parties. I am disturbed by the inequity, as reported in the New York Times, between the total contributions and money spent by the Republican Party and that which was spent by the Democratic Party. There is a ratio of $3 to $1. That seems to be a disturbing possibility for the future, as I see it. I am not talking about the past or trying to attribute any significance in this election to that. I am trying to look at it in an objective way for the future. Whenever you have three times as much money on one side as you have on the other, you have the possibility of trouble. And when you add to that a disposition on the part of a media of communications, the press, to support the same side that has the most money, you have a situation that is further complicated.

Mr. KEATING. Do you mean on their editorial pages?

Mr. MITCHELL. On their editorial page and the space that they give to the candidate.

Mr. KEATING. You do not contend that the press supported in their news columns the Republican Party or its candidates in this last election?

Mr. MITCHELL. I am sure there are instances of that.

Mr. KEATING. There are more instances of support of the Democratic candidate, are there not?

Mr. MITCHELL. I do not know that that is the case. I am trying to approach this is an objective way. There are certain things that you have in an election. There are certain appeals. One of them is money. One of them is the press. Another is ideas and when the money and the press are on one side at all times, you have a problem. That I judge is why this honorable body of the Congress is sitting. I say it is there, but I do not know how to fix it. I think one thing certainly is indicated, that the amount of the limitation should be raised; the $3 million limit is obviously too low as indicated by the things that you gentlemen know so well. How high you should go, I do not know. The proposal of limiting the total amount spent disturbs me very much because there again you come to the question of how to do it.

The CHAIRMAN. We have had considerable testimony here that the amount spent is not quite as important as where it comes from and how it is spent. Would you care to comment on that?

Mr. MITCHELL. I think that is right.

The CHAIRMAN. You think that both the source of the contributions and the end use of the contributions might be bad influences in our democracy?

Mr. MITCHELL. Both could be; yes. But I think you probably could get bad money and spend it for a good purpose. In the end you are going to pay for it. That is why political managers are obligated, in doing a good job, not to take bad money. The purposes for which the money can be spent may also be very bad. If the money is spent to pay a man or to pay a woman to stay home, that is a bad purpose. If it is spent to buy scurrilous literature or to put on an attack through a newspaper or a radio program that is unfair and untrue, that is a bad thing to do. I think those are obvious.

Generally people will sort out the right answer. But they are influenced by the amount of pressure that is exerted and the influence that comes from it.

For instance, take an X number of printed lines and an X number of announcements or speeches on radio and television, where you have one thing repeated and repeated and repeated, so that the total of them may be 10 times as many as being put out for the other fellow. That has an effect.

Mr. KEATING. You do not contend that that took place in this last election?

Mr. MITCHELL. You mean the total lineage? I think you will find the total number of stories concerning the Republican national candidate, the total amount of newspaper space, was much larger than for the other candidate; I do not know. I know it was so in many places.

Mr. KEATING. You mean in news articles?

Mr. MITCHELL. Yes.

Mr. KEATING. In other words, the Republican candidate was making more news than the Democratic candidate?

Mr. MITCHELL. You will also find that the number of editorials which appeared in newspapers was greater and they take on an air of truth simply because they are on the printed page. I do not know how much they are read, but there were certainly more editorials on the Republican side than the Democratic side.

Mr. KEATING. Well, there were more votes for the Republican side. Mr. MITCHELL. The ratio was somewhat different. You will find that 90 percent of the newspapers were on the Republican side and the percentage of the votes was in a ratio of 45 to 55 percent. The same thing is true with the question you have here. You have three times as much money on the Republican side as on the other side, but you do not have three times as many votes.

Mr. KEATING. You are concluding from having read some newspaper article that there was three times as much money spent on one side as on the other. Do you happen to know the relative amount of time that the Republican and Democratic candidates appeared on television?

Mr. MITCHELL. No; on television you say?

Mr. KEATING. Yes.

Mr. MITCHELL. I think a more accurate figure would be the amount of money spent on television and the radio by the two candidates.

Mr. KEATING. I would be willing to take it on that basis. Are you not aware of the fact that actually the Democratic candidate appeared more on television than the Republican candidate?

Mr. MITCHELL. That is right.

Mr. KEATING. Then would you not think that the various organizations supporting the Democratic candidate spent more money on television?

Mr. MITCHELL. No, no; I am very sure of that. You will find that roughly $1,500,000 was spent by the Democratic candidate.

Mr. KEATING. On television!

Mr. MITCHELL. Radio and television and the advertising that goes with it. For every radio and television program there is $9,000 to $11,000 spent in advertising it in the newspapers so that people will be advised of the appearance.

Mr. KEATING. Is that just by the national committee or by all the committees ?

Mr. MITCHELL. That is by all the committees and taking these figures that we have been talking about.

The CHAIRMAN. As a matter of fact, Mr. Williams testified here yesterday that there was $267,000 spent on one program alone.

Mr. KEATING. That is right. And $150,000 was spent on one of the Stevenson programs.

The CHAIRMAN. That is right.

Mr. KEATING. So that for two programs the figure is a little over $400,000.

Mr. MITCHELL. The average of the Stevenson programs breaks down to roughly $50,000 including advertising. If you want those figures, I have them.

Mr. KEATING. The actual time on television, by the Democratic candidate, exceeded that by the Republican candidate, did it not?

Mr. MITCHELL. Yes. That was a piece of strategy, because one candidate was very attractive on television and it was a good thing to do with him, and that is what was done. Apparently the opposite conclusion was reached by the other party and it was not done.

Mr. KEATING. In other words, the other party preferred to have the candidate meet the people directly.

Mr. MITCHELL. But that does not state the accurate comparison. For instance, Governor Dewey was on television and the radio a number of times and so were other people who were engaged in the same activity. Those programs cost just as much money as though the Republican candidate himself were on. Taking all those together, and taking the radio spot programs and television spot programs, I would say that the Republican side spent well over twice as much. I should be interested to know the fact.

So it is not a question of how many half-hour speeches one candidate made as against the other candidate; the question is, How much television and radio advertising was done for one candidate and how much for the other?

The costs were usually $50,000 and they break down in this way: For CBS TV, including cable, the cost was $33,305.

Mr. KEATING. For one appearance?

Mr. MITCHELL. On television; yes, sir. For CBS radio it was $11,365.

Mr. KEATING. That was Nation-wide, coast to coast?

Mr. MITCHELL. Well, they are never quite that. Sometimes you get a certain station and sometimes certain stations are out. But generally it will run about 60 or 65 stations, I think.

The newspaper advertisements in that case were $8,000. That came out to $52,670.

Now, that was on time that had been purchased long in advance which is to be compared with the situation where on a certain day the Democratic committee preempted time given up by some advertiser and then the cost would be approximately 50 percent more.

That is a question in the political advertising field among political advertising firms-there are such now-as to whether it is better to buy time in advance at a lower rate, or whether it is better to preempt the time of a well-known radio personality and pay 50 percent more for it, in order to catch his audience. We took the more economical but apparently the less effective method.

Mr. KEATING. I do not think you need to feel that your advertising was not as effective, or that the organization of your work was not as effective. It might be that the people preferred the Republican candidate.

Mr. MITCHELL. It might be.

Mr. KEATING. Going back to the preelection period and the activity in that period, we have gone into that with the Eisenhower-Nixon group prior to the convention, and I remember that you and I were associated in a venture together

Mr. MITCHELL. Put that on the record.

Mr. KEATING. This year, and that you were very active and one of the early ones in behalf of the candidacy of your good friend Governor Stevenson.

Would you feel that there should be any restriction placed by Congress on the amount of money which you or your associates might want to spend to advance the candidacy of someone in the Democratic Convention-to advance the candidacy of Governor Stevenson?

Mr. MITCHELL. In the first place, no money was spent, to my knowledge, to advance the candidacy of Governor Stevenson, because there was not any.

Mr. KEATING. I was just going to ask.

Mr. MITCHELL. Secondly, my part in it, my very active part, consisted of two telephone calls in the period between March and the day the convention began about entirely different matters, between Governor Stevenson and myself, and having watched admiringly as you analyzed the problems and your making of the record, you will forgive me if I attempt to clear the record before going on further? Mr. KEATING. That is perfectly all right. I would expect you to do that.

Mr. MITCHELL. But addressing myself to the entirely theoretical problem of whether or not there should be some limit on the amount spent in the prenomination period, I would think that there could be situations where there should be some limit. I think it has been demonstrated in the past, in the case of Senators and Members of the House, that the two branches have cured that themselves by refusing admittance to a man who got there by wrong methods. A Republican Senator-elect from Illinois once came to the door of the Senate and was not admitted. I suppose there have been Democratic cases of that kind-not from Illinois. But I think the House polices itself, does it not, as well as the Senate?

But you do not do that as to the presidency. However, I am very chary of those limitations so long as you can get a fair presentation of the opposite side to the public. Then you do not have to have as many rules. But the problem gets intense if you cannot get the story to the public. A little-known candidate for the nomination may have an awful time getting much space.

Mr. KEATING. You had a demonstration in your own party at your convention, of the case of a candidate who spent probably the least amount of money being nominated. But there were a number of candidates for the nomination who spent, I assume, substantial amounts, although they are not required to be reported, as I understand it. But Governor Stevenson received the nomination. So that money does not always count, does it?

Mr. MITCHELL. No. I do not think there are general rules that apply in all cases.

Mr. KEATING. There was no preconvention Stevenson activity? Mr. MITCHELL. Not that I know of, except by the Governor himself, to keep from being nominated.

The point of principle that seems to me is involved here, gentlemen, is that one object of the law is to put the parties on an equal basis. If that is so, then I think we have got some inequality here at this time.

The CHAIRMAN. Yesterday we had some testimony that one organization alone spent $1,200,000 prior to the Republican National Convention in behalf of the Republican nominee, and the witness said that there were other organizations which spent some additional funds. But $1,200,000 was in excess of the sum spent by Governor Stevenson.