Which Republican ran against the American Labor candidate Matthew J. Merritt?
CREATE TABLE "1938_state_election_results" (
  "office" text,
  "democratic_ticket" text,
  "republican_ticket" text,
  "american_labor_ticket" text,
  "socialist_ticket" text
);
SELECT "republican_ticket" FROM "1938_state_election_results" WHERE "american_labor_ticket"='matthew j. merritt';