xmodmap changes seen only in xev, not in gnome or apps

Keys not reassigned outside of xev (except for swapping of backslash and CapsLock.

    contents of ~/.xmodmaprc

"
    clear Shift
    clear Lock
    clear Control
    clear Mod1
    clear Mod2
    clear Mod3
    clear Mod4
    clear Mod5

    add Shift = Shift_L Shift_R
    add Control = Control_L Control_R
    add Mod1 = Mode_switch
    add Mod2 = Meta_L Meta_R
    add Mod4 = Hyper_L Hyper_R
    add Mod5 = Super_L Super_R

keycode 151 = Super_L
keycode 37 = Meta_L
keycode 64 = Control_L
keycode 108 = Control_R
keycode 105 = Meta_R
keycode 166 = Super_R
keycode 167 = Hyper_R
keycode 51 = Caps_Lock
keycode 66 = backslash bar

"

keycode 151 (Thinkpad Fn may not be usable but xev shows it assigns Super_L and reports keydown and keyup states.

I would be willing to have these keymaps set globally if necessary and would sacrifice their functionality in all other contexts as long as they worked in Emacs.

According to : http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Keyboard-and-Console-HOWTO-5.html
"
Note that (since XFree86-2.1) X reads the Linux settings of the keymaps when initialising the X keymap. Although the two systems are not 100% compatible, this should mean that in many cases the use of xmodmap has become superfluous.
"

It might be possible to do what I want (super, alt, ctl spacebar ctl, alt, super (hyper if possible) assigned symetrically around space bar) by some other means (dumpkeys, loadkeys)???