Prenatal Caucus

The 69th Congress of the U. S. comes into existence on Mar. 4. To be sure it will not meet until some months later. But before that date, on Feb. 27, the caucus of the Republican members of the House in the 69th Congress will meet. Last week, the Republican Committee on Committees issued the call. Because the caucus is an extra-legal body, it will not matter that some of its members are not Congressmen, but only Congressmen-to-be.

Ordinarily, caucuses are not held until, at most, a day or two before a Congress comes in session, when its members have already assembled in Washington. The coming caucus will consist of the Republican members of the present Congress who were re-elected last fall and of the 50-odd Republicans newly elected to serve in that body. The caucus will have three major functions:

1) To choose a Republican candidate for Speaker of the House (to succeed Speaker Gillett who goes to the Senate). Since the Republicans will have a majority in the next Congress, the choice of the caucus should be practically equivalent to election. The two leading candidates are Nicholas Longworth of Ohio, Republican floor leader and Representative Martin B. Madden of Illinois.

2) To choose a floor leader, if Mr. Longworth is elevated to the Speakership.

3) To choose the Republican personnel which will serve on Committees of the next Congress.

This early meeting is simplified by the fact that many of the newly-elected Republicans will come to Washington to see President Coolidge inaugurated on Mar. 4. They were circularized to find out whether most of them would be willing to attend a caucus in Washington about that date. The majority replied in the affirmative.

The object of thus organizing the 69th Congress several days before it comes into existence (and probably several months before it assembles) has to do with tax reduction. The caucus will choose the Republican majority members of the next Ways and Means Committee. There is a prospect now that Mr. Coolidge will call Congress in session some time during the fall for tax revision. If the members of the Ways and Means Committee are chosen in advance, they can assemble in Washington several weeks before Congress as a whole assembles, and have a tax revision bill ready to report to the House as soon as the whole body gathers. Thus it will be possible to expediate matters and perhaps postpone the calling of Congress or make a call entirely unnecessary until Congress naturally assembles December next.

In issuing invitations to the caucus, the names of 13 Republican Insurgents were omitted, indicating that in the House as in the Senate, the Republicans intend to outlaw the wayward.

The effect of excluding Insurgents from the Republican caucus in the House will be presumably to exclude them from good places which they have held on Committees by virtue of their membership in the Republican Party. In the House, Representative James A. Frear, of Wisconsin (one of the uninvited Insurgents) declared: "it is proposed without hearing to try to read out of the Republican Party all duly elected Republican Representatives of a great state in which the Republican Party had its birth . . .

"For 30 years with one Member and for many years with others, the ten Republican Members of the present delegation from Wisconsin have invariably participated in every Republican organization of the House at every session. They have never joined with wicked Democrats, Socialists or others outside the party fold when the organization of the House was to be perfected. In every political campaign these ten Republican Representatives of Wisconsin have stood for election in their respective districts as Republicans. Last election, they received majorities over their Democratic opponents aggregating 333,518 votes or an average of over 33,000 Republican majority in each district. That record is a certificate of membership in the party that can not well be impeached."

The regular Republicans tried at once to make reply, but not until two days later was the most striking reply made. It came not from a Republican, but from the lone Socialist in Congress, Victor L. Berger of Wisconsin:

"Aesop tells a fable of the bat who, in a war between the quadrupeds and the birds, posed as a quadruped or as a 'bird, according to which side was victorious But the bat was found out and shunned by both sides ever after.

"My colleague from Wisconsin, Mr. Frear, reminds me of that fable and of that bat in the speech he made on Thursday.

"Mr. Frear posed as a great LaFollette man last summer when the more or less socialistic LaFollette campaign loomed up big on the political horizon. Mir. Frear in his speech also admitted that he sat on the platform at a campaign meeting at which the Republican candidates for Congress were denounced as enemies of the people and the voters were advised to vote for the Democrats. He did not protest.

"And lo! day before yesterday Mr. Frear humbly kissed the flag--no, kissed the elephant's tail. "Any man who claims to be a Progressive, who claims to stand for reform, ought to be willing to pay the price. If not, then he is a weakling."