Answer on Barkley

Ever since the Purge failed and showed Democratic Senators that it is safe to have minds of their own, a paramount question has been: will non-New Deal Democrats attempt to unhorse Kentucky's plodding, obedient "Dear Alben" Barkley as Majority Leader? To do so would in effect amount to purging the Senate of Roosevelt leadership. Last week, in an otherwise unimportant newspaper spat between Montana's utterly independent Democrat Burton K. Wheeler and New Jersey's obedient Democrat William Smathers, came an answer. Declaring that there would be no attempted Barkley ouster, Mr. Wheeler said: "Why should there be? He leads only [Indiana's] Minton and [Washington's] Schwellenbach. We have the votes to remove him if we like, but we would have nothing to gain."

Retorted Mr. Smathers: "I'd like to have my name added to the Minton-Schwellenbach list....Who does he mean by 'We'--the Republicans and who else?"

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.