Barkley's 30 Winks

Soon after he became majority leader of the Senate in 1937, Alben Barkley fell asleep at the political switch. He allowed the antilynching bill to be brought up for discussion and got his party in a jam in the closing hours of the session. Last week he nodded again--with less serious consequences.

Congress appropriates $10,000 annually toward the support of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, a "parliament of man" founded 51 years ago to keep the world's legislative bodies informed about each other. Another $10,000 from Congress provides one of the juiciest bits of junket on the Washington political platter: an annual trip for a delegation to the union's meeting (last year at The Hague, this year at Oslo). A supposedly non-partisan caucus of the whole Congress picks the head of the delegation, who then, by hallowed custom, dishes out the junket to his party mates.

Last week came I. P. U. election day. Fleshy, easygoing Senator Barkley of Kentucky prepared to settle the little matter in the privacy of his Library Committee Room. To his surprise, crowds of Congressmen flocked in. He hastily moved the meeting to a larger room, and then discovered what was happening: Republicans in Congress (193 this year compared to 106 last year) had decided to make it a social occasion. Under the leadership of New York's heavy-humored Representative "Ham" Fish and Missouri's bucolic Representative Dewey Short, they voted ten-to-one that Ham Fish, not Alben Barkley, should head the delegation and pick "a dozen other lucky Congressmen to share the junket.

Leader Barkley started counting the votes, saw what was happening, flushed, groped for words, Conceded the election, tried to laugh it off.

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