End of a Creed

A man died and a chapter ended last week in U.S. political history. When Roosevelt II marched into power in 1933, marching with him came Tammany politicians, social planners, men of labor, liberals and the conservatives of the old South. Byron Patton Harrison was symbolic of that last, anomalous group.

Twenty-two years before, at the unripe age of 29, Pat Harrison had been elected to the House from his native Mississippi, after eight years had graduated into the Senate. The Republicans then ruled the roost, and Pat Harrison, better than any other, showed how a politician can be effective though in the minority. Tall, lazy, mellow-voiced by nature, he was a gadfly in the Senate, deriding, denouncing, destroying the pretensions, incompetence and mistakes of the Republicans.

With the coming to power of Roosevelt II, Pat Harrison was recast in the thankless and inappropriate role of defender of the pretensions, incompetence and mistakes of the Democrats. Trusted by all his colleagues, and loyal without limit to his party, he remained faithful, not only when the President kept him from becoming majority leader, but even when the White House double-crossed him on legislative matters. As chairman of the Finance Committee, he steered through the Senate New Deal legislation which made him wince and blink--a man as loyal as he was able, who, if he had had a little more energy, might have gone down in history as one of America's great statesmen.

Fortnight ago Pat Harrison underwent an operation for an intestinal obstruction. This week he died. There were still a few Southerners with his old-fashioned political creed left in Congress. But Pat Harrison was a symbol. A chapter was at an end.

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