With a Rubbing of Hands

The country had asked for a change, and some pretty drastic changes were in the making. Republican leaders interpreted the people's angry anti-Administration vote as an enthusiastic pro-Republican vote as well. Last week, as G.O.P. steering committeemen bustled around Washington, a lot of campaign promises and as many threats began to assume solid shape.

With a brisk rubbing of Republican hands and some licking of chops, the new congressional bosses got down to work. Thursday morning, House and Senate steering committees met. Thursday afternoon, Congressman Joe Martin and Senator Bob Taft made statements to the press. Thursday evening, House and Senate committeemen dined at the Carlton and chewed the fat. Friday morning, New York's busy, noisy John Taber, who will head the Appropriations Committee, met the press. The same morning, Taft and the Senate steering committee went into another conference. Friday noon, all hands got together at lunch. Friday afternoon, Senators huddled again. Taft made another statement to the press; so did Maine's Senator Wallace White. Washington newsmen were worn out. But they had gotten the Republican program in a nutshell.

Taxes. There was general approval of the 20% income tax cut first proposed by loud, bullet-headed Congressman Harold Knutson. It would be an across-the-board cut, which is contrary to New Deal theories of graduated ("soak the rich") taxation. But then there were few Republican recommendations which a New Dealer would cheer. Minnesota's Republican Congressman Walter H. Judd, no New Dealer, later denied the right of the conferees to commit the whole party to such action; his was a still, small voice. The Republican bosses claimed that the tax cut could be safely made if the federal budget were cut. They even suggested that revenues would still be big enough to enable them to chip a little off the $261.9 billion national debt.

Budget. John Taber, the man with the voice of a stentor, said he saw the way to slash $9 billion from the federal budget. This was a "minimum," he said. Senator Taft recently vowed that the Republicans could make a $13 billion cut once they got their hands on the budget. Some of the savings Taber saw would be in nonrecurring items (e.g.: food subsidies, Export-Import Bank, World Bank and World Fund). On other items Taber promised to use a sledge hammer if necessary. Items which immediately met his eye: $2.5 billion from Army & Navy; $2 billion in terminal-leave pay (already diminishing); $1.5 billion "in other categories"; a whopping $3 billion when the Republicans got through reducing Government functions and firing some 1,000,000 Government employes. Budget experts said that on this last item at least Taber was talking through his hat, nowhere near that amount could be cut.

Labor. With an air of leave-this-one-to-me, Bob Taft announced that he, Minnesota's Joe Ball, New Jersey's H. Alexander Smith and Missouri's Forrest Donnell would study labor legislation. None of the four Senators is remembered for kowtowing to union bosses. Senator George Aiken of Vermont, labor's best G.O.P. friend and in line for chairmanship of the Labor Committee, was not included in Taft's group. Aiken could take part in the study "if he wants to, I guess," Taft said coldly. But it was "Ball and I who rewrote the Case bill last year," he recalled significantly. Harry Truman vetoed the Case bill. Labor unanimously opposes it.

Tariffs. No definite tariff policy was announced, but Taft indicated the way the wind blew. "I think the Smoot-Hawley rates were too high," he said with masterly understatement. "But I don't think we should reduce rates to a point where American industries would be destroyed." He had voted against the reciprocal trade bills, he said, because he thought they gave the President too much discretion. It was for this discretion that ex-Secretary of State Hull had fought so long & hard, believing that presidential power to adjust tariffs was a prime necessity for the horse-trading required between nations. Hull's underlying objective had been freer trade. Republican leaders evidently intend to 1) reassert Congress' prerogatives, 2) put on the brakes.

Politics. The G.O.P. leaders also found time to plan a campaign against Democratic Senator Theodore ("The Man") Bilbo, the Mississippi mountebank (see PEOPLE). They had decided to challenge Bilbo's right to his Senate seat on the grounds that he incited whites to bar Negroes from the Mississippi polls in the Democratic primary.

Solidarity. One other matter which Republicans chewed over was their own internal organization. Joe Martin, as expected, will be Speaker of the House. The rivalry between Indiana's Charlie Halleck and Ohio's Clarence Brown for House majority leader will be fought out spiritedly; other candidates may complicate the race. But there was no sign of any deep developing rifts among the triumphant G.O.P. leaders. Vandenberg will preside over the Senate as president pro tem. Elderly (69) Wallace White, ineffectual minority leader during G.O.P. underdog days, will become majority leader by courtesy. The G.O.P. spark plug will be sparkless, plugging Bob Taft, serving as boss of the steering committee. Nebraska's Ken Wherry will be party whip.

Leaving a lot of wind behind them and much preliminary work done, and still rubbing their hands, the Republican leaders went home to await other meetings next month and--best of all--the momentous opening of the 80th Congress on Jan. 3.

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