Congress1 Week

It was a good week to sit in the galleries of the House and the Senate, simply to watch the Congressmen at work. On the floor of both houses the tempo was slow, and it was possible to study types. There was the Long Haired Southerner or Patronage Ouzel; the Snapping Southerner or Mississippi Valley Shrill; the rare Old Shaggy or Great Trumpeting Republican and a few aging Bald New Dealers. And, of course, there were droves of newly elected Mute Republicans, all harrumphing softly and rattling paper with an anxious air of authority.

Debate and acrimony over labor problems, foreign affairs, taxes and the budget were yet to come. Last week little disturbed the characteristic habits of the legislator: the slow consideration of a morning newspaper during speeches, the mid-aisle conference, the group retreat to the cloakroom. And it was a wonderful time to watch him rise unabashed amid his fellows and gesture like Daniel Webster when introducing an insignificant bill.

Eulogies. Peace was the rule in both Houses. The new Republicans were still moving cautiously and quietly, like new boys in school. Old Republicans were happily important at being in the majority and the Democrats were almost as happy at the thought of the party sniping which was to be their pleasure & privilege. Neither party was ready to start the partisan fighting. The result was a ponderous and overwhelming spectacle. No man is ever as lofty, as noble, as pure of soul and mellifluous of voice as a Congressman being polite, and last week they were polite en masse. The bowing, beaming and yielding to interruption was worthy of a light quadrille.

It was also a great week for eulogies of all kinds. Michigan's Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg sonorously praised the "relentless fidelity and constant success" of Texas' white-maned Tom Connally, his predecessor as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. Republicans praised Democrats, Democrats praised Republicans. Jimmy Byrnes was praised and so was General Marshall.

Sighs. Many a Senate Republican, moreover, seemed to be privately eulogizing himself and weighing a delicious suspicion that he might be the next President or Vice President. Wisconsin's Alexander Wiley, the new Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee, was one who seemed thus slightly bemused. It did not affect his hardheadedness in promising to end the "grossly lopsided political character" which the federal bench had assumed under Democratic rule. But when a group of Wisconsin reporters asked his opinion of the coming presidential race he sighed and said: "As for me, my fate is in the lap of the gods."

Meanwhile the routine early work of both Houses went on. The organization of committees was only partly concluded, but it squeezed plaintive cries from Vito Marcantonio, the rabble-rousing Congressman from Manhattan's upper East Side. As the only minor party member (American Labor Party) left in the House, he seemed in danger of being stranded--each major party voiced deadpan assumptions that the other would take care of seating him on committees. Another left-winger, Florida's Russophile Claude Pepper, was also disenchanted at finding himself eased off the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee--the wages of singing his famous duet with Henry Wallace at Madison Square Garden (TIME, Sept. 23).

Discoveries. There was other minor grumbling. Congressmen couldn't get their checks cashed because the banking office of the House Sergeant at Arms was locked up. Auditors were going over the accounts of the ex-Democratic appointee, Kenneth Romney--a process made" weird and wonderful by the fact that he had allowed Congressmen to draw their paychecks months in advance and had indulged in other extremely amiable financial practices.

None of this interrupted the scurrying of pages and the flow of paper from Representatives' offices. By week's end 808 bills and 46 resolutions had been introduced in the House; and 125 bills, 51 resolutions in the Senate.

Much of the new legislation had an eternal air about it. In the Senate, Oregon's Wayne Morse, pleader of liberal causes, rose to introduce a bill for the surveying of a stream known as Two Mile Creek. In the House, Ohio's deadly serious Republican Homer A. Ramey voiced the need of correcting a shocking inequity: he had discovered that the nation was spending three dollars for cosmetics to every one for education.

This cheerful nonpartisanship was even bulwarked by the Senate's Republican leader Robert Taft. He announced that a project for improving the acoustics of the Senate chamber would not be launched until summer. "There is," he added, "no way of improving the acoustics during this session--except by speaking louder."

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