"Personally Obnoxious"

"I am loth to become engaged in a struggle with the President," Paul Douglas said uneasily. "But in this matter, God helping me, I can do no other." In this solemn fashion, Illinois' Fair Dealing Senator served notice last week that he would take his fight with Harry Truman to the Senate floor. A half gale was building up into a hurricane.

At Douglas' request, 4,570 members of the Chicago Bar Association had voted on Douglas' two recommendations to the Illinois federal bench against the two Harry Truman picked instead (TIME, July 30). The lawyers favored one Douglas choice by 2-to-1 vote, the other by 6 to 1. In another poll, it was the consensus of the northern members of the Illinois Bar Association that one of the Truman men, Joseph Drucker, a municipal court judge and nephew of 85-year-old Congressman Adolph J. Sabath, is not even qualified for the job.

With his judgment thus confirmed, Douglas denounced the President's action as "contrary to the public interest and in that sense personally obnoxious to me." "Personally obnoxious" is the ceremonial phrase which invokes senatorial courtesy in such matters. Harry Truman's nominees are in for rough going.

This would be annoying enough to Harry Truman. But what fixed the fascinated gaze of political observers was a cloud on the political horizon no bigger than the hand of little Jacob Arvey, Illinois Democratic boss. Appearing on a TV program with Douglas, Arvey dutifully stated that the Illinois delegation at the National Convention would support Mr. Truman if he chose to run. If not, said Arvey, "there are a great many people who . . . look on Senator Douglas as a presidential candidate." When Douglas once more disavowed any such ambitions, Arvey mentioned his liking for Ike Eisenhower, whom Arvey backed for a while in 1948 when he, like many of the Democratic regulars, thought Truman was through. This was calculated to rile Harry Truman, and it did. Asked at his press conference about it, the President snapped that Arvey went off half-cocked once before. The President was still determined to teach Messrs. Douglas and Arvey a lesson in party loyalty--even if the price was a senatorial lesson in the dangers of stubbornness.

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