Ready for the Brawl

As he packed his bags to return to Washington, Dallas' Republican Representative Bruce Alger looked grimly forward to the second session of the Democratic 85th Congress. "I foresee bitterness and hatefulness," he said last week. "We are going to squabble and fight and make the world think we hate each other and that we can't solve our problems. We are going to have bigger and bigger budgets, higher taxes, more Government spending at home and abroad, and more inflation accompanied by deficit financing. Happy New Year!"

Congressman Alger's view, of the horizon may have been unduly clouded, but few of his colleagues who will move up to Capitol Hill for the opening of Congress next week were much more optimistic about the prospects. They are largely the same men who marched down the Hill only four months ago, but they are coming back to a different world. Inflation has changed to recession; the unassailable Eisenhower is under heavy assault; big talk of economy has changed to big talk of defense spending; and the air of smug superiority has yielded to the very real threat of Russian technological leadership. Before it met, the new session had a nickname: "The Sputnik Congress." And it had a too obvious political motivation: laying out party lines for the congressional elections next November.

One Man's Show. With his customary skill, Senate Majority Leader Johnson has placed himself directly on top of the session's key issue. As chairman of the Senate Preparedness Subcommittee, he will sit as prosecutor and judge while the civilian and military brass from the Pentagon is summoned up to the Hill and cross-examined on U.S. defense shortfalls. The committee's report will have a strong impact on what Congress does about defense. Working closely with Texas' Johnson in the defense area will be the chairmen of the House and Senate Military Appropriations Subcommittees, Texas' Representative George Herman Mahon and New Mexico's Senator Dennis Chavez. Backing them up will be a man who has for years played a big role in the military deliberations of Congress, Georgia's Senator Richard Russell. Together they will attempt to take control of the defense program out of the hands of General Dwight Eisenhower, whose leadership in that field was once unchallenged.

When it is not busied with defense, Congress will have to make major decisions in a wide range of legislation. Items:

FOREIGN AID. The Administration will seek substantial increases, particularly in military support. Despite the obvious argument for such aid as a corollary to defense, the first rumblings from returnees to the Hill indicate trouble. Among the probable troublemakers: Louisiana's Otto Passman, chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee that controls the Mutual Security purse strings, a bitter foe of foreign aid.

TRADE. With the reciprocal trade agreements expiring next June 30, the Administration will push for a five-year extension and some liberalization. The prospect is for a long, bitter fight, beginning in the House Ways and Means Committee (now chaired by Arkansas' Representative Wilbur Mills), continuing on the floor of both houses, probably ending in little more than a one-year extension of the present agreements.

LABOR. The McClellan committee will continue its investigations, moving from the Teamsters Union to Walter Reuther's United Auto Workers and on to David McDonald's Steelworkers, winding up with a bill designed to halt abuses by labor leaders that is likely to get wide support in Congress.

AGRICULTURE. No one is satisfied with the present patchwork farm program, and the Administration is preparing a new one. But not very many people are expected to be satisfied with it, either.

RECESSION . Such easy-money Democrats as Texas' Representative Wright Patman are expected to sound off at length against the evils of the Administration's tight money policy, but the legislative leaders do not expect much more than talk; the possibility of a program of recession-fighting legislation, as of Congress' opening, seemed remote.

CIVIL RIGHTS. The big issue of the last session, given new urgency by Little Rock, is lying strangely silent as the session opens. The Administration does not plan to push any new civil rights legislation, and the Democratic leaders hope that their most dangerous party-splitting issue will not rise to haunt them. Cracked one Democratic Senator last week: "Little Rock is now just a place that Sputnik flies over."

Democracy's Wonder. Politically, the second session of the 85th Congress has all of the volatile ingredients of an election year with a couple of H-bombs added. The Southerners, who were infuriated by the President's use of troops in Little Rock, hold powerful positions on military affairs committees, and will doubtless turn full fire on Administration defense shortcomings, both contrived and real. Carefully tuned to the new sounds of criticism of the Eisenhower leadership, the Democratic chiefs are returning to Washington aggressively determined to knock down Dwight Eisenhower and his Administration. Said Michigan's Republican Senator Charles Potter last week: "They will try to do to Ike what they did to Hoover in his last two years."

On the Republican side, there is little sign of any solid movement to stand against the Democratic attack. The band of liberal Republican Senators who have rallied around Ike before are themselves nervous about his leadership, and have turned to Vice President Nixon for counsel. "In our own self-interest," said one ex-Ikeman, "we've got to convince the electorate that we are more energetic than Eisenhower." New Jersey's Clifford Case has already called for more aid to education than the Administration is expected to propose, and for better defense than it has produced; New York's Jacob Javits has announced that, contrary to the Administration's plans, he will introduce a civil rights bill to restore substantially the provisions that Congress cut out of last session's bill.

Conservative Republicans, e.g., Arizona's Senator Barry Goldwater, are planning to push their anti-Eisenhower brand of Republicanism even harder than before. There is little prospect that Senate Minority Leader William Knowland, with his mind on his campaign for the governorship of California, will be able or even willing to make the two-wings of the G.O.P. fly together to produce a unified force. And Knowland's heir apparent for the leadership, Illinois' Everett Dirksen, is still not quite sure which wing he wants to fly with.

What is in prospect on Capitol Hill during 1958 is a noisy, bitter, politicking, name -calling, scapegoat -seeking brawl. The wonder of democracy is that, by session's end, it will have probably produced some worthwhile results.

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