Cheers!

As every denizen of the U.S. Capitol knows, legislative history is sometimes made over a friendly bipartisan glass of bourbon or Scotch. The convivial sessions in Charlie Halleck's "Clinic" or Lyndon Johnson's princely rumpus room can be as important as any committee hearing or party caucus. Even House Speaker John McCormack, a teetotaler, has decided as a matter of legislative policy to continue the gently liquid "Board of Education" meetings held by Sam Rayburn and earlier Speakers.

Oregon's maverick Democratic Senator Wayne Morse is a teetotaler who believes in preaching what he practices. In the Senate last week he rose up to denounce the "desecration of the buildings belonging to the taxpayers." Cried Morse: "There is a growing social pattern of holding affairs in rooms in the Capitol and in the Senate Office Buildings at which hard liquor is served. In my opinion it cannot be justified. It ought to be stopped forthwith ... I will not knowingly attend such an affair, and if I find myself in such an affair and hard liquor is being served, I will immediately absent myself from such an affair . . ."

As Morse was talking, most of his colleagues were attending the grand opening of yet another watering place beneath the Capitol dome: a new, walnut-paneled reception room. Among the guests was the President of the U.S. But Kennedy, warned that Morse was making an issue of such occasions, did not go near the bar, and, after 20 amiable but arid minutes, he left. On his way from the Capitol, he passed the Senate chamber, and ex-Senator Kennedy could not resist an impulse to go inside for a moment. Wayne Morse was inveighing on, but when he spotted the President, he stopped for a moment and grinned, then went on with his morseful attack. The President smiled back. Seeing the near-empty chamber, he murmured: "That's the way it was when I left the Senate." Then he pushed out, past the swinging doors. In the reception room, Senators and Cabinet members were still refreshing themselves with what they now slyly call "Wayne water."

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