Speaking Out on the Speaker

The President was not alone in lavishing praise on John McCormack. One after another, a dozen of his fellow Democrats rose on the House floor last week to laud the Speaker's virtues. "A kind man, a Christian, a gentleman," intoned Oklahoma's Carl Albert. "No human being has ever been more human," chimed in South Carolina's Mendel Rivers. "When the history of this era is written," apostrophized Louisiana's Hale Boggs, "no name will loom larger."

The eulogies were not exactly spontaneous. They came as a defensive reaction to reports leaked by disgruntled Democratic liberals that the 75-year-old Speaker was "losing touch" with his rank and file. Columnist Jack Anderson, Drew Pearson's alter ego, claimed that McCormack's major legislative concern was "the remodeling of the Capitol building's west front." A Washington Post editorial, concluding that McCormack no longer brings to the speakership the "energy, shrewdness and fighting capacity that it requires," urged that he "step down gracefully."

McCormack's most palpable failure so far this session came in his handling of the Adam Clayton Powell affair. Deeply averse to any break with precedent, he unsuccessfully resisted both the Democratic-caucus move to strip Powell of his committee chairmanship, and the full House action to take away his seat pending a formal investigation. McCormack's stand particularly irritated young, liberal Congressmen, who have been increasingly unhappy about the Speaker's intractably traditionalist position. What McCormack failed to consider was that many a colleague was under heavy pressure from constituents to chastise the flamboyant Negro Congressman.

McCormack remains a dedicated spokesman for his party's legislative program; he deserves great credit for the mammoth outpouring of Great Society legislation in the 89th Congress. Since the last session, however, he has grown noticeably more emaciated, irascible and heedless of the mood of Congress. After McCormack's defeat on the floor vote that took away Powell's seat, California Democrat Lionel Van Deerlin, a leader of the movement to discipline the Harlem Representative, approached McCormack to explain his action. The Speaker turned away with a disgusted "humph."

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