Cotton Ed Blows a Fuse

CBS is mighty proud of its new program, Congress Speaks (Tues., 10:30-10:45 p.m., E.W.T.). In four and a half months the series has built up a coast-to-coast audience--just letting Congressmen air their minds and tempers on the hottest controversial issues of the week. Incredibly, there were no major boners, no embarrassing moments--until last week.

> Old Senator Ellison DuRant ("Cotton Ed") Smith, all warmed up and ready to go, hit the air with a diatribe on Americans and the War Effort. Blowing like a grampus, garrumphy, irascible Cotton Ed got so interested in his work (denouncing New Deal regimentation) that he skipped a paragraph, turned the page of his script and came upon the middle of an entirely unrelated sentence about gasoline rationing. Twenty interminable, script-shuffling seconds later listeners on 118 stations heard his frustrated bellow:

"I knew they were going to get these damned sheets mixed up!"

CBS Correspondent Albert Leitch handed him a fresh script, straightened him out. Cotton Ed chugged off again. Huffing & puffing through his old-style planter's mustache, old DuRant concluded his oration, turned to Leitch and bawled: "How'd I do?" A flushed engineer threw a switch, took Cotton Ed off the air.

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