Rabbit with a Punch

By last week the man at the top of the Administration's blacklist of Congressional bad boys was Missouri's Roger Caldwell ("Duke") Slaughter. National Chairman Bob Hannegan sizzled and sputtered about him. Speaker Sam Rayburn spoke of him, in private, as he would of the lowest form of Republican. Harry Truman was a friend no longer.

Roger Slaughter is a well-fed, middle-aged (40), second-term Democratic Congressman who used to live a couple of blocks from Harry Truman in Independence, Mo. In his 'teens, he got out and rang doorbells in behalf of Truman for County Judge. As a Kansas City lawyer-politician, he stumped long and loyally for Truman for U.S. Senator.

But since those happy days Slaughter had voted against or helped block many of Harry Truman's pet measures; as a member of the potent House Rules Committee, he had embarrassed the Administration on the Hill time & again.

No run-of-the-mill politician, wavy-haired, well-tailored Roger Slaughter has always shown a streak of independence, makes no bones about his conservatism. Princeton-bred and well-to-do, he has a successful law practice, plays dufferish golf at the Kansas City Country Club, generally remains aloof from the hurly-burly of Missouri politics. He particularly roused the President's ire by going out to Harry Truman's home territory*and making a rousing speech on behalf of the Case Bill just before the President vetoed it. Worse yet, a great many Kansas citizens seemed to like the speech.

Hot Needle. Buoyed by his visit home, Slaughter kept right on slaughtering. Last week, along with Indiana's Republican Charles Halleck, he slipped a hot needle into the C.I.O.'s Political Action Committee. Into a House resolution to check into 1946 election expenditures, they inserted a clause to include "labor organizations and committees thereof."

What hurt Democratic stalwarts most was that there seemed to be nothing to do about him. In Democratic Jackson County there is an unwritten law: a "Goat" (the old Tom Pendergast faction to which Harry Truman belongs) is always the Fourth District candidate, a "Rabbit" (the heirs of the late Congressman Joe Shannon) always runs in the Fifth--and never would the two machines collide. Thus "Rabbit" Slaughter has the committed support of Jim Pendergast, who, like his late uncle, Tom, has a passion for keeping his political word.

Altogether, Roger Slaughter was the thumpingest political headache the President had. Attending his Class of '28 reunion at Princeton last week (see EDUCATION), Roger Slaughter did not seem to mind at all.

*Slaughter is Harry Truman's neighbor-Congressman. He represents Missouri's Fifth District, comprising about half of Kansas City and a small segment of Jackson County. The President's home district is Missouri's Fourth, taking in Independence and the rest of Jackson County.

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