First Seven Months

As midnight drew near, crowds jammed the Senate galleries like spectators at a dance marathon. The House had finished its work with a comfortable margin; its members were lustily singing barbershop chords and happily contemplating a five-month vacation.

But in the Senate one bitter speech followed another. Texas' white-maned Senator Tom Connally shook a trembling finger at Michigan's Republican Senator Homer Ferguson, accusing him of pouring out "the vomit of his hate, prejudice, rancor and ambition." While Bob Taft pleaded with him, Idaho's banjo-playing Democratic Senator Glen Taylor cunningly piled books on his desk as though he was preparing to make a long harangue. He sent a note to the press gallery: "Don't worry . . . I'm not going to make a speech. I just want to drive Taft to distraction--senatorial term for nuts."

Midnight (supposedly the deadline) passed. The battle went on. The Republicans were trying to force a renewal of the Kansas City vote fraud investigation (TIME, June 16). They believed (or hoped) that the investigation would turn up evidence that the Democratic machine in Kansas City had falsified primary election returns last August--and that machine was very close to Harry Truman; it had put him in the Senate. The behavior of the Democratic Senators in the face of this threat was not such as to allay suspicion: they had closed ranks, made it a party issue, and blocked the investigation. Beaten earlier, the Republicans tried a flank movement in the final hours by holding up confirmation of Democrat Philip B. Perlman as Solicitor General. It was 3:35 a.m. before they finally gave up. Perlman was confirmed. At 3:50, disgruntled, unshaven and bone-weary after three nights of cat naps on cloakroom cots, the Senators tramped out into the pre-dawn darkness. The first, seven-month session of the 80th Congress was over.

Moments of Greatness. How well had it done? The first Republican Congress in 16 years had done its work in an atmosphere supercharged with politics. With a Democrat in the White House, partisan issues flared up like matches burning in oxygen. The Both had committed its share of sins, and demonstrated the normal leaning of Congress toward mediocrity. It also had had moments of decision, restraint and even greatness.

U.S. history held few more dramatic demonstrations of national unity than the 80th's record on foreign affairs. For that record, Arthur Vandenberg was largely responsible. And Congress had demonstrated resolution in some of its handling of domestic affairs. The Republicans had begun the session by refusing to seat Senator Theodore ("The Man") Bilbo, Mississippi's evangelist of racial discrimination. In passing and then re-passing the Taft-Hartley labor bill over the President's veto, Republicans and Democrats both (but mainly Republicans) had ignored the clamor from labor and also from the extreme right. The 80th had re-established the sovereignty of the legislative process.

It had quickly silenced the hubbub over portal-to-portal pay suits. It had voted for unification of the armed services. It had managed to reduce appropriations from $1.2 billion to $2.5 billion (rival Democratic and Republican claims). It was not the Republicans' fault that income taxes were not reduced. They had tried.

Pray & Probe. In its handling of some other aspects of domestic affairs the 80th had been guilty of downright fiasco. It had halted the progress of U.S. atomic research for ten long weeks, while engaging in a disgraceful debate on the character of Atomic Energy Commission Chairman David Lilienthal (see The Administration). It had chopped appropriations for safety devices at airports, despite a serious number of disastrous crashes. It had passed a pious rent-control bill with a hidden gimmick--a "voluntary" 15% increase for tenants.

It had failed to act on some pressing problems: housing, universal military training, the Stratton bill, authorizing the admission of 400,000 displaced persons to the U.S.

After the Republican landslide last fall, Ohio's big, trumpeting Republican Congressman Clarence Brown had announced that the G.O.P. would "open each session with a prayer and close it with a probe." The Both Congress had done a lot more than that. But neither were the Republicans overlooking an opportunity to delve into the Democratic enemy's past. Before recessing they appropriated over $2,000,000 for investigations. During the summer and fall, members of at least 39 committees would be prospecting for "Communism, confusion and corruption."

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