The Art of the Possible

Leaving Harry Truman's office last week, the Administration's congressional leaders stood in a little cluster, wearing the aggressively confident expressions that politicians put on when they face a pack of reporters. They let Senate Majority Leader Scott Lucas do most of the talking. Recently returned to duty after a long bout with his stomach ulcers, he was a tailor's symphony in brown, and eager to make news. Congress, he said, could adjourn by July 31 or early August at the latest. The implication was clear: Harry Truman had decided not to press for a lot of his legislation this term. There were only three "must" bills, he added cheerfully--extension of the reciprocal trade program, the North Atlantic pact, and repeal of Taft-Hartley. The President was "definitely satisfied," he indicated.

In a few more confident sentences, Scott Lucas dumped the rest of Harry Truman's fondest projects over the side. Lucas saw little hope for the Fair Deal's social program. He "seriously doubted" if anything could be done about civil rights. "We had a program that couldn't possibly be enacted by any Congress in seven months," he added (though Harry Truman, a year ago, had said that the "terrible" 80th Congress could pass a comparable program in 15 days, if it really wanted to).

"Betrayal." After the Fair Deal's high promises at election time, Leader Lucas' sunny discourse was actually an abject confession of defeat. Cried the leftrwing Americans for Democratic Action: "A flat betrayal of the Democratic platform." Anti-Truman editorialists leaped to their typewriters to crow, and to praise Harry Truman's new-found wisdom ("The President has at last seen fit to acknowledge that politics is the art of the possible," said the Washington Post).

Harry Truman was looking for no such left-handed compliments. He was annoyed at Scott Lucas. "Why, oh why do they make statements when they go out of here?" he asked an aide plaintively. Truman got Lucas on the phone, brushed aside his explanations, and laid down the law. There would be no adjournment, Truman said, until his minimum program was passed. That included federal aid to education, housing and slum clearance and a 75/ minimum wage. He wanted at least a token civil-rights bill-- either antilynching or anti-poll tax. Truman conceded that there was no chance this session for his health program, major civil-rights legislation, or his $4 billion tax increase.

Harry Truman was wearing that confident look, too, as he faced his press conference. Senator Lucas, he declared firmly, had been misunderstood. Congress should finish the job--it didn't make any difference how long it took. As for himself, he was still for everything, he said.

Damage Control. Despite Harry Truman's hasty efforts at damage control, the Fair Deal had all but lost steerageway, and Truman knew it. The truth was that though he had a partisan majority in the

Democratic 81st Congress, he had never had an ideological majority. Of the 24 major measures he asked for in January, Congress in five months had enacted only one--extension of rent control.

Scott Lucas, in an indiscreet moment, had come close to defining what more Harry Truman could get out of Congress before summer adjournment. Stubborn Harry Truman, in public at least, was unwilling to admit it.

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