THE SENATE'S MOST VALUABLE TEN

A Senator is expected to devote long hours to seeking the long view, yet to be on call whenever a constituent wants a guide to show him about Washington. If he strictly supports his party leaders, he is called a hack; if he defies them, he is called an obstructionist. His real bosses, the voters, are innumerable and nagging, usually indifferent to his best work (which passes unnoticed), and often hostile because of insignificant or irrelevant happenings. His every move is conditioned by a set of rules that would confuse a good chess player. The job would seem unrewarding--yet men ask for it, fight for it. Some perform it with distinction. Among the 96 members of the Senate these ten men stand out by their ability, devotion and integrity:

Arthur H. Vandenberg, Republican from Michigan, 66, the Senate's architect of bipartisan foreign policy. More than most, he has the historic view, and his opinions carry immense prestige. He has done more than any other Senator, of either party, to reshape foreign programs so that the Senate could approve them. Middle of the road in domestic affairs, in foreign policy he has rendered his country historic service with his sound counsel and his baroque eloquence.

Paul Douglas, Democrat from Illinois, 58, the ablest, best-balanced liberal Democrat in the Senate and its most impressive freshman in years. He is a humanitarian who does not believe government should do all things for all men, a maverick liberal who also insists on prudent spending ("To be a liberal one does not have to be a wastrel") An ex-professor, and a veteran of Chicago's rough & tumble city council, he has the economist-sociologist mind, a notable capacity for collecting, sifting and appraising facts.

Robert A. Toft, Republican from Ohio, 60, his party's policy leader and the Senate's finest legal mind. He is often the catalyst of Senate thinking. His abrasive mind can find the soft spots in an argument or a plan as surely as a dentist's drill. Ragging in debate, blunt to the point of rudeness, honest to the point of indiscretion, he holds his leadership by sheer intellectual prestige. He is a powerful check on any ill-advised experiment; in fact, his more liberal colleagues would be the first to admit that, while fighting them, he has often made their badly drawn legislation make sense.

Scott Lucas, Democrat from Illinois, 58, majority leader. At first irascible, impatient, and ineffective, he has learned how to work with his colleagues, to accept the slowness of Senate processes, and to keep his ulcers from acting up. In White House conferences, he gives President Truman an honest count, even when it is painful. He fought gallantly for the civil rights program, beat off crippling amendments aimed at ECA, even went to a Republican caucus to plead for a liberalized D.P. bill. Not brilliant, he is a slogging, dogged fighter.

Eugene Millikin, Republican from Colorado, 59, an able lawyer and one of the Senate's best tax minds. Millikin got rich on oil, and became a politician only in 1941. He is a solid, serviceable stabilizer. Witty and popular, and the Republicans' best cloakroom statesman, he commands great respect among his colleagues.

Walter George, Democrat from Georgia, 72, the ablest of the Southern conservatives. A solid, grey, calm man, never rushed to a conclusion, impossible to stampede, he has been in the Senate 27 years. Though an unabashed filibusterer on civil rights, he has probably the best grasp in the Senate of veterans' affairs, financial matters and taxes.

Irving Ives, Republican from New York, 54, one of the Senate's sharpest debaters (though he speaks less than most). A liberal Republican, he talked the Senate into accepting softening amendments to the Taft-Hartley Act, is an outspoken champion of civil rights. As a veteran of ten years as G.O.P. majority leader in Albany, he is a skilled parliamentarian, conspicuous for fairness and open-mindedness.

Estes Kefauver, Democrat from Tennessee, 46, the Senate's most effective symbol of the South's new progressivism. An anti-poll tax man, he defied and beat Memphis' Boss Crump to win election. A Senate freshman, he is a ten-year veteran of the House. Though he is against the FEPC bill, he is one of the few Southerners who outspokenly opposes the use of the filibuster to kill it, believing such filibusters undemocratic. A good lawyer and a student of government, he has written a book on congressional reform, is a cosponsor of the electoral-reform bill.

George Aiken, Republican from Vermont, 57, is a Yankee farmer-independent. One of the few Republicans to have C.I.O. support, he is also the Republicans' best farm legislator. He is currently working with New Mexico's Anderson for a bipartisan solution of the farm problem. Gentle George Aiken, an indifferent speaker, a hard worker, is one of the soundest Republican progressives.

Millard Tydinqs, Democrat from Maryland, 59, the goad of the Senate. Elegant, sarcastic, with a mind like a rapier and a tongue like a rasp, he is probably the Senate's best committee examiner. He cuts through verbiage and pinks his man on the bone. Though ,a brilliant man of great capacity, he has the defect of working no harder than he thinks he has to. As chairman of the Armed Services Committee, he applies a steady hand and a cool judgment to things military.

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