Footwork

This week, as the U.S. Capitol vibrated with the bustle of its biennial rite, the convening of a new Congress, lawmakers were engaged in two kinds of positioning. On the surface, Democrats were taking control from Republicans with hearty promises of bipartisan cooperation on foreign policy, and arranging themselves according to time-honored courtesies and the unwritten rules of seniority. Beneath the surface, the political footwork was livelier, with every step taken in anticipation of the 1956 campaign.

Texas' Sam Rayburn will relieve Massachusetts' Joe Martin of the Speakership, but not of his office suite. Mr. Sam, weary of swapping offices, told Joe to stay on in the Speaker's rooms. After 32 years in the Senate, Georgia's patriarchal Walter George, senior Democrat since the 1952 defeat of Tennessee's fiery-eyed Kenneth McKellar, will win the prestige of Mc-Kellar's old title, Senate President pro tempore.

Washington focused a lively interest last week on Oregon's Senators. Freshman Dick Neuberger flew in, after lunching in Chicago with Adlai Stevenson, to be festively entertained by Fair-Dealing Columnist Doris Fleeson and, on New Year's Day, by Colleague Wayne Morse. Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, recognizing that Democrats owe Morse their control of the Senate, will give him committee posts as good as or better than the ones from which the Republicans ousted him two years ago. And following his policy of finding at least one good committee berth for each newcomer. Johnson has Neuberger in mind for the Labor and Public Welfare Committee.

Such are among the victor's spoils; but what is their course of action? Senate Leader Johnson has rejected, on the ground that it would breed dissension in the party, proposals that the Democrats work up a packaged program of their own.

Instead, Democrats are planning a strategy that calls for: 1) buttressing party unity, even at the risk of inviting charges that Democrats are "going slow" or "turning conservative"; 2) sharpshooting at Republican disunity and at "those awful men around Ike," without getting stung by the President's personal popularity, and 3) reviewing the President's program, and attacking it on carefully chosen domestic issues.

The Republican counterattack is less clearly defined. President Eisenhower, who believes honesty is the best politics, has refused to demand legislation that he knows will not pass (e.g., Truman's civil-rights measures), although by doing so he could easily drive wedges among the Democrats. Accordingly, Republicans may strike at the Democrats' exposed position; they think they can make the Democrats regret in 1956 any failure to deliver the President's program.

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