Flipping for Joe's Place

Dallying in the Senate's ornate dining room over a late supper, Ohio's John Bricker drew a quarter from his pocket as he mulled over a problem with New York's Irving Ives and Utah's Arthur Watkins. Each was a ranking contender for the chair on the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee left empty by Joe McCarthy's death, and it was Bricker's job, as chairman of the Republican Committee on Committees, to make the choice. Ordinarily, the nod would have gone to the Republican with the greater seniority. Bricker's dilemma: both Ives and Watkins were sworn into the Senate on Jan. 3, 1947. Technically Ives could claim a hairbreadth of seniority because he had held previous legislative office (New York state), but Ives was no man to pull a technicality on an opponent of Arthur Watkins' caliber. Bricker's suggestion: Would the Senators agree to settle the matter in the classic Senate tradition in such cases, i.e., by flipping a coin?

Irving Ives promptly agreed. For Watkins the decision was tougher. As a practicing Mormon, he is opposed to gambling on principle, reluctantly accepts the Senate custom ("It isn't really gambling") for lack of a practical alternative. Moreover, out of eight previous turns at Senate coin tossing, he has lost eight times. At length, as Bricker flipped the coin experimentally, Watkins gave in. "Heads," he called as the quarter whirled in the air. It came up tails. Sighed Arthur Watkins: "My record of losing at this is still intact."

Last week the committee formally ratified the coin tossing by voting to give McCarthy's seat on Appropriations to New York's Ives. Then, without benefit of further flipping, it gave Joe's place on the Government Operations Committee to Indiana's Homer Capehart, normally an Eisenhower backer, and Joe's place on the Rules Committee to an all-out Ikeman, New Jersey's Clifford Case (who also picked up the third-ranking spot on Banking and Currency which Ives vacated in exchange for the Appropriations post). That still left the Senate with a pair of vacancies to fill on committees from which Cliff Case had departed: 1) District of Columbia, and 2) Post Office and Civil Service. Each is so lowly that no Senator bothered to bid for it. Result: the posts will be left open for McCarthy's successor from Wisconsin, whoever he may be and whenever he is elected.

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