The Perils of Paul

Paul Butler of South Bend, Ind., the scrappy, unloved chairman of the Democratic National Committee, has an extraordinary instinct for survival. His enemies in the party have tried time and again to unseat him, but they have never succeeded. Now the anti-Butlerites are attempting to scare him out by withholding and refusing funds for the committee. Result: the national committee is in financial straits, is two months behind in the rent for its Washington headquarters, forced to beg for day-to-day handouts to meet the office payroll. Last week Chairman Butler struck back at his tormenters with a characteristic ultimatum. State organizations that do not pay up the joint $1,370,000 they owe in overdue quotas for 1957-59, he promised, will be paid off by inferior seating and housing arrangements at the Los Angeles convention next July.

The Democrats still owe $467,000 in 1956 campaign obligations. The national committee is living beyond its means at the rate of more than $86,000 so far this year, and Paul Butler has made no major move to reduce expenses. Neither has Philadelphia Multimillionaire (construction) Matt McCloskey, the party treasurer, who shares with Butler the responsibility and the blame for fund-raising and budgeting. The two men are no longer on speaking terms--and the party's indebtedness continues to spiral upward. The sleek party house organ, Democratic Digest, continues to pile up a $70,000-$80,000 annual deficit; rental for the committee's commodious offices amounts to $2,820 per month, and the 80-man staff draws down some $440,000 in annual salaries. Butler maintains a $350-a-month Washington apartment on the expense account, and his marathon travels (averaging 1,000 miles per week) add to the burden (although Butler travels economically, rarely hosts dinners or parties).

No one denies that Butler is a fast-moving, hard-working chairman (he has had just three days of vacation this year), but his enemies say he works hardest at offending the party's bigwigs with his acidly articulate speeches against the Democratic leaders of Congress, Southern segregationists--any target of opportunity. "There is no question that there's a sit-down on money," says one party wheel horse. "All the other money raisers are cool toward Butler or actually dislike him." In his threatening notice last week, Butler did nothing to appease them. As they well know, some adamantly anti-Butler delegations, notably from the proud South, are likely to find themselves housed in the Pasadena Y.M.C.A., 14 miles from the activity, and seated on the roof of the convention hall.

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