CAPITAL NOTES

Bouncing Ball?

As the chief architect of the Administration's foreign trade program, Under Secretary of State George Ball would ordinarily be expected to act as its leading advocate before Congress. But Ball, along with a good many other State Department officials, is considered a little starchy in his dealings with Congressmen; in order to make a more persuasive presentation, the Administration may switch the burden to Treasury Secretary Douglas Dillon and Commerce Secretary Luther Hodges.

After the Cosmos

Still flushing from the furor over its rejection of Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Carl T. Rowan, a Negro, Washington's Cosmos Club voted overwhelmingly to end its segregationist policies. But many in Washington were wondering about other clubs, especially the comfortable old Chevy Chase, a well-equipped (18 holes, 22 tennis courts, 2 bars), country club just over the D.C. line in Maryland. It has never admitted a Negro (and keeps plenty of white people waiting as long as eight years). President Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon Johnson are both honorary members.

Building a Bigger House

Democratic and Republican leaders in the House of Representatives are nearing agreement on a plan (that had once been resisted by the late Speaker Sam Rayburn) to increase House membership from 435 to 439. The change would help solve prickly line-drawing problems in Illinois, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania by giving each of those states, plus Missouri, one more Representative than they were allotted after the 1960 census.

The Ev & Charlie Show (Contd.)

No sooner had Republican National Committee Chairman William Miller proposed that the G.O.P. issue a policy statement to rebut President Kennedy's State of the Union message than the party's congressional floor leaders. Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen and Indiana Representative Charles Halleck, vetoed the idea. That left Dirksen and Halleck, who appear on television weekly in what has come to be known as "The Ev and Charlie Show," as the most visible, audible enunciators of Republican policy in Washington.

Instant Stonehenge

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial Commission has approved a controversial design for a monument to the author of the New Deal: a set of sky-stabbing concrete slabs to be erected in West Potomac Park. The memorial has been variously described as "the epitome of mid-20th century art" by Architect Philip C. Johnson and as "instant Stonehenge" by the critical Washington Post and Times Herald. The Post last week suggested that one of the slabs carry an epitaph to the shortlived National Recovery Administration (1933-35): "Here lies beneath this pillar grey/The late-lamented NRA/It lived and breathed and had its day/But, thank the Lord, it went away."

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