The Leader

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From the ceiling of the Capitol office hangs a magnificent chandelier, circa 1802. Its crystals oscillate freely. They touch and tinkle in a sparkling Mozartian minuet. But hark! Whence comes this counterpoint that shivers the crystals into new and shimmering song? It comes from the man behind the desk--a big-handed, big-boned man with a lined, cornfield face and greying locks that spiral above him like a halo run amok. He speaks, and the words emerge in a soft, sepulchral baritone. They undulate in measured phrases, expire in breathless wisps. He fills his lungs and blows word-rings like smoke. The sentences curl upward. They chase each other around the room in dreamy images of Steamboat Gothic. Now he conjures moods of mirth, now of sorrow. He rolls his bright blue eyes heavenward. In funereal tones, he paraphrases the Bible (" 'Lord, they would stone me . . .'") and church bells peal. "Motherhood." he whispers, and grown men weep. "The Flag!" he bugles, and everybody salutes.

No one who has seen and heard this performance will ever forget it. For this is Illinois Republican Everett McKinley Dirksen, 66, minority leader of the U.S. Senate. He is his party's spokesman in the Senate and the man responsible for unifying the often disparate views of G.O.P. members, and for translating those aims into action. As the keystone of the loyal opposition, he must move with a sure political sophistication and a thorough grasp of political events. By dint of these qualities, and abetted by his marvelously furry voice. Dirksen has become one of the truly remarkable characters of the Senate.

True enough, the character has often been caricatured. They call him "Irksome Dirksen." "the Wizard of Ooze," "the Liberace of the Senate," and "Oleaginous Ev." They claim that he was born with a golden thesaurus in his mouth, that he marinates his tonsils in honey. They say that he got his cornball ways from working for the Corn Products Refining Co. plant in Pekin. Ill., his home town, and that his felicity for hot air is a result of his stint as a World War I balloonist.

They recall that in his prepolitical days, he had a consuming ambition to become an actor -- and they argue that he has succeeded superbly. They delight in his adventurous hairdo : "Whatever you want to say about him, he doesn't use that greasy kid stuff." And they point to a political trail that has more twists than that of a palsied sidewinder: the Chicago Sun-Times (whose political creature Dirksen is often, and inaccurately, accused of being) once reported that in his 16 years in the House of Representatives, Dirksen changed his mind 62 times on foreign policy matters, 31 times on military affairs, and 70 times on agricultural policies.

But most of all, outside the Senate itself, they tend to forget or ignore the fact that Dirksen has become the most effective G.O.P. floor leader in a line of succession that includes Oregon's Charles McNary, Maine's Wallace White, Nebraska's Kenneth Wherry, Ohio's Robert Taft and California's William Knowland.

The Outpouring. Testimonials to the quality of Dirksen's leadership come from both sides of the Senate aisle and from nearly all factions within both par ties. Just recently, Connecticut's middle-roading Republican Senator Prescott Bush, who voted against Dirksen for minority leader four years ago, stood up to speak to the Senate. Bush is retiring from the Senate after this year, and he wanted to pay tribute to Dirksen. "He is," said Bush, "one of the very few men in the Senate who actually make votes when they speak on an important issue...

When grave national issues are involved, Everett Dirksen is not a partisan." In a flood of oratory, Republican after Republican rose to toss bouquets toward Dirksen. Vermont's George Aiken praised his fairness and courage. California's Thomas Kuchel his unselfishness and erudition.

Kentucky's John Sherman Cooper his patriotism, Texas' John Tower his warmth, good humor, good counsel and advice.

It is not, after all, unprecedented for Republicans to praise a key Republican.

But then Democrats -- and in an election year at that -- followed with an outpouring that climaxed when Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, in terms of glowing rhetoric, managed to out-Dirksen Dirksen. If, said Mansfield, he were only possessed of Dirksen's "wit and wisdom," "humor and poetry," "scholarly erudition and home spun simplicity," then would he "unleash them in orchestrated expression of the great affection, respect, admiration and esteem in which I hold the distinguished minority leader. I would weave with words a magic spell over the Senate as he has done so many times. With words, I would lift the eyes of the Senators to the mountain peaks and the stars beyond, or I would lead them gently down a rustic road in Illinois. With words, I would lay bare the heart of a flower or pry open the fiery core of the atom that the Senate might appreciate the depth and breadth of the Senator from Illinois." Ev might have wished he'd said that.

Unforfeited Faith. The leadership record that tapped that gusher is, by every account, in the finest tradition of the loyal opposition under the two-party system.

Under Dirksen, Senate Republicans have worked and voted in a unity unseen in recent years. On issues of national security, Dirksen and his Republicans have gone down the line with President Kennedy. Thus, when Democratic liberals recently filibustered against the Administration's satellite communication bill -- on the ground that it was a Government giveaway to private enterprise -- Dirksen rounded up the Republican votes necessary to invoke cloture. "There were," he says, "questions of national security as well as the progress being made by the Soviet Union. Quite aside from the basic problem of space communication, other appeals could be made. I used them as effectively as I could." Again, during the heated debate about the U.S. purchase of United Nations bonds, Dirksen stood with the President. "We had some faith in Dwight Eisenhower," he cried. "And I have not forfeited my faith in John Fitzgerald Kennedy. I am willing always to trust the President, because I think he has a sense of responsibility." On domestic issues, Dirksen has skillfully and successfully opposed the President whenever Kennedy played obvious partisan politics. Prime examples were the Republican votes that defeated Kennedy's medicare program and the Administration attempt to set up a Cabinet-level Department of Urban Affairs (which was to be headed by a Negro). Democrat Kennedy is fond of blaming Republicans for the failures of the New Frontier's programs in the current Congress. But there is another side to that coin. It has been only with Republican votes that the Ad ministration has achieved any wins at all. The most recent instance was Kennedy's proposal to give a tax credit to businesses investing in new machinery. House Republicans had voted to a man against the idea. But Dirksen thought the plan was a good one. He made the rounds of the Senate's Republicans. "I need your vote," he told them. "Can you help me?" They could, and did--and the provision passed.

All this poses a problem to President Kennedy. He well knows how much help he has received from Dirksen. But Dirksen is running for re-election this year against Chicago's Democratic Representative Sidney Yates, a devoted Kennedy follower. Kennedy has promised to campaign in Illinois for Yates. Yet his heart can hardly be in it. Says one top Administration Democrat: "I like Sid Yates. But my party would be in a hell of a mess --Kennedy would be in a hell of a mess--if Dirksen got defeated."

Plainly, despite all the gibes that have been thrown his way, there is something special about Dirksen. Says a White House staffer: "Who could dislike Dirksen? He gets his arm around your shoulder and, well, he's a total pro, able, cute and clever." He is also--as a result of his midlands upbringing in a plain, small town--trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. And when he traces his beginnings, as did Lincoln, in "the short and simple annals of the poor," those homely virtues take on a fresh meaning.

Beantown. His parents were German immigrants who, shortly after the U.S. Civil War, settled in the town of Pekin, on the Illinois River. The place had been known as Townsite. When the citizens could not agree on a new name, they asked the wife of a local army major to make the choice. She took a map, traced her finger along between the 40th and 41st parallels till she came to a likely name. It was Peking, China. Translated to Pekin, it calls itself "the Celestial City," sports a Chinese dragon in its parades. The high school football team is dubbed, naturally, "the Chinks."

Dirksen's father, like most folks in those parts, was a Republican through and through. He proved it by naming his first-born son Benjamin Harrison; when his wife gave him twins, he seconded the motion by naming them Everett McKinley and Thomas Reed (after the then Speaker of the House). Father Dirksen died when Everett was nine. He had made a good living painting fancywork on carriages and buggies. But he left little. The family lived in the section called "Beantown," where thrifty immigrants grew beans instead of flowers. Dirksen's mother, a hardy woman who had helped build the wood-frame Second Reformed (Calvinist) Church with her own hands, set her boys to work. On their 1 1/2 acres, they grew berries, lettuce, radishes, turnips and onions. They had cows, hogs, chickens and 15 stands of bees. Ev delivered milk to customers, sold eggs and vegetables. "There was a certain ruggedness about life," he recalls. "And a certain ruggedness in living that life." There was church on Sundays, followed by Sunday school, followed by a meeting of the young people's Christian Endeavor (a Bible group that elected Ev president year after year), and in the evening another church service. At home, says Dirksen, "there was the Big Book on the parlor table. And you opened the Big Book in those days."

In the Barn. Pekin, the home of Bird Farm Sausage, Bourbon Supreme and Olt's Duck Calls, was a pleasant place for boys. They played "stink base," "run, sheep, run," football and marbles, fished for crappies and perch in the river. The block on which the Dirksen house stood was rimmed with bushy maple trees, and Tom Dirksen recalls that "you could climb up in one tree and go all the way around the block without touching the ground, climbing from tree to tree." But Everett didn't go in too much for that sort of amusement. Says Tom, a retired employee of the local power plant: "His idea of fun came when it rained. Then he could go back out to the barn, nail a sort of platform out of some old boards, usually using nails twice too big. Then he would get up and start speaking. Preaching to himself, that's what he did." When the kids on the corner had an argument, Everett "would use words that had the other boys shaking their heads. They'd tell him, 'You don't even know what those big words mean.' But he did. He had ambitions from a youngster on. Play and pleasure, that was secondary to him."

Brothers Ben and Tom dropped out of high school ("We foolishly thought it was more important to smoke corncob pipes and carry dinner buckets," says Ben, who is now a retired warehouse employee) but Ev stayed on. He played center for the Chinks and made the track team and the debating team, but devoted the rest of his time to earnest study. "I was frightened to death to even ask a girl for a date." he says. "I had to walk around the block a couple of times to get up the nerve."

Lump Jaw & Stringhalt. For a while, Dirksen worked at assorted jobs in the corn-refining plant, dutifully turned his $55 a month over to his mother. In 1914 he enrolled at the University of Minnesota, worked nights as an ad taker for the Minneapolis Tribune. One summer he wandered through South Dakota selling farmers a home-remedy book with cures for lump jaw and scabies in cattle, stringhalt in horses.

In 1917 he quit school, joined the Army, shipped to France in May 191,. and was sent to artillery school. Soon 2nd Lieut. Dirksen was manning a tethered balloon 3,500 ft. above the lines, spotting artillery targets and sweating out German fighters. He got out without a scratch, was discharged late in 1919. The fighting he had seen gave him a thorough distaste for war and increased his native "instinct against killing." Says he: "I decided I was going to devote my life to doing something about this insane war business.''

Chinese Love. He had saved some money, but decided against going back to law school in Minnesota. Instead he invested in a newfangled electric washing machine, but that enterprise failed. Finally, Dirksen joined his brothers in a wholesale bakery. Ev helped bake pies, rolls and bread, made the deliveries. He got up each morning at 5:30--and he still does.

But all the while, the poet was bugging the baker boy. Dirksen wrote scores of short stories, all of which were rejected by publishers. He had better luck in collaboration with an old schoolmate named Hubert Ropp. The two produced community plays, most of which boasted Chinese themes. Their triumph was an original composition called Chinese Love which Ropp plotted and Dirksen wrote. Set in San Francisco's Chinatown, filled with teary sentimentality and stilted language, it was a big hit. and the team sold it to a publisher (for $150 apiece). Dirksen directed the Pekin production of the play, which tells of Sing Loo, the unrequited lover, who aches for the blossom of his eye, Pan Toy. The plot: Sing Loo meets Pan Toy, Sing Loo loses Pan Toy. Sing Loo gets Pan Toy. And when he does:

Sing Loo: My Cherry Blossom, look you yonder. The sun rises like a fiery ball to bathe the world in splendor. But one rival has he for splendor, and that is my Pan Toy . . . Know you, my Blossom, what the lover calls his love here in America?

Pan Toy: I yearn to know, august and exalted lover.

Sing Loo: They say "sweetheart" . . . And do you know what the lover expects from his love in that golden moment when they are betrothed?

Pan Toy: I do not know.

Sing Loo: Shall I show you?

Pan Toy: Is it dangerous?

Princess & Politics. Dirksen and Ropp produced two other notable theatricals. One was a one-act allegory called The Slave with Two Faces, in which Ev cavorted on stage wearing a ram's-head mask, black socks, short black tights and nothing else. "I remember thinking," recalls one witness, "that the party lines would be buzzing tomorrow." The other was Percy MacKaye's A Thousand, Years Ago, in which Ev played a pulsating lover panting after the charms of the Princess of Pekin. He won her, of course--and he kept he, for the "princess" was played by a girl named Louella Carver, who became Dirksen's real-life bride in 1927.

Fortunately for the Republican Party--not to say Broadway--Dirksen's strict, God-fearing mother did not take kindly to the idea of her son becoming a professional actor. Dirksen therefore hitched his wagon to a political star. He announced for city finance commissioner in 1926 and won. Four years later, he decided to run against Peoria's incumbent Republican Congressman, William E. Hull. One key issue: the importation to the U.S. of blackstrap molasses, a vital question for Pekin's corn-processing and distillery businesses. Ev lost, but on the day after election he began campaigning for the 1932 primaries. He castigated Hull for voting for a bill that would have strengthened the enforcement of the Prohibition Amendment. In whisky-making places like Peoria and Pekin. Hull was finished, and Dirksen won.

In the general campaign of November, he "had no stomach for hurling real or fancied charges against the Democrats," and no particular desire to laud Herbert Hoover either. Instead, he praised the memory of Woodrow Wilson, argued for economic reform, and won by 23,000 votes against a Roosevelt landslide.

In Washington, Dirksen spent his evenings at law school, and after one or two tries passed the bar. In the House, he took Republican Whip Joe Martin's advice, kept his nose clean and worked hard. Though he counted himself a conservative, a protectionist and an isolationist, he hewed to no strict party line, voted "aye" on a number of F.D.R.'s New Deal programs. He voted against both Lend-Lease and extending the draft, but he changed his mind in September 1941, when he exhorted the Congress to show a ''unity of purpose'' behind the President. To disavow or oppose F.D.R.'s policies now, cried Dirksen, "could only weaken the President's position, impair our prestige and imperil the nation." He foresaw even then the need for some kind of postwar rehabilitation program, and years later, when the Marshall Plan and other aid proposals were submitted to the Hill, Dirksen supported them strongly.

Big Doctor. Then one morning in 1947, at the age of 51, Dirksen's booming political career suddenly quieted. He awoke with "cobwebs" before him, and they would not be brushed away. Doctors called it chorioretinitis--inflammation in the retina of his right eye. Medication did little good, and one physician recommended removal of the eye. Dirksen decided to seek further consultations at Johns Hopkins Hospital. On the train, Dirksen recalls, "I got down on my knees and uttered my prayers, whether blindness would be my lot." At Johns Hopkins, the specialist also urged removal.

"I guess not," said Dirksen. "I found the answer before I came here."

"Whom did you see?" the doctor asked.

Replied Ev: "I called on the Big Doctor. The Big Doctor Upstairs--and the answer is no."

Dirksen kept his eye, but he needed careful treatment and plenty of rest, requiring him to retire from the House. On the eve of his departure, his colleagues--Republicans and Democrats alike--bade him the fondest sort of farewell. Declared Sam Rayburn, then the Democratic floor leader: "If they are going to send Republicans to Congress, let them send Republicans of the Everett Dirksen kind."

Little did Rayburn realize how that wish would be fulfilled. Two years later, in 1950, Dirksen, rested and mostly recovered (today his left eye tests 20/20, the right eye 20/40), got himself elected to the Senate by beating Majority Leader Scott Lucas; during his campaign he widely quoted all the nice things Rayburn and other Democrats had said about him.

In his early Senate years, Dirksen was a down-the-line conservative. Where once he had given his best support to the Marshall Plan, he now attacked it as "Operation Rathole." He fought the Truman program, championed Bob Taft against Dwight Eisenhower for the presidential nomination in 1952. In a chilling, unforgettable speech at the Chicago convention, he urged that a pro-Taft delegation from Georgia be seated. Before millions of televiewers, he turned to the New York delegation, led by Ikeman Tom Dewey, and cried: "When my friend Tom Dewey was the candidate in 1944 and 1948, I tried to be one of his best campaigners, and you ask him whether or not I didn't go into 18 states one year and 23 states the next. Re-examine your hearts before you take this action [voting against the Taft delegation], because" -- and here Dirksen dramatically crooked a finger straight at Dewey's frozen face -- "we followed you before and you took us down the path to defeat!" The hall exploded in cheers and boos.

And when the tremendous uproar died away, Dirksen turned his bland face once more to the hall and said with majestic aplomb: "I assure you that I didn't mean to create a controversy."

Hail to the Chief. Eisenhower's victory did not instantly convert Dirksen. Time and again he voted to slash Ike's appropriations requests for foreign aid. During the time that Joe McCarthy was riding high, Dirksen was one of his strongest defenders. Finally, when the Senate approached a vote on McCarthy's censure, Dirksen fought desperately against the move, flooded the Senate chamber with images of Christmas charity and brotherly love.

But Dirksen is a creature of change, and proud of it. "Change," he says, "is an inherent way of life." So, during Ike's second term, he became a loyal Eisenhower follower. It was with Ike's blessing that Dirksen was elected Republican Senate leader in 1959. Dirksen called Eisenhower "the Chief" and took pride in the fact that he "carried the flag" for the President. When there was a fight impending in the Senate, Dirksen shouldered his burden with the cry "Chief, give me that hot poker!" Ike loved it.

There is nothing very mysterious about Dirksen's methods as leader. Sitting across the aisle from him when he took over was Democrat Lyndon Johnson, one of the most talented leaders in Senate history. Dirksen watched Johnson and learned from him. But where Johnson often scraped off some hide when he was trying to smooth Senate fur, Dirksen's techniques are gentler. Says he: "The longer one is identified with public life, especially at the national level, the more one is persuaded, as an ancient philosopher said, that politics is the art of the possible." In dealing with Senators of different philosophies, Dirksen simply sets out to satisfy. "What you do," he explains, "is to see how much common ground there is on which every member of the party can stand. You note what the differences might be. When that's been done, then you try to close the gap, and this is different with every situation that arises."

E for Effort. None of this is as easy as it sounds. "Votes," says Dirksen, "don't flutter down like handbills from an airplane. They don't shake off a tree. Effort still counts around here." As for effort, Dirksen gives it all he has got--and he is one of the Senate's most prodigious workers. Before dawn each morning he is at his desk in his small Washington apartment. At 8:30 he sets out in the chauffeured Cadillac that is the prerogative of his leadership office. He also rates a telephone in the car,* but has had it removed

so as not to be interrupted in the reading that occupies him all the way to the Hill. His only respite comes on the increasingly rare occasions when he and his wife slip away to the Leesburg, Va., countryside, where they have built a small home on 3 1/2 acres. There Dirksen indulges in his hobby of raising a variety of fruits, vegetables and flowers. It's all part of a process he calls "system repair ... It freshens you up for the combat of the next week."

All Wet. To continue in this life that he loves, Dirksen must win re-election in November. This may not be easy. For while Dirksen's Senate duties have kept him pretty much in Washington, Democrat Yates has been campaigning hard in Illinois. Last week he invaded Dirksen's own Pekin, plastering the Senator for "voting one way in Washington" and "talking another way in Illinois." Dirksen may use his flowing phrases, says Yates, "his soothing, oozy, syrupy words; but his record is coming out, and I'm going to help it come out." Candidate Yates charges that Dirksen "sabotaged" the drug bill, and "then the outcry over thalidomide changed his mind," that he voted against minimum-wage legislation, the area-redevelopment bill, the housing bill, federal aid to education, and rural electrification.

On weekends during the campaign, Dirksen tries to get home. Lugging his huge briefcase (loaded, it weighs 35 Ibs. --more than the valise with his clothing) aboard the plane, he studies as he flies. But the minute he touches foot on Illinois soil, he shows that he has not lost his old touch. In Deerfield, a rainstorm scattered his audience. "Just a minute, folks," he commanded. "If I can stand up here and get wet talking, you can stay here and get wet listening. I've got another speech to make this afternoon, and my suit is going to be soggy and wet on that long plane ride back to Washington tonight." The folks returned to hear more. In a speech on Labor Day, he was at his evocative best. The morning rain, he whispered, had given way to the midday sunshine and the evening starlight because--well, because Fortune smiled on him and on the people of Illinois, and besides it was--the voice rose beatifically --Labor Day in America.

However much he may cooperate with President Kennedy when in Washington, when he gets back home he leaves no doubt about whose side he is on. The President, he charges, is "taking the country downhill," has failed in five areas: peace ("There was no Wall under President Eisenhower"), prestige ("an alltime low"), progress ("progress all right--but in the wrong direction"), party support ("On the satellite bill, nobody from the President's own party would stand up and defend him"), and purpose ("Democrats are hungry for power to fasten more control on farmers and businessmen").

The Challenge. Everett Dirksen was once a man of vaulting ambition. He campaigned seriously for the Republican nomination for President in 1944. He badly wanted to be Taft's vicepresidential running mate in 1952. Now he is happy where he is, and has a deep sense of fulfillment. "Life," he muses, "is a matter of development or decay. You either grow or you retrogress. There's no standing still. You go backward or forward. The challenge will make you grow, if you are willing to assert a leadership and look on the challenge as something to be met and disposed of." Dirksen looks upon Election Year 1962 as another one of those challenges--to be met and disposed of.

* An apocryphal story describes Dirksen on the day that he got his official car phone. Eager to show Democrat Lyndon Johnson that he too rated such privileges, Dirksen phoned Lyndon as they were both being driven from the Hill to their homes. "Hello, Lyndon," he said. "This is Everett. I'm calling you from my limousine with my new phone." There was a split-second pause. "Wait a minute, Everett," said Lyndon. ''My other phone is ringing."

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