No Crusades

Nobody ever got more political mileage out of a minor Senate subcommittee job than the late Estes Kefauver. As chairman of the Antitrust and Monopoly Subcommittee, he mounted crusading investigations into a myriad of alleged wrongs, from price rigging in the electrical industry to overcharging by drug companies. To replace the Keef, Mississippi Democrat James O. Eastland, chairman of the parent Judiciary Committee, last week named a man who is every bit as liberal as Kefauver was, but far less flamboyant and aggressive: Michigan Democrat Philip A. Hart, 50.* While Kefauver often seemed to regard bigness as evil and businessmen as knaves, Hart served notice that he does not. "When you get on the Monopoly subcommittee," said he, "the feeling develops that you're out to change the economic system. That's not me."

As for Kefauver's Senate successor, Tennessee Governor Frank Clement, 43, named an aging, ailing politician who is obviously going to Washington just to keep the seat warm. He is longtime Democratic National Committeeman Herbert S. ("Hub") Walters, a millionaire roadbuilder, banker and natural-gas distributor. Walters is 71, and has twice undergone surgery for malignant tumors, including a 1948 throat operation that cost him his vocal cords. As a result, he cannot speak above a hoarse whisper. There is every likelihood that Walters will step down next year to permit Clement himself to run for the remaining two years of Kefauver's term.

* Named to Kefauver's Appropriations Committee post was Wisconsin Democrat William V. Proxmire, an unorthodox liberal who called the appointment "a golden opportunity to keep federal spending down."

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