Wanted: Statesmen

Again a contemptuous laugh went up from the nation. This time it was X-cards for Congressmen.

X Marks The Spot. The men on Capitol Hill, jealous of their old prerogatives, clinging to their oldtime dignity, were bewildered and sore hurt. They were tired of being laughed at. Yet they did not wonder why they no longer commanded respect; instead they seized upon the press. Louisiana's Representative F. Edward Hebert warned darkly: "Unless something is done to curb that section of the press which holds in ridicule the keystone of democracy . . . our whole system of Government is going to collapse." Alabama's Senator John H. Bankhead accused disrespectful newspapers of "sedi-tious conduct," cried for a Justice Department investigation.

But it was not only the press that Congress had to reckon with; it was the nation.

Said Columnist Raymond Clapper (whose voice is more the plain man's than the newspaperman's): "Congress has remained a collection of two-cent politicians who could serve well enough in simpler days. But the ignorance and provincialism of Congress renders it incapable of meeting the needs of modern government. . . .

"People don't give a damn what the average Senator or Congressmen says. The reason they don't care is that they know what you hear in Congress is 99% tripe, ignorance and demagoguery and not to be relied on. . . ."

The Fallen Great. Few men nowadays challenge the assertion that for leadership the people now listen to the Government's executives, take counsel from the nation's press (whether or not they agree with it), get their debates and oratory from radio forums--but they watch Congress mainly for laughs.

In other days the name of Senator signified togas and statesmanship; Representative (of the people) was the finest word the Founding Fathers could find for a seat in the House. Now Congress was just the little fat whiskery man in the newspaper cartoons, forever falling on his face, leading his family to the public trough, his shirt front puffed out with the blowsy dignity of a burlesque clown. The only Congressional greats left are old men like Nebraska's Senator George W. Norris, Virginia's Senator Carter W. Glass--and they are past their prime.

There are still good, "adequate" younger men, who try hard to serve the nation and justify the dignity of their titles. But too often a seat in Congress is only the reward for dumb loyalty to party machines; Congress has too many members with no conception of world events, men who are no more fit to lead than any ward heeler.

The U.S. has never demanded that its Congressmen be always right or always brilliant. But Congress' own worry about its place in the sun was evidence last week that the nation was fed up with demagoguery and stubborn stupidity, pleased that political hacks were getting exactly what they deserved. Out with the Rascals. The next Congress, mostly to be elected in November, is likely to serve through fire and fury, through the desperately crucial years of the greatest war the U.S. has ever fought. If the two years bring victory, this Congress will shape the peace which will determine the course of future history, for better or worse, for generations.

In St. Louis the militant Star-Times embarked on a campaign to oust four Missouri Congressmen who had voted 100% against Administration foreign policy before Pearl Harbor: Dewey Short, Philip A. Bennett, Joseph B. Shannon, Walter C. Ploeser. Cried the Star-Times: "By word and deed, these misrepresentatives of the Missouri public proved themselves incapable of understanding the world in which they lived. . . . How can they be trusted to help rule America in the long years of war and fundamental world reconstruction that lie ahead?

" The pinko New Republic went even further. In a special supplement printed in collaboration with the Union for Demo-cratic Action, it called for the defeat of 29 "Obstructionists" in Congress, listed 18 others who "thoroughly deserve to be beaten."

On the New Republic's blacklist were some men cited for sincerely opposing the New Deal on domestic issues, others who had sincerely voted against Adminis-tration foreign policy and had promptly admitted their error when proved wrong.

But also on the list were at least 32 Senators and Representatives up for re-election this fall who had consistently damaged the cause of world democracy. Many of them could be damned, as the New Republic skillfully damned them, out of their own mouths:

Representative Ham Fish, New York (in 1939): "[German claims are] just.... I favor liquidation of the Versailles Treaty in the East."

Representative Paul W. Shafer, Michigan (in 1940): "All the evidence points to a day-by-day lessening of the peril."

Representative Stephen Day, Illinois (last September): "The threat of an invasion by Hitler of ... any part of the Western Hemisphere has vanished."

Representative Harold Knutson, Minnesota (March 1942): "Will Americans graciously bow down to all the totalitarian decrees which will restrict their sugar, their motorcars, their oil ... simply to satisfy the ambitions of those who understand victory to be the complete over throw of their enemies?"

Representative William B. Barry, New York: "We cannot only trade with Hitler, but can make a nice profit doing so."

The 77th Congress had been full of such talk.

"Most Dangerous." The New Republic was not sure about Minority Leader Joseph W. Martin Jr.; it did not blacklist him, but termed him "perhaps the most dangerous man of all, since he is one of the most powerful." Certainly Joe Martin, for all his homely virtues, had done little to improve the statesmanship of the 77th Congress.

At a time when the nation needed unity, he had bent all his efforts only to holding the Republican Party solidly behind ideas that the body of the party had outgrown; he had stuck to old party prejudices, hacked away at the Administration foreign policy mainly because it meant hacking away at President Roosevelt. More than any one man, Joe Martin had kept the G.O.P. the party of isolationism--when Wendell Willkie, theoretically head of the party, was trying to lead it toward a recognition of the danger in which the U.S. stood.

But Joe Martin was not alone among the leaders who had failed to lift Congress to its rightful place in the sun. Guilty, too, was Franklin Roosevelt, who had encouraged Congress to rubber-stamp his New Deal legislation, had consistently regarded Congress only as a tool of the Executive, had tried to purge individuality out of it, and played for the support of such men as New Jersey's Senator William H. Smathers, of Pennsylvania's Joe Guffey, men whose records were unblemished by the slightest stain of statesmanship.

The President, though he has seen his foreign policy continually riddled by Congressional obstructionists, has not raised his voice to ask for better men this year; indeed, has seemed willing to let the whole problem drop, until the local bosses have picked this autumn's candidates. At his press conference last week he was asked about the New Republic's thesis that the approaching Congressional elections were probably the most important since the Civil War: he replied that the statement was categorical and perfectly silly.

Where Are the Voters? The people themselves were to blame. They stayed away from primary elections in droves, let party machines name candidates. Even this week, in the midst of a great war, they still were not aroused about electing a better Congress. To get a Congress equal to the times, the U.S. people will have to find and elect men with a care they have not yet shown in their lifetime--who can rise above their own, their sectional, interests.

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