Unsworn Senators

As 32 new Senators and old marched up before Vice President Garner to take the oath of office last week, two others looked on wistfully from the sidelines.

One was Richard Charles Hunter, whom Nebraskans elected Nov. 6 to fill the unexpired term of the late Senator Howell. That term expired at noon on Jan. 3, the hour at which the Senate met. So Senator Hunter was never sworn in, never cast a vote, never got a word into the Congressional Record. But he was not deprived of the privileges of his position: he went to Washington, was given an office in the Senate Office Building, put four clerks on the Government payroll, drew $1,600 pay for two months' service. Last week as he vacated his office so that his friend and Harvard classmate, Edward Raymond Burke, could move in for a full six-year term as Senator from Nebraska, Richard Charles Hunter said mournfully: "I was a Senator, though, even if I wasn't sworn in. The sergeant-at-arms showed me my seat early in December. It had my name on it. I did a lot of work while I was here. I must have handled as many as 150 cases for veterans and others."

Equally wistful was another unsworn in the Senator, Rush Dew Holt. He sat bemused in the back of the chamber. Only one thing stood in the way of his casting votes in the body to which the people of West Virginia elected him -- the U. S. Constitution. That old document says inflexibly: No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the age of 30 years. . . .

Rush Holt's 30th birthday falls on June 19 and although the huge Democratic majority could, if it would, seat him, it knows only too well the national howl the Republicans would set up about the New Deal caring nought for the Constitution. Hence Majority Leader Robinson ordered Youngster Holt to bide his time. In June, if Congress is still in session, the majority will vote Holt his seat. Meantime he will cast no votes, but he, too, has a seat with his name on it, an office and clerks, and the expectation of $833 a month pay.

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