Ringing in the New

This week the 81st Congress opened on a prayer and expressions of harmony which everybody understood were not to be held binding on those who expressed them.

In the House, outgoing Speaker Joe Martin entered arm & arm with Sam Rayburn of Texas, who had preceded him in the job and was now succeeding him ("I didn't know that it was an Indian gift," cracked Martin). Then, in a handsome little speech, Republican Martin predicted that Democrat Rayburn would be remembered as "a great Speaker and when he has completed this term he will have served as Speaker . . . longer than any other man in history."

Rayburn spoke seriously: "On international questions, questions whether we shall live and remain free . . . we will not divide at the center aisle. On many domestic issues we will divide . . ."

Last Laugh. In the Senate, Chaplain Peter Marshall, appointed by the Republicans and reappointed by the Democrats, prayed that the members would "legislate wisely and well." So began the 81st Congress.

Three days before, the 80th Congress had held its last brief session, had advised the White House that it was about to quit. Harry Truman, who had called the 80th the worst Congress in history, answered in effect that it could quit any time. With some hearty, some bitter laughs, the 80th breathed its last.

The 80th Had been a Taft-Martin Congress. Few Congresses had ever come in with more confident leadership, or a better organized rank & file. It had rejected White House legislation, written its own and rammed it through Harry Truman's vetoes. Two years later, at the polls, it took one of the most surprising lickings in U.S. political history.

First Test. The 81st was a Truman Congress. More than that, it was a typically Democratic Congress--fragmented, split into many factions. The loyalty of Administration Democrats ran from warm to very cool. There were New Dealers and men who had bitterly fought the New Deal. There were Dixiecrats and crypto-Dixiecrats, out & out reactionaries and Russophiles. It included such diverse figures as 85-year-old Robert ("Muley") Doughton of North Carolina, the oldest man in Congress; Idaho's Glen Taylor, banjo-strumming refugee from Henry Wallace's camp; Minnesota's eager Hubert Humphrey, who led the Philadelphia convention fight for a civil rights plank; Louisiana's Russell Long, youngest (30) Senator and son of Huey Long, the assassinated demagogue.

On opening day, the Truman forces won a crucial skirmish over procedure in the House Rules Committee that would help them in future battles over policy (see below). With that first victory, Harry Truman was ready this week to lay his legislative program before the first majority he could rightfully call his own.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.