Divided Republicans

On a day last week which fairly reflected the feelings of G.O.P. Congressmen--raw, grey and chilly--a handful of Republican Senators gathered in a Senate committee room. They met with the conviction that the Republican leadership which had dominated the 80th Congress was largely responsible for the party's defeat. The man they had their angry eyes on was Robert A. Taft.

The leader of the rump caucus was New York's homespun, able Irving Ives. As a freshman Senator two years ago, he made a, successful fight against some of the more rigorous measures which Taft had tried to write into the Taft-Hartley Act./- Said Ives: "Rightly or wrongly, the consensus of opinion of many Republicans is that the party under Bob is not going forward. We are in a state of suspended animation."

The 13 rebels called themselves "liberal Republicans," a name which made clear what they thought of other Republicans but not what they thought for themselves. The rebellious "liberals": Massachusetts' Leverett Saltonstall and Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., Connecticut's Raymond Baldwin, Vermont's George Aiken and Ralph Flanders, New Jersey's H. Alexander Smith, Oregon's Wayne Morse, California's William Knowland, Minnesota's Edward Thye, North Dakota's Milton Young, South Dakota's Chan Gurney, New Hampshire's Charles Tobey. They had their own candidate for Taft's job as GOPolicy boss: Massachusetts' tall, handsome Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.

"I Think We Ought to--" But beyond displacing Taft, the rebels appeared to have no concrete program. Said Lodge bravely and vaguely: "We want to have a more up to date approach ... I think we ought to compete with the Democratic Party on how to give the best service to the people in their problems. I don't think it is any good to tell the people that they haven't any problems."

That was scarcely a ringing rallying cry. The rebels had succeeded only in proving that the G.O.P. was divided. Democratic leaders would no doubt find allies among the rebels; and Southern Democrats would likewise find allies among the Republican right-wingers. As of January 1949, Republicanism was a cause, not lost, but undefined.

Virtually the only man who stood in a clear-cut position was blunt Bob Taft. The paradox of his position this week was that he was far more liberal than most of the right-wingers who supported him, and generally as liberal as some of the groping rebels who wanted to kick him out.

For better or for worse, Bob Taft would continue to run G.O.P. domestic policy. A Republican caucus voted him back into the chairmanship. Lodge got the votes of only 14 fellow Republicans.

"The Trouble with Us." On the House side there was more harmony, and possibly more strength. Joe Martin, the blacksmith's son who had run the House with an iron hand during the 80th Congress, was picked as minority leader of the 81st. He renamed Illinois' facile Leslie Arends to Arends' old job of whip.

House Republicans would deal with the party's future in a down-to-earth style. Said one leading Republican: "The trouble with us is that we tried to be statesmen for the last two years and forgot about politics. In the next two years we're going to think more about the ballot box."

/- Democratic Party Chairman J. Howard McGrath hoped that Ives would be kept on the Labor Committee, called him "one of the ablest men on labor matters the Republicans have."

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