Old Friends, Old Enemies

During the last hours of the debate on the new filibuster rule, the nasal voice of Oregon's maverick Republican Wayne Morse sounded through the chamber: "I think a new de facto political party in America was founded on the floor of the Senate tonight . . . We shall see whether the future voting record in the Senate does not also indicate that in a large measure this coalition predicts what will happen to great pieces of social legislation in the 81st Congress."

Fearful Wayne Morse had plenty of company in Big Labor. The A.F.L.'s Political League called the Republicans "Northern Dixiecrats." A C.I.O. propagandist coined an angry name for the coalition: "Dixiegop," a nightmare animal with "the front legs and face of a donkey [and] the trunk and rear end of an elephant," which would haunt organized labor's dreams.

Where It Hurt. There was no doubt that from now on the coalition would be an imposing force in the Senate. Last week, having won on filibuster and civil rights, it also kicked Harry Truman where it always hurts him most--in a matter involving his friendships. The President had nominated his poker-pal, Mon C. Wallgren, ex-governor of Washington, as head of the National Security Resources Board. An amiable mediocrity, Wallgren had no visible qualifications for the job of planning the military, industrial and civilian mobilization of the U.S. On the Senate Armed Services Committee, Virginia's Harry Byrd, one of the leaders of the rebellious Southern Democrats, joined six Republicans to turn Wallgren down.

Southerners and Republicans also trampled on Mr. Truman's rent law. He wanted rent controls (due to expire March 31) extended two years. His House leaders were lucky to get a bill which limited control to 15 months. The measure gave state, county and city lawmakers the right to end controls altogether in their areas. The Senate Banking Committee went on from there. The Senate bill would permit an automatic 10% hike in rents within the next year and guarantee landlords a "fair return on values."

Durable Species. The coalition was not a development of the civil-rights fight. It was an old alliance which began developing during Franklin Roosevelt's second term. It fought a rearguard action against the New Deal. It would not be a hard & fast combination; there would be regroupings within it and shifts back to the Administration side.

Harry Truman thought that the country, in electing him, had given Congress a mandate to enact his program. Last week's events demonstrated that he had another think coming; a good many Congressmen, who represented historic regional interests and prejudices, and a common fear of the extremes in Harry Truman's campaign promises, disagreed. They thought that they also had a "mandate" from the voters (some of them had gotten more votes than Harry Truman in their areas). "The accomplishments of this Congress," said Ohio's Robert Taft, "will not be zero, though they will look like zero to President Truman."

Naturally the coalition's cocksureness and the Fair Dealers' despair were both exaggerated by the events of the past fortnight. But the Dixiegop, which looked like a new phenomenon to Wayne Morse and a curious hybrid to C.I.O., had been around in one form or another in dozens of Congresses, and it was a species that died hard. No one knew that better--now --than Fair Dealer Harry Truman.

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