The 84th's Temper

Texas' Democrat Lyndon Johnson, who is in line to become majority leader of the U.S. Senate, flicked some ashes from a cork-tipped cigarette, scanned the roomful of Washington newsmen and spoke softly. "My daddy," said Johnson, "got all of us kids around the table at home when there was a decision to be made. He'd start off with words from Isaiah-- 'Come now, and let us reason together.' " The advice that was good for the five little Johnsons, suggested Lyndon, would well serve both Democrats and Republicans for the next two years. Down Pennsylvania Avenue, President Eisenhower also extended the hand of friendship, saying: "If there are any roadblocks thrown in the way of cooperation, I am not going to be responsible." All over Washington last week, the atmosphere of good will was so thick it could have been cut with a knife. It probably will be.

Senator Johnson, an eminently successful minority leader, may learn that being majority leader is quite another matter. Because he still has to contend with Dwight Eisenhower's great popularity, Johnson cannot permit White House-Senate relationships to become too strained. Yet he cannot be too soft toward the Administration for fear of antagonizing the liberal Northern Democrats. Finally, he must prevent a legislative deadlock, lest the Democrats be accused of conducting a do-nothing Congress.

Moreover, Johnson and his fellow Democrats owe their Senate control to a tough political creditor, Oregon's Wayne Morse. Said Johnson, of Morse's committee assignments: "I don't know what he may want, but whatever he wants, he's going to get it--if I've got it to give." If Johnson does not have it to give, he had better find it--at teast if he wants Morse to stay with the Democrats.

Clues. What will be the temper of the 84th Congress? Some clues are furnished by the men who will head the House and Senate committees.

The most promising field for legislative achievement lies in the foreign-trade field. New York's Republican Representative

Daniel Reed was chairman of the key House Ways and Means Committee in the 83rd Congress, and effectively blocked action toward lower tariffs. Now Tennessee's Democratic Representative Jere Cooper takes over. Says he, of the Administration's trade recommendations: "I would think they should have early consideration. I have always strongly supported the reciprocal trade program." If Georgia's Senator Walter George chooses to become chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, then the Finance Committee will go to Virginia's Harry Byrd. He served last year on the Randall Commission and concurred in its proposals for a liberalized foreign-trade program.*

North Carolina's Representative Harold Cooley, a strong advocate of high, rigid farm supports, takes over the House Agriculture Committee and has promised to put Secretary Benson on the grill in January. But Louisiana's Senator Allen Ellender, who will head the Senate Agriculture Committee, is committed to giving flexible supports a chance to work and, in any event, the Congress is not likely to override a presidential farm bill veto.

Sunlight? Joe McCarthy loses his chairmanship to Arkansas' John McClellan, who is thinking about asking for a joint Senate-House committee to handle all congressional Red-hunting. Pennsylvania's Democratic Representative Francis Walter, scheduled to be chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee, announced last week that he would seek to have that committee abolished. The Senate Judiciary Committee, once the most influential committee of Congress, goes from the frying pan to the fire --from North Dakota's drafty William Langer to West Virginia's drafty Harley Kilgore. Few revisions in labor-management law are likely to come out of the 84th, since North Carolina's Graham Barden, a staunch Taft-Hartley man, will be chairman of the House Labor Committee. And there is little chance of anyone pushing tax reduction past Virginia's Senator Byrd until Government spending is sharply cut--a prospect that is even dimmer than it was before the election.

*For Chairman Randall's new views, see

BUSINESS.

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