THE U.S. CONGRESS Is It Victim to Democratism?

AMID the swift social changes and sudden international crises of the mid-20th century, the impatient and the doctrinaire often complain that Congress -- slow-moving, operating through committees and compromises --is an awkward antique, a hindrance to national efficiency, perhaps even a handicap in the race for national survival. In a bracing new book on Congress and the American Tradition (Henry Regnery; $6.50), a conservative political philosopher speaks up this week in Congress' defense. The defender: muscular-minded James Burnham, 53, former New York University philosophy professor who made a still-rippling intellectual splash back in 1941 with The Managerial Revolution,

The real trouble with Congress, says Burnham, is that it is too weak. There is a danger that it will be reduced to a ceremonial rubber stamp, as the Roman Senate was under the Caesars. If that happens, he warns, the U.S. will lose a solid bulwark of liberty.

The founding fathers, says Burnham, thought of Congress as the predominant power in the new government. But changes during the past few decades have made Congress "a mere junior partner." Items:

P:The lawmaking initiative has migrated from the Capitol to the White House. The idea of an Administration legislative program "is now so familiar that it is hard to realize how recent it is in our national history, and how contrary in many respects to the traditional concepts of the American political system."

P:Congress' exclusive constitutional power to declare war has been so eroded that President Truman could involve the U.S. in the Korean war without asking Congress' consent.

P:The constitutional provision that the President is to make treaties "by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate" is evaded by presidential "executive agreements."

P:Many functions of government have been taken over by a "Fourth Branch," the swollen federal bureaucracy, over which Congress has only remote and tenuous control.

P:Congress has even lost much of its old control of the national purse, historically the basic and decisive power of Parliaments. In 1957's Battle of the Budget, Congress huffed and puffed about cutting, but when the din died away, the President's budget was only nicked and scratched.

WHAT brought about Congress' decline? The underlying factor, says Burnham, has been the 20th century trend toward what he calls "de mocratism"--democracy carried to the extreme of insisting that the national government must directly represent the majority will. And ultimately, democratism leads to "Caesarism," with a national election amounting to little more than a nationwide plebiscite giving a leader (Napoleon, Hitler) an "unrestricted proxy."

In the U.S., says Burnham, the presidency has become "the primary democratist institution." A democratist tone was already audible in President-to-be Woodrow Wilson's pronouncement, back in 1908, that the U.S. "craves a single leader." Democratism's big thrust came in the early years of the New Deal, with Franklin Roosevelt pushing batches of White House bills through Congress and even challenging the Supreme Court in his notorious (but illfated) court-packing plan.

Harry Truman carried the trend onward with his seizure of the steel mills in April 1952. President Truman, Burnham notes, never cited any specific law for the seizure, claimed only--with precise democratist logic--that the President "represents the interest of all the people," and must "use his powers to safeguard the nation" when Congress fails to act (an argument rejected by the Supreme Court). The explanation reminds Burnham of the doctrine of Salus populi suprema lex esto (The people's welfare is the highest law), an excuse for tyranny under the Roman Caesars.

DEMOCRATISM is hostile to Congress, Burnham contends, because Congress, as the founding fathers intended, does not directly represent the majority will. What emerges from Congress is a composite of the "specific interests, goals, values, ideals and sentiments" of citizens in the various states and congressional districts. Through the slow-paced committee system that critics of Congress carp at, Congress hears all sides, compromises the conflicts, takes the interests of minorities into account, arrives at "an adjustment and balancing of needs, interests and aims."

Congress, says Burnham, is "the one major curb on the soaring executive and the unleashed bureaucracy." Rights and liberties written into law "have no practical meaning" unless there is an independent institutional power to uphold the law against the claims and encroachments of the executive power. Lacking any popular mandate, the courts are not powerful enough to withstand the executive power without Congress' help. "No Congress," he warns, "no liberty."

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