Decline & Fall

It seemed to many Congressmen at the end of the 1958 session that the man most likely to succeed Texas' 77-year-old Sam Rayburn as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives was Arkansas' courtly, bass-voiced Wilbur Daigh Mills. With his combination of brains, earnestness and Southern charm. Mills was liked and respected on both sides of the aisle. Two years ago, at 48, he became the youngest chairman in the history of Congress' most important committee, tax-writing Ways & Means, and he showed promise of being a great one. He already knew more about the complexities of federal fiscal policy than any other man in the House. Sam Rayburn leaned on Mills's advice in fiscal matters, seemed to be grooming him for the Speakership.

But during the 1959 session of Congress, Wilbur Mills's prospects and prestige have collapsed.

Inept Performance. One reason for Mills's decline is that Arkansas (along with Mississippi, Vermont and West Virginia) has declined in population during the 1950s, while the total U.S. population was soaring. In the redistricting that will follow the 1960 census, Arkansas stands to lose two of its six House seats. With the state legislature under his control. Governor Orval Faubus will have the power to redistrict Wilbur Mills right out of the House, so Mills has had to avoid offending Faubus. Bowing to Faubus, Mills has been conspicuously protective toward Arkansas Congressman Dale Alford, outspoken segregationist, who was narrowly elected last November as a Faubus-backed write-in candidate.* Mills's friends sadly point out that Northern Democrats would never choose as Speaker a man regarded as being under even the remote control of Orval Faubus.

But what really shattered Mills's prestige was the inept performance of the Ways & Means Committee so far this year. Mills failed to get committee backing for his own proposals for revising the tax laws on cooperatives, depletion allowances and overseas investments, had to put them aside until next year. It took the committee months of floundering to settle on a measure to finance highway construction. Faced with President Eisenhower's request for removal of interest-rate ceilings on long-term Treasury bonds. Mills proposed three different solutions. failed to muster adequate support for any of them, wearily gave up fortnight ago and postponed any further action on the President's request for the rest of the session.

Grand Design. Even Wilbur Mills's friends admit that he is partly to blame for his committee's ineffectuality this year. By overcautiously trying to win Republican agreement before bringing proposals to a committee vote, he has lost Democratic backing. In operating too much on his own, he has failed to collect the committee's fragmented Democratic majority into a united front. By failing to canvass committee members with sufficient care, he has frequently misjudged how they would vote.

So far have Wilbur Mills and his committee fallen that House wags are calling it the No-Ways & By-No-Means Committee. The prospects seem dim that Mills will be able to recapture firm enough control to carry out his grand design of re-codifying the nation's patchwork of tax laws. And hardly anyone in the House of Representatives still regards Mills as a potential Speaker.

*Last week, after delaying a decision for eight months, a House Elections Subcommittee ruled that Alford's election was legitimate.

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