The Arkansas Hunkerer

The first congressional leader President Kennedy invited to the White House after his return from Florida early this month was Arkansas' Democratic Representative Wilbur Mills. It was no happenstance summons, for Kennedy well knew that Mills, as chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, would be passing this year on most of the top priority items in the Administration's briefcase. Indeed, of all the members of the 87th Congress, Mills may be the most important to the Administration's legislative programs.

Kensett, Arkansas, where Mills was raised, is said to have got its name when a Missouri Pacific agent, seeking advice about a railroad station site, was told: "You ken set it hyar or you ken set it thar." Mills's Second Arkansas District abounds in picturesque place names: Morning Sun is 75 miles from Evening Shade, and other places are named Joy. Romance, Rose Bud and Oil Trough. The son of a prosperous Kensett merchant and banker, Mills was sent to Harvard Law School, returned home to a job in his father's Kensett State Bank. In 1938, Mills ran for the House of Representatives. He learned to hunker on the court house steps, to roll his own Bull Durham cigarettes, and to chaw tobacco without turning green (at least until he got out of the sight of the donor). He had another campaign asset in the comely person of his wife Clarine ("Polly"), whom he still describes as "the best handshaker a man ever married." Mills won easily, and by 1952 had become such a personage that Kensett's citizens proudly put up a sign at the town limits: "Home of Congressman Wilbur Mills and Bill Dickey, Famous Yankee Catcher." Today, at 52, the chunky (5 ft. 8 in., 180 Ibs.) Mills is batting 1,000 around his home town.

In the House, Mills displayed an aptitude for financial facts and figures, earned appointment to the Ways and Means Committee and, in 1958, became its chairman. He was then considered a prime favorite to succeed Speaker Sam Rayburn, even though he had signed a widely publicized Southern Manifesto of white supremacy, which eventually cost him the favor of Northern Democrats. But his performance as chairman of Ways and Means has not lived up to its promise. A naturally cautious, conciliatory man, Mills let his committee dawdle endlessly over legislation, to the point that it was nicknamed the "No Ways and By No Means Committee." In his efforts to produce bills that would be palatable to everyone, Mills has produced several that were savory to none. He has, moreover, been aloof in his relations with other com mittee members. Cried Illinois' Demo cratic Representative Tom O'Brien on one occasion: "If you don't keep me informed, I'll take this committee away from you."

As the Ways and Means Committee began its annual deliberations last week, Chairman Mills had charted a leisurely course that allowed a month to work on a tax revision bill, two months for the tariff-lowering foreign-trade bill. Medical care for the aged (which Mills personally opposes) will almost surely be kept waiting until July. That schedule stood as at least preliminary evidence that President Kennedy had, in his presession flight back from Florida, failed to persuade the key Congressman to quit hunkering.

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