National Affairs: New Lobbyist

JOHN O'CONNOR, member of Congress for over 15 years and chairman of the Rules Committee for four years, will resume the active general practice of law in Washington, D. C. and New York City, specializing as trial and appeal counsel and in practice before Government departments and commissions and in advising as to legislative matters. Associated with him will be JAMES P. DULLIGAN, former special assistant to the Attorney General of the United States, KERMIT F. KIP and J. DANIEL DOUGHERTY.

The engaging frankness of this engraved announcement titillated Washington last week. It indicated that the result of Franklin Roosevelt's one Purge success was to supply Washington with one more high-powered lobbyist. For the rest, that success looked singularly hollow: the important House Rules Committee was in such a mess that the New Deal gave up hope of organizing it before Congress met this week. Illinois' old Representative Adolph Joachim Sabath to whom chairmanship of the committee was scheduled to pass, by seniority, because of recalcitrant Mr. O'Connor's defeat, faced an unhappy situation. Of three New Deal members of the committee, two went down to defeat like Mr. O'Connor, leaving Mr. Sabath alone. But five anti-New Deal Democrats —including Georgia's bitter Cox and loud Martin Dies of Texas—survived, and four Republicans. With only four vacancies to be filled, Mr. Sabath had little hope of getting a committee that would follow his lead.