National Affairs: But Not John L.

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Being only human, Congressmen are more inclined to support the United Nations in important little ways if some of their colleagues are serving in its General Assembly. To make the most of this instinct, Harry Truman decided that there should always be a Congressman from each party serving in the Assembly. Last week, as a result, he appointed two new delegates for the 1950 Assembly—Massachusetts G.O.P. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. and Alabama's Democratic Senator John J. Sparkman.

Handsome Cabot Lodge was picked despite the fact that he had recently joined other Senate Republicans in placing responsibility for the Korean war on the Administration. His appointment also gave the G.O.P. a majority of regular delegates to the Assembly—Lodge, New York's John Foster Dulles and Delegation Chief Warren Austin. Besides Fair Dealer Sparkman, the only other Democrat among the regulars is Eleanor Roosevelt.

But the President turned a deaf ear to a stirring proposition put before him by several high-placed leaders of the C.I.O.—that irascible old John L. Lewis be made a delegate and sent in to make faces, quote Shakespeare and give Russia's Jake Malik the same business he has given the coal operators for lo these many years. Nobody really took the idea seriously, but a good many labor politicos were still wistfully envisioning the thunderous clash which might result. Said one: "What a television program THAT would make!"