National Affairs: THE SENATE'S MOST EXPENDABLE

In the Senate Restaurant, and along the tiled Senate corridors, Senators are known not only by the headlines they make but also by the company they keep; by their native ability and practical effectiveness as legislators; by the work they do, or avoid. A favorite pastime is picking the worst of the lot.

It involves standards of comparison. It is easy to sigh for the days of Senators with tongues of silver and minds of steel, to forget that some of today's Senators rank high in character and vision, that few of the present Senators are as bad as some specimens of recent history—the Bilbos, Huey Longs, "Pappy" O'Daniels and "Cotton Ed" Smiths. Some are merely time servers and seat warmers who are as incapable of harm as of greatness. There are others whose antics are sometimes cheap and whose motivations are sometimes sordid. But their faults in one area of lawmaking or politicking are offset by their usefulness in others. After allowances are made for such human frailty, these eight would turn up on most lists of the Senate's most expendable men:

Kenneth D. McKellar, Democrat from Tennessee, 81, relentless in his prejudices, vicious in his vendettas. Under the congressional rules which promote men by seniority instead of ability, Spoilsman McKellar wields immense power. As chairman of the Senate's money-spending machinery, he browbeats and bullies Senators who need his approval for their pet projects. He badgered David Lilienthal because Lilienthal refused to load TVA with McKellar patronage, yelped that ECAdministrator Paul Hoffman ought to resign for the good of the country. A Senator longer than any of his colleagues (33 years), Kenneth McKellar, hell-raiser in committee and on the floor, has long been the meek and humble stooge of Tennessee's E. H. ("Boss") Crump.

Patrick A. (Pat) McCarran, Democrat from Nevada, 73, pompous, vindictive and power-grabbing—a sort of McKellar with shoes on. Working hand in glove with McKellar, he tied the 81st Congress' appropriations machinery in knots, staged a one-man committee filibuster against a liberalized bill to admit D.P.s to the U.S., and almost succeeded —with McKellar—in mutilating the Marshall Plan last summer. To control or retaliate against Senators who stand up against him, the silver-haired spokesman of the silver bloc swings a big club: chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee, which passes on all claims against the Government and judiciary patronage.

Harry Pulliam Cain, Republican from Washington, 44, tall, lean, friendly—and a lightweight. As early as 1947, he urged withdrawal of occupation forces from Germany, and an end to the denazification program. On occasion, he subjects the Senate to hammy theatrics and wild filibusters. Some of his Senate colleagues would be inclined to rate him as no more than a noisy nonentity if he were not something more bothersome—the real-estate lobby's warmest friend.