National Affairs: THE U.S. CONGRESS Is It Victim to Democratism?

AMID the swift social changes and sudden international crises of the mid-20th century, the impatient and the doctrinaire often complain that Congress — slow-moving, operating through committees and compromises —is an awkward antique, a hindrance to national efficiency, perhaps even a handicap in the race for national survival. In a bracing new book on Congress and the American Tradition (Henry Regnery; $6.50), a conservative political philosopher speaks up this week in Congress' defense. The defender: muscular-minded James Burnham, 53, former New York University philosophy professor who made a still-rippling intellectual splash back...