Last of the 70th

The country's biennial anachronism, another "lame duck" Congress, prepared to sit in Washington. In the Senate, the anachronism was particularly visible. Instead of the clear Republican majority elected by the people in November, the Senate will function until March with Republicans and Democrats almost even in power, with the balance resting on insurgent Republicans and Minnesota's Farmer-Laborite dentist, Senator Shipstead.

The House has 77 lame-ducks this year, the Senate 11. Yet the absurdity of running the nation's business by a time-table drawn up before there were railroads and highways passable in winter, is not so apparent in the House as in the Senate. When the 71st Congress sits next year, the Republican House majority will be much larger but no more decisive than the margin of twoscore seats on which the Republican 70th Congress operated last session and will resume operating next week. The impropriety of voters being "represented" from December to March by individuals whom they have voted in November to replace, is seldom so glaring in the House as it is in the Senate, except when there is a complete party overthrow as in 1920. Being a much larger body than the Senate, the House depends far more than the Senate upon internal organization for its functioning. The master men of this internal organization must be individuals who have repeatedly been re-elected and thus gained seniority, experience, prestige in the House. It is seldom that a Representative of any considerable standing or influence in the House reports in Washington for the Short Session as a lame duck. When this does happen, it is usually because the Representative has aspired to higher office. Such is the case of the outstanding "lame duck" who will take his seat next week, Representative Finis J. Garrett of Tennessee, Democratic floor-leader. Representative Garrett tried, unsuccessfully, to slip into the seat of Tennessee's Senator McKellar. Representative Tom Connolly, who will slip into the seat of Senator Mayfield after this session, might be called a three-legged duck.

Mechanism. In theory the House is run by a Speaker, a Majority Leader, a Minority Leader, the Rules Committee, the chairmen of the several committees—and an unofficial body known as the Republican Steering Committee. In actual practice the legislative program is framed and executed by a small group of insiders who constitute "the works" of the House. Some are prominent, some merely proficient. All are influential, in that they control important blocs of votes on the House floor. This inner group is an indefinite organization, based largely on personal relationships. It operates more by common consent than by formal sanction. It frames the House's policies, decides which measures it wants to pass—and can pass—and in what order they will be taken up.

Mechanics. Fifteen men who run the present House, whom the balance of the membership follows without much protest, are the following:

Speaker Longworth.

Tilson of Connecticut, Republican Floor Leader.

Snell of New York, chairman of the Rules Committee.

Wood of Indiana, acting chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

Bacharach of New Jersey, Ways & Means member.

Mapes of Michigan, Interstate Commerce member.