National Affairs: Lord of the Citadel

• Share

(See Cover)

For seven months of 1954 the 83rd Congress labored. Sometime in the eighth month it will rest. But the political clock will be ticking ever closer to the first Tuesday after November's first Monday. Senators and Congressmen will worry whether the record of their seven-odd months of labor will look good enough on that judgment day. By last week the record was all but complete, its remainder largely predictable. How good is the 83rd's record?

Since neither the Democrats nor the right-wing Republicans had programs of their own, the question must be answered in terms of President Eisenhower's legislative program. Much of Dwight Eisenhower's extensive program has been enacted; much of it has not (see box). More of it ran into trouble in the Senate than in the House. Early in the session the Senate was becalmed for weeks in the Sargasso Sea of debate on the Bricker Amendment to curb treaty-making powers. As late as last week the Senate was foundering in a filibuster's tempest. It began this week still off course in a move to censure Joe McCarthy.

In the House of Representatives, President Eisenhower did not always find clear sailing either, but there the atmosphere of burgeoning accomplishment was less noisily fitful, more quietly apparent. There, a bill's defeat was seldom due to arbitrary jamming of the legislative machinery, but could be explained in terms of political realities. That the House did well by the President can be largely credited to its leaders, in particular to a lawmaking veteran's practiced, nimble touch on the legislative keyboard. The veteran: Joseph William Martin Jr. of North Attleboro, Mass., 45th Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Map for Huckleberries. Dwight Eisenhower was recently heard to marvel, "I can't understand how Joe Martin knows what's going to happen in the House months before it happens. It's uncanny." In Speaker Martin such prescience is composed partly of second nature, partly of careful listening and persistent observation, partly of his power to make his wishes come true.

When in January 1953 Joe Martin mounted the dais to assume the duties of Speaker for the second time (he was Speaker in the Republican 80th Congress, 1947-48), he told his colleagues, "I love this House . . . In this forum is worked the will of the people, a forum that we must ever strengthen, never weaken. Here lies the true citadel of the Republic."

As lord of the citadel, Martin governs the House in the same way that a democracy governs its people—by the consent of the governed. He is the leader of 219 Republican Congressmen, politicians who admire proficiency in their craft and usually recognize that the essence of good politics is teamwork. Among them, Speaker Martin is the master professional, a standing achieved largely by learning, in infinite detail, about the team. Said one teammate: "Joe knows how we'll vote before we've given it much thought."

In his mind's eye, Martin carries a map of the U.S., divided into congressional districts. From his many travels through 47 states, Joe has painted in the map with voluminous data. The map is somewhat blank in Mississippi; Joe has never been there because "there aren't any huckleberries there for Republicans."