DEMOCRATS: Empty Chairs

When Democratic National Chairman Paul Butler. California National Committeeman Paul Ziffren and other dogged Stevenson enthusiasts dreamed up the Democratic Advisory Committee to pressure for liberal legislation in Congress (TIME, Dec. 10), they ranged 20 chairs around the advisory table and hopefully named 20 Democrats to fill them. Three seats were quickly claimed by Harry Truman, Adlai Stevenson and Estes Kefauver. But Eleanor Roosevelt gracefully declined (her newspaper syndicate, she explained, might object), and Virginia’s ex-Governor John S. Battle announced that he would not become a member under any circumstances. Last week came the ultimate blow when the nominated congressional leaders refused to join the circle.

Out of Texas rasped the reply of House Speaker Sam Rayburn: It would be “a mistake” for House leadership to “work with any committee outside the House of Representatives.” A brief three days later drawled the final word from Senate Ma jority Leader Lyndon Johnson: “The necessity of dealing with an additional committee not created by federal law before taking action would only cause delays and confusion.”

In other words, Sam Rayburn, 74, and Lyndon Johnson, 48, are running the Democratic Party in the U.S. Congress.