THE CONGRESS: Mr. Will Goes Home

The paunchy little man stood quietly behind the marble rostrum, uneasy in his unaccustomed formal clothes, his shrewd, warm eyes downcast, his bald head shining dully in the soft glow from the vast skylight. Inches from his right hand was the gavel, the symbol of the authority he would now wield as Speaker of the House, until death or defeat of the Democrats. Sam Rayburn, 58, of Bonham, Tex., bachelor, shorthorn breeder, and for seven years a moderator of the New Deal, was waiting to speak his piece.

Below him, in the well of the House, in a casket blanketed by white asters and lilies, lay the body of his friend and prede cessor, the late William B. Bankhead of Jasper, Ala. Before the casket sat Franklin Roosevelt, his face weary and sad; beside him the Cabinet. Behind the Bankhead family were ranged the House and Senate.

Sam Rayburn cleared his throat and spoke quietly. In the still chamber, its customary bedlam hushed, his voice came nervously, stiff with emotion. He ended.

. . . “His was a great soul.” House Chaplain James Shera Montgomery intoned the 103rd Psalm, his deep, oiled voice rolling over the words:

“He remembereth that we are dust.

“As for man, his days are as grass;

“As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.

“For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone;

“And the place thereof shall know it no more. . . .”

Next afternoon, over the dust-deep roads of Walker County, fierce with Alabama’s autumn sunshine, 25,000 people went to pay their last respects to “Mr. Will.” Jasper’s First Methodist Church was roped off—a piece of twine strung from a telephone pole to a soapbox to a fireplug to another telephone pole. Men in overalls and blue denim shirts lined the street. Fans waved under tattered parasols. The loudspeaker brayed a prayer. Sweat-stained hats came off; the crowd’s murmur hushed. Children scuffed their feet in the dusty heat.

When the procession started, the President’s closed car, moving slowly, was followed by a ripple of applause—only a ripple: the crowd had come to a funeral. ” ‘Tain’t no time for cheering,” said one. Heads nodded.

Before the funeral train had returned to Washington, the House leadership had been discussed and settled. Next man to hold the majority leadership of the House would ordinarily have been bull-built, conservative Representative Lindsay Warren of Washington, N. C. But only seven weeks before, Lindsay Warren had reluctantly, with many a backward glance, relinquished his lifetime ambition to become Speaker, had accepted from Franklin Roosevelt a 15-year commission as Comptroller General of the U. S.

Next logical candidate was a man much more amenable to New Deal orders than Representative Warren—lanky, quick, persuasive Representative John McCormack of Boston, Mass., who had gained great popularity in the House by a habit (while presiding over the committee of the whole) of ignoring the time limits of debate, thus permitting windy colleagues to blow themselves completely out. (It is an ancient House joke that, when a flapmouthed member has exceeded his allotted five minutes by 15, the most John McCormack ever says is a soft, Irish reminder that “the gentleman has only one minute left.”)

Opposing John McCormack was pompous, earnest Clifton Woodrum of Roanoke, Va., a varnished, white-haired member who has championed economy by opposing all Federal expenditures which do not directly benefit Virginia. Mr. Woodrum’s chances were slim: the White House wanted Mr. McCormack.

Minority Leader Joe Martin, who confidently expects to reorganize the House next Jan. 3 with himself as Speaker, smiled a small smile at these Democrat shenanigans.