The Congress: Innermost Member

Once, when Texas’ Senator Lyndon Johnson came to call upon him at the White House, President Harry Truman offered him some advice: “I see that Styles Bridges is senior Republican on your committee. That’s good. Bridges is a smart man, the smartest in the Senate. He’ll let you call the game. He’ll let you deal the cards on the table or under the table, and either way he’ll probably beat you. But you let him know what you’re doing, how you’re dealing the cards, and he’ll work with you.”

Ex-Senator Truman knew what he was talking about. In the inner circle that rules the Senate, Styles Bridges was the innermost man, the dean of Senate Republicans, and one of the savviest politicians in the upper chamber. He was a poor speaker, and his name was never attached to any historic item of legislation. Yet last week, when Bridges died of complications following a heart attack, the Senate lost one of its most influential members.

Deadly Slogan. Henry Styles Bridges (he dropped the “Henry” years ago in order to avoid confusion with the West Coast’s Red-lining longshoremen’s labor boss, Harry Bridges) was only nine when his father, a Maine farmer and storekeeper, died. “Upon my father’s death,” Bridges once said, “I worked the farm and met the responsibilities of manhood through my youth.” At the University of Maine he earned his board and tuition by milking cows at the agricultural college; later he helped send a younger sister and brother through college. In 1920 he moved to New Hampshire as an agricultural instructor with the state university’s extension staff and an expert on crops and soil conservation for the state government.

Republican ex-Governor Robert Bass spotted Bridges as a likely young man, appointed him as his secretary, urged him to run for Governor in 1934. Bridges ran, and despite a national Democratic sweep that year, he won—becoming, at 36, the youngest Governor in New Hampshire’s history. Bridges instituted unemployment compensation and insurance, old age benefits, even while balancing the budget. By 1936, Governor Bridges was a leading candidate for the vice-presidential nomination. But Alf Landon won the top spot on the ticket, and even before the Republican Convention, gleeful Democrats had come up with a deadly campaign slogan: “Landon-Bridges Falling Down.” The convention turned to Chicago Publisher Frank Knox as its vice-presidential nominee, and Bridges decided to run for the Senate. He won easily, despite the Roosevelt landslide.

His debut on Capitol Hill came at an inauspicious time. The Republican Party was going through one of its darkest periods: there were just 16 G.O.P. members in the Senate. Bridges soon established himself as a staunch conservative and, as a ranking member of the Appropriations Committee (which he chaired during four sessions of Congress), a merciless money trimmer. But his conservatism applied mostly to domestic matters. Before World War II, he fought hard for Lend-Lease and increased military appropriations; after the war, he joined with Michigan’s Republican Senator Arthur Vandenberg to back the Marshall Plan.

Unkept Promise. As a member of the Senate’s inner sanctum, Bridges had a strong sense of loyalty to his colleagues, regardless of party or politics. He tried hard to save Joe McCarthy from the Senate’s censure, and might have succeeded had not McCarthy made a witless remark about the panel of Senators investigating him being the “unwitting handmaiden” of Communism. When asked to campaign against Democrat Scott Lucas in Illinois in 1950, Bridges was furious. “Scott Lucas refused to come to New Hampshire in 1948 and campaign against me,” he sputtered. “I’ll never go after him, no matter how long I live.” Last year, for much the same reasons, Bridges refused requests to take the Texas stump against Lyndon Johnson, then running for Senate re-election even while appearing on the Democratic national ticket as a vice-presidential candidate.

Last summer, after a lung ailment that preceded his heart attack. Styles Bridges was visited in his hospital room by a reporter bearing a bottle of Scotch. “You know,” he said, “I’ll be back next session, but by golly, I’m going to take it a little easy.” Among his Senate colleagues, Styles Bridges was respected as one whose political word was his bond—but this was a promise he could not keep.