National Affairs: Leadership

When her father was elected Majority Leader of the House of Representatives last week, Tallulah Bankhead was the most twittery actress in all New York. She plucked up a telephone, called Washington, chirped: “Congratulations, Daddy, congratulations!” And when Majority Leader William Brockman Bankhead was carried to the Naval Hospital with a cold and indigestion day before the 74th Congress opened, Daughter Tallulah flew to the Capital, ran to his bedside. Said she as she left his room: “Daddy will be all right. I talked a blue streak and it may not have helped him any. . . . Daddy just won’t take care of himself!”

If Actress Bankhead had wanted to thank someone for “Daddy’s” elevation to the No. 2 position in the Democratic House organization, Senator Joseph F. Guffey of Pennsylvania would have been the man. Last month Boss Guffey clinched last week’s election of Tennessee’s gawky, bush-browed Joseph Wellington Byrns to the Speakership by pledging the solid vote of Pennsylvania’s 23 Democratic Representatives to his candidacy. Last week Senator Guffey again showed what a power he was in the chamber at the other end of the Capitol from the one in which he officially functions. At the Democratic caucus to pick a leader to succeed Speaker Byrns, eight candidates were in the field. But when Boss Guffey threw his 23 Pennsylvania votes to Alabama’s Bankhead, it was all over on the second ballot. As a sop to the North and Tammany, the Democrats put New York City’s Representative John J. O’Connor into the chairmanship of potent Rules Committee. Brother of Basil O’Connor, Franklin Roosevelt’s oldtime law partner, Representative O’Connor is, because of his habit of sneering at his opponents, one of the most unpopular members of a supposedly popular house.

By reason of his political triumphs on Election Day and in the choice of Speaker and Majority Leader of the House, Senator Guffey harvested the reward of power. One of his followers was made Democratic whip of the House and another was put on the important Ways & Means Committee. And Joe Guffey himself got a seat on the equally potent Senate Finance Committee.