Evening star., 1938-03-30
WASHINGTON OBSERVATIONS
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.

Word bubbles up from Warm Springs
that the Roosevelt smile expanded Wis
lbly when news came of the double New
Deal victory on Capitol Hill-Senate
passage of the reorganization bill and
Supreme Court approval of the Public
Utility Holding Company Act. Elation
over Senate events is materially tenn
pered by the skin -the-teeth margin
by which defeat was averted. A switch
of three votes would have recommitted
the reorganization project and shelved
it indefinitely. 1t must be sad reflec-
ton for F. D. R. that administration au-
thority in chamber of n Democrats,
counting majority of So over all, could
muster only 48 party faithful against
burial of reorganization and only 49 in
favor of the measure. To these slim
and vanishing dimensions has White
House influence crumbled. The futile
fight on the Supreme Court now seems
to have been the beginning of the end
of Rooseveltian domination of Con-
gress. The present session has seen an
almost unbroken succession of wrecked
hopes. The wages-and- d-hours bill is
sidetracked; the Treasury tax program
is in ruins. On Monday the heavily
Democratic House Rivers and Harbors
Committee rejected another pet of the
administration-its plan for six new
regional power authorities of T. v. A.
pattern. Barring the vote making farm
crop-control scheme and the housing
bill, the Presidents current legislative
record is represented by goose egg.
Senate galleries haven't been so full
since Huey Longs time as they were for
the reorganization debate and vote nor
has the floor in many a moon contained
so heavy percentage of the roll call
81 out of 96 members present for aye and
nay purposes. Probably not twentieth
Of the citizens who craned their necks
for a glimpse Of proceedings realized
they were witnessing one of the most
momentous conferments of one-man
power and abandonment of congress
sional prerogative in the Republics his
tory. Equally nonchalant, even joyous,
were the administrationists who COM
mitted legislative hara-kiri. To many
observers it seemed as if only word Of
command would have been needed to
cause nearly half a hundred supine sena-
torial arms to be raised in Fascistlike
gesture Of triumph. One of the lighter
notes in a scene far grimmer than gen.
orally comprehended was silver-tongued
Senator Dave Walsh's oratorical slip.
In his closing onslaught against the bill,
the veteran Bay Slater called it "a
death blow-at least a partial death
blow" at democracy and the Constitu-
tion!'
X X
Senator Jimmie Byrnes Of South Caro-
lima, who brilliantly led the victorious re-
organization forces, has probably now
been returned to the good graces of the
New Deal high command. Not so long
ago the dapper little son Of Spartan
burg was distinctly out Of favor It was
Byrnes' unsuccessful leadership of the
movement to decentralize relief and re-
store 1t to the States that got him in bad
with the Rooseveltians. He ranked, too,
as lukewarm in support Of the White
House court program, though he never
openly opposed it. The President is
tremendously fond of the South Caro-
linian admiring both his personal and
political qualities. The chances now are
that Byrnes will resume his old place as
one Of the Administrations fair haired
boys.
+ *
II and when the Civil Service Com
mission under reorganization changes its
name and becomes the Civil Service Ad-
ministration, familiar set Of initials,
G. s. A., will again figure In the national
nomenclature, after lapse Of exactly 70
years.