Evening star., 1939-08-13
By Raym ond P. Brandt.

ative than he and refused much of the
legislation he asked for. Wilson lost
control of Congress in 1918 and many
Democrats deserted on the League of
Nations issue. Coolidge, like T. R., had
a Republican Congress, but it passed
bills for farm relief and for Government
operation of Muscle Shoals which he
vetoed.
Coalition Forecast.
After the failure Of the Roosevelt
"purges" in the Democratic primaries in
Iowa, Georgia, South Carolina and
Maryland, and the many Republican
victories for Senate and House seats,
most impartial political observers fore
cast coalitions of Republicans and anti
Roosevelt Democrats in the Seventy
sixth Congress. The President, however,
insisted that the New Deal and Demo-
cratic defeats had resulted from special
local circumstances" and chided a re-
porter at his first press conference after
the election for persisting that such
coalitions should be expected The re-
porter, he declared, couldn't see the
forest for the trees. He emphasized
that he did not expect such opposition to
his program.
But the most prescient observers could
not have forecast all the grotesque al
hances which made Congress at times
resemble the bloc parliaments of Europe
and South America. In the House from
40 to 30 Democrats would join with the
1863 Republicans against New Deal meas
ures. and Majority Leader Rayburn could
not keep many of his other Democrats
on the floor or even in Washington. Dur
ing the vote on the administrations neu-
trality bill, several Democrats refused to
leave the gallery and the House resuau-
rant to'vote on one of the most important
provisions.
In the Senate the Republicans joined
with the silver bloc" from the Western
States in an effort to kill the Presidents
power for further devaluation of the dol
lar, only to be double-crossed when the
administration agreed to larger subsidy
for domestically mined silver. In both
Houses there were economy" blocs, farm
priations-labor blocs, anti-labor blocs,
river and harbor blocs, all voting or re-
fusing to vote for special rather than
national or party reasons.
Common Program improbable.
This spectacle disclosed the weakness
as well as the strength of congressional
government and if the idea is carried into
the next regular session, no affirmative
program will be advanced by the Repub-
icans or anti-NeW Dealers, and the coun-
try's major problem of how to put idle
men and idle dollars to work will be un-
solved. Probably it would be impossible
for the coalitions to propose substitute
program for the Rooseveltian New Deal,
but the refusal to try to agree on such
statement of principles and objectives
leaves the President the only person with
positive, more or less co-ordinated legis-
lative agenda.
From the realistic political viewpoint
1t is perhaps significant, however, that
the only persons who emerged from the
first session with increased prestige were
Republicans and anti-New Dealers who
did not offer an opposition" platform.
Among the Republicans these were Sena-
tors Taft of Ohio, Vandenberg of Michi-
gan, Bridges of New Hampshire, Repre-
sentatives Martin of Massachusetts, and
Barton of New York. Among the Dem
ocrats they were Vice President Garner,
Senators Tydings of Maryland, Clark of
Missouri, Byrd of Virginia and Repre-
sentative Woodrum of Virginia.
No congressional leader of the New
Deal on the other hand, emerged during
the past seven months. Majority Leaders
Barkley and Rayburn suffered greater
loss of prestige than their chief in the
White House. The administration lost
control of the powerful House Rules
Committee when Cox of Georgia and
Smith of Virginia, typical Southern DEM
ocrats, took over this strategically i'm
portant group from Chairman SABBATH of
Illinois, and in the Senate Barkley's in
fluence fell so low that the administra-
ton was forced to accept compromise
after compromise.
Senators Minton Of Indiana, schwellen-