Evening star., 1940-12-25
Membership Of New
Congress Includes
2Co|orfuI Figures
Miss Rankin Was News
HeodIiner During War;
Youngest Senator q Bishop
By the Associated Press.

By the Associated Press.
A 33-year- old bishop and a WON.
an who was a congressional head
line-news figure in World War days
will contribute color to the Seventy
seventh Congress which convenes
January 8.
Back to the House of Representa-
tives comes the first woman elected
to Congress, Montana's jeanette
Rankin. Her vote against war pro-
vided one of the dramatic moments
in the historic session on Good Fri
day, April 6, 1917.
Miss Rankin, then the only one
of her sex in Congress, sat through
the first roll call with bowed head,
failing to answer to her name. On
the second roll call, which came
after 3 o'clock in the morning, she
arose and said with tremulous voice
Il want to stand by my country
but I cannot vote for war;
Youngest Senator a Bishop.
Youngest man in the Senate will
be Berkeley L. Bunker, 33-year-old
Mormon bishop. Mr.. Bunker, who
is also a gasoline station operator
and former speaker of the Nevada
State Assembly, was appointed to
fill the vacancy caused by the death
OF Senator Pittman.
- Among the house rockies will be
33-year-old Brain Truster Thomas
H. Eliot, grandson of famed Harvard
University President Charles W.
Eliot. Young Eliot, an early New
Dealer, was general counsel Of the
Social Security Board at %.
To the House from Andrew jack
sons old district comes homespun
j. Percy Priest, conductor Of q
country folk column in a Nashville
newspaper. Friends tell of the
mule sense" of Priest, who comes
from a mule-raising county, loves to
lead community sings and 70 attend
farm festivals.
Aiken Adds G. O. P. Strength.
Helping bolster G. o. P. strength
in the Senate will be Vermont S
fortnight, budget-minded ex-Gov.
George D. Aiken. His demand three
years ago that the Republican party
oust Old Guard leadership attracted
national attention. He has assailed
New Deal "totalitarianism" and has
tangled with the Federal Govern
ment over flood control jurisdiction.
In place of the Senate's No. /
fancy word Singer, Henry Foun-
tain Ashurst of Arizona, will be
Ernest w. Mcfarland, a county
judge and farm owner. An earnest
but awkward speaker, he won the
Democratic nomination from the
eloquent Mr.. Ashurst, long rated
q well-nigh invincible vote-getter.
The congressional cast, however,
will be largely the same one that
put on a prolonged 1910 performance
and set a peacetime record of voting
some $l7,60O,000,0 for defense.
The new Congress, functioning
against a backdrop of warfare in
volving countries in all six con-
tinents, has a membership already
almost unanimously on record as
opposed to entry of the United
states into the war. 1t will be the
first Congress to serve with a third
term President.
Wallace the Novice.
Democratic and Republican lead
ers, with one exception, will be
veterans. Presiding over the Senate
in place of strategist John N. Gar
ner will be legislative novice, Vice
President Henry A. Wallace.
Cool tactician Charles McNary
will be leading % Republican sena-
tors, five more than he led at the
last session. Kentucky's Alben
Barkley again will lead the Demo-
cratic majority in the Senate. Sam
Rayburn is slated to continue as
House Speaker and Joe Martin
will pilot G. o. P. phalanx in
the House, reduced from 169 to
162.