The Wilmington morning star., 1941-01-22
, WASHINGTON Daybook
BY LACK STINNETT

WASHINGTON, Jan. 21-The legal profess
sion may be no super-highway to fame and
fortune, but it still is the best route to Con-
grassland by far.
The legal profession accounts for less than
one per cent of the working male population
over 81 years old, but for a long time now, it
has accounted for from IS to more than 10
per cent of Congress.
I have just been checking over the 18th
the brand new one. Seventy-two per cent of
the senate is made up Of the sons of Black.
stone. OF the 96 senator's, 70 are lawyers; only
rs are from other professions. You couldn't
expect me to do research on all the 435 mem
bers of the House, but I did enough of that
scientific cross-section sampling you read
about to be able to report that the House fol
lows almost the same pattern.
Next in line are the newspaper men, God
bless 'em-who number six-or seven if you
count one former practicing attorney who now
is editor and publisher of a newspaper.
Minnesota's new senator, Joseph H. Ball,
and Massachusetts, Henry, Cabot Lodge Jr.
came right out of the working press and both
still write Washington comment for their
papers. Arkansas Hattie w. Caraway is, of
course, the Senate's only housewives; Mime.
sota's Shipstead, its only dentist, Vermont's
Senator Aiken is a nurseryman; Washing
S1 - AAoAA ~ q JS"S1C1 dl1u OULlCld
(and incidentally >the three-cushion billiard
champ of Everett, Wash.). Senator Byrd OF
Virginia is an apple grower (and newspaper
publishers: and Oregon's Rufus G.. Holman a
paper-box manufacturer. And so it goes.
NO SENATE DOCTORS
When the Senate is assembled, there's not
a doctor on the floor, but there are several
in the House. For example, there are the IL
year-old veteran DR.. Fred J. Douglas, of Uti-
ca, N. Y, and DR.. Joseph L. Pfeifer, of Brook
Ign, both prominent surgeons in their own
communities, both still practicing, and the lat
ter chief of staff Of one of the better known
Brooklyn hospitals. And there is DR.. Rudolph
G. Tenerowicz, of Hamtramck in Detroit,
Mich. There is hardly a week that Dr.. Tenero-
wicz doesn't fly to Detroit to bring a baby
into the world or help some ailing patient
avoid going out of it.
Still, it is the legal profession that rides the
gravy train. Just why seems pretty obvious
on the surface. Primarily, the reason is based
on that dubious premise that men who snend
their lives fighting over the laws of the land
should be best equipped to make them. I say
dubious because lawyers are good as tn
whether lawyers are good lawmakers is even
older than our constitutional government.
AT far back as 1776, John Adams Saw our
representative assembly, as IAN exact por-
trait, IN miniature, of the people at large"
and Alexander Hamilton followed him a few
years later with a similar concept.
LUCE A HIS OPINION
Robert Luce of Massachusetts, who served
for 70 years as a member of the lower house,
and was considered one of the most scholarly
OF congressman, had this to say: Lawyers
are liable to be poor lawmakers because their
mental habit is backward-looking. Their whole
training has taught them to rely on precedent.
Ihey worship the past. This has its advan-
tages, but among them is not the facility for
meeting present needs and anticipating tonor-
row.
Don't try to get me into the argument. I'm
just telling you how it is today and how it
looks for tomorrow-if you want to get your
boy into congress, see your lawyer-about a
law school. 4