Evening star., 1944-02-28

The point will be missed if the
episode is CLOSED over with the
statement that it "clears the air,
or that the relations between the
Congress and the President, or be.
tween the President and his party
will be better than ever" This is
merely the tactfully expressed hope
of those with whom the wish is
father to the thought-the appre-
hension really of those who like te
smooth over what they fear might
become reorganization of the Demo
cratic party.
1t could, of course, mean better
relations between Mr. Roosevelt
and his party, between the executive
and the legislative branches of the
Government, but it can mean that
only if the true nature of Mr.
Barkley's dilemma is analyzed and
taken to heart by the President.
The Kentucky Senator learned at
the White House last Monday that
Notwithstanding seven months of
hard work by both parties and by
both houses of Congress, the Presi-
dent was going to do the unprec-
edented thing of vetoing a tax bill.
When Senator Barkley went home
that night he realized that the next
day it would be his obligation as
majority leader-under the then
exciting concept of a majority
leaders job-to ask his colleagues
to vote to sustain the veto. If he
consulted his convenience, he would
go along as he had obediently done
many times before. If he consulted
his conscience, he would not ask
the Senate to do something which
in his heart he knew was wrong.
He sought nobody'S advice-it was a
matter of his own conscience-and
he decided that the honorable thing
to do was to resign the majority
leadership and take whatever con-
sequence enSued.
All around Senator Barkley in the
House and Senate are men who have
had in the past and will have in the
future the same kind of a decision
to make-as between convenience
conformity, acquiescence and the
pain of public break with party or
party leadership on a matter of
principle.
If both the President and Congress
should perceive the real triumph
that came to the Kentucky Senator,
If our public men could feel the sat-
isfaction that comes when the soul
of man rises above every selfish
interest or ambition, maybe the un-
derstanding ones would find in the
plaudits of their countrymen some
day a compensation that mere elec-
ton to three terms in the presidency
cannot equal.
There's book just issued by the
Commission on American Citizen
ship of Catholic University. 1t is
called Better Men for Better Times
and there's passage in it worth
quoting not with personal reference
to either the President or Senator
Barkley but as a superb statement
of what might be termed the human
law of compensations. 1t says:
Human happiness Is the result OF
the practice of virtue. Peace and
contentment are born of self-disci-
pline, which is nothing more than
the subordination of all our i'm
pulses and inward drives to the law
of right reason.
Every day experience bears elo-
quent and inescapable witness to
the fact that they seek for happiness
in vain who in the quest lose thei1
own souls or any part of them. The
thrill that was expected from the
welding of great power fails to ma
terialize when there is no getting
away from the consciousness of in.
ward weakness. The possession o1
riches cannot compensate for the