Evening star., 1951-01-02
Senate Leader Fight
Holds Spotlight as
Session Nears End
By J. A. OLeory

A contest between two West.
erners for Democratic leader Of
the Senate held the spotlight to.
day as the dying 81st Congress
hurried to finish its work ano
make way for the opening of the
new Congress at noon tomorrow
Senator Mcfarland of Arizona
appeared to be holding a lead
over Senator OMahoney of Wyo-
ming as the Democrats called a
party conference for 2 o'clock this
afternoon to pick the man who
will face two difficult years direct
ing a Senate that will start out
with 40 Democrats and At Re-
publicans.
Republicans in both branches
and the Democrats in the House
are expected to keep their present
leaders in the new Congress.
Arms Budget Comes Up.
Meanwhile, the Senate met at
II o'clock this morning and. wound
up the work of the old Congress
by approving the final terms of
the $40 billion supplemental re-
armament budget.
In a fast-moving holiday ses-
sion yesterday the House cleaned
up all of its major business except
the Senate'S limited war powers
bill, which it will consider today.
President Truman's civil rights
program has become behind
the-scenes issue in the Senate
Democratic leadership race, chief
ly because the southerners have
thrown almost solid support to
Senator Mcfarland. For this rea-
son a substantial number of
northern Democrats are expected
TO vote for Senator O'Mahoney.
3 Mcfarland Backing Claimed.
Mcfarland hackers were claim
ing pledges from 20 of the 40
Democratic Senators.
Senators Mcfarland and
O'Mahoney have not been far
apart in their support of the
Roosevelt and Truman programs,
but the southerners prefer Senator
Mcfarland because he voted
against applying cloture to break
the filibuster which killed the fair
employment practices bill in this
Congress.
Democrats from Northern States,
where civil rights again will be an
important issue in 1852, are ex-
pected to vote for Senator
OMahoney. Senator Kerr of
Oklahoma, one of Mr. McFarland's S
hackers, said he understood the
other side wants to make a
record"
The Democrats also must elect
a whip, or assistant leader, but
there has been little interest in
this post. There were reports the
Mcfarland camp would support
some O'Mahoney supporter for
second place if a contest could
thus be avoided, but there were
no indications the friends of Sen
ator OMahoney would make the
compromise.
After picking their new leader,
the Democrats also are expected
to consider whether to raise any
question tomorrow against the
seating of Maryland's new Repub-
lican, Senator-elect Butler, be-
cause of alleged use of defamatory
literature in the campaign against !
Senator TydingS.
Senator Anderson, Democrat, of |
New Mexico has said he would
call the issue to the attention of
the conference, but most observ-
ers doubt the Democrats will at
tempt to prevent Mr.. Butler from
being sworn in pending investiga-
ton of the charges.
If they should make such an
attempt it probably would prevent
the Senate from organizing for
days. because new Senators are
sworn in alphabetically, and only
two-Senator Aiken of Vermont
and Senator-elect Bennett of
Utah, both Republicans-would be
sworn in before debate would
start over the seating of Mr.. .