Evening star., 1953-12-21
The Latest in Presidential Hoirshirts
By DonoId MichoeI Rouh

w ooDRow WILSON bristled
w whenever the name Of Demo-
cratic Senator James Reed of Missouri
was dropped in his presence. Frank
lin D. Roosevelt reacted in SubStan-
TALLY the same way to Louisiana's
megalomaniac Huey Long. These days
President Eisenhower has been known
to frown with displeasure when Sena-
tor Joseph Mccarthy comes up for
White House discussion.
This indefatigable pursuer Of evil
and evildoers may be said to enjoy at
least one thing in common with Sena-
tors Reed and Long-he is presi-
dental hairshirt par excellence. The
Wisconsin legislator, modern-dreSS
Puritan who personifies st. George to
some and Torquemada to others. has
managed in his seven years in the
Senate to make life somewhat miser-
able for two Presidents. Senator Nc
Carthy built fire under Truman in
1850 on the Communists-in-G Govern
ment issue and he has sedulously
famed the flames right up to the eve
of President Eisenhower's first ami
versary in the White House.
Most gifted in the art of capturing
headlines the restless Republicans re-
cent onslaught on the administrations
conduct of foreign policy reached the
penultimate for sheer gall in the eyes
of many observers. To others it pre-
saged a wider breach between the Sem
ate's chief spy hunter and the Presi-
dent.
Although lacking the berSerker-like
personality of Huey Pierce Long, who
ruled Louisiana with an iron hand from
his Senate seat before being assassi-
mated in 1885, Senator Mccarthy in
many ways is reminiscent of the king
fish," Longs gifts included barbed
wit, demagogic manner and clever
tongue that could mesmerize vast areas
of the American public into alteration
for the sawed-off little man with the
Napoleonic complex.
Huey's connections with President
Roosevelt started off cordially enough,
but his neck Stiffened when F. D. r.
bypassed him on number of political
payoffs. The President also had failed
to call of Internal Revenue inveSti-
gators looking into Huey's income tax
returns, a matter that prompted him
to make personal call on Mr.. Roose-
welt. According to James Farley, Huey
expressed his contempt for F. D. r. by
keeping his hat on throughout the
White House conference.
The share he-wealth" scheme
promoted by Huey was anathema to
President Roosevelt and F. D. r. made
no bones about it. Smarting over the
Presidents opposition, Huey summoned
up all the invective at his not-incon-
siderable command and on May 10,
1884. proceeded to lash Mr.. Roosevelt
on the Senate floor for accepting
$4,000 a year as Assistant Secretary
of the Navy during World War while
millions of other Americans were being
drafted
Before the two came to parting of
the ways, Huey, who slyly exploited
the press to win people over to his
fatuouS programs, once managed to
get published an open letter asking
President Roosevelt to lay down what
he would like to see in the way of
legislation. Huey modestly promised to
hammer it across in seven days.
Huey's hatred for anything con-
nected with the Roosevelt administra-
ton was boundleSS. His regard for Jim
Farley was summed up in a sentence:
Jim can take the corns off your feet
without removing your shoes" Henry
Wallace became Lord Corn Wallace,
the Honorable Lord Destroyer, the Ig
noramus of Iowa." Harold Ickes was
reduced to "the Chinch Bug of Chi
cago."
Some will maintain that Senator
Mccarthy is cut from the same jib as
Missouris Jim Reed, an Hyperion in
the Senate from 1911 until 1929 who
quarrelSomely won a reputation as
"the Great Opposer'' and Reed the
Wrecker." It was Senator Reed.
Democrat, as much as Henry Cabot
Lodge. a Republican, who was respon-
sible for the Senate's scuttling of
American participation in President
Wilson's League of Nations in 1920.
In 1919 when President Wilson re-
turned to the United States from Paris
with the 80,000-word League covenant,
Senator Reed, who up to that time had
gone along with Wilson on most major
issues, got to his feet on the Senate
floor and declared in his f1orid oratory:
This covenant is like the laws of the
difference; the Medes and Persians re-
fused to alter their laws after they were
enacted, whereas President Wilson re-
fuses to alter the covenant before it
has been accepted by the Senate"
From that time until President Will
sons death in 1923, the two-f1sted Reed
and the Chief Executive were at swords
point. Senator George Wharton Pep
per, in his book. The Philadelphia
Lawyer" wrote that when Reed at
tackled an opponent, it was almost as
if he threw acid upon him. Of Presi-
dent Wilson's choleric impatience with
those who would amend his League
proposal in even the slightest way
Senator Reed ragged: THE Presidents
soldiers are epithets. His battalions
are aggregates of bitter names. He sub
stitutes fancies for facts. confuses the
phantoms of his dreams with the reali-
ties of life" Many observers of the
Gay thought it was a case of the pot
being unfair to the kettle
In Senator Reeds logic, the League