THE EDITOR RESERVES THE LAST COLUMN

...In their efforts to appear wise," he said in an American Mercury article, "critics of Congress often refer to the great of old—to orators like Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, and Henry Clay—and assert that, in comparison, members of Congress today are of small caliber...

...Dr...

...The Editoi Reserves The Last Column I'VE been thumbing through a stack of clippings dealing with the appointment of Bob La Follette as chairman of the joint Congressional committee to develop plans for modernizing Congress and making it more efficient and responsive for the critical days ahead...

...La Follette said that Congress had an inferiority complex...

...Most of them have lately blossomed out as political experts...

...Beard in reply to those who would sanctify the Presidency at the expense of Congress, "it is possible to choose 10 or 15 members of Congress—members of long service—who know as much if not more about the Government of the United States and its problems than 10 or 15 members of the Executive Department standing highest on the list of quality...

...Some of the boys are recalling that the last "La Follette Committee" to make headlines and history was the La Follette Civil Liberties Committee which earned a reputation for fairness and courtesy to witnesses and for doggedness in the search for truth even among those who opposed its trail-blazing assault on industrial vigilantism and corporate agriculture...

...The truth is that oratory of the grand style, whatever its merits, if any, is no longer appropriate to or useful in the discussion of the complicated questions of our day, which call for highly specialized knowledge and less rhetoric...

...Broadway keyhole columnists who don't know a caucus from a cabaret have added to the problem...

...As a more than casual reader of the Congressional Record, I venture this opinion: It is possible to pick out of the Record for the past 10 years addresses (not orations) which, for breadth of knowledge, technical skill, analytical acumen, close reasoning, and dignified presentation, compare favorably with similar utterances made in the preceding century by the so-called orators...

...And that's the job that Bob La Follette's committee has just tackled, to the great satisfaction of every genuine believer m democracy...

...What struck me forcefully in many of the clippings— and you won't, I know, begrudge a bit of office pride— was the readiness with which many a commentator or editorial writer who doesn't agree with Bob La Follette's position on foreign affairs, or domestic affairs, or both, accepted his name as a synonym for courage, integrity, painstaking work, tireless digging for facts, and incorruptible honesty...

...The other day, in commenting on the testimony of a witness before his committee, he made a diagnosis of Congress that interested me, if only because it confirmed a theory I've had for some time...

...They pour out their prejudices in syndicated columns and radio programs and seem to operate on the theory that a large circulation atones for a lack of facts...

...Moreover, contended Dr...

...It was an exhilarating experience to find not a dissenting voice in the chorus of approval which greeted the appointment of Sen...

...Charles A. Beard, the nation's outstanding historian, took the field with a powerful indictment of the "cult of Presidential leadership" and a hard-hitting, fact-packed defense of Congress...

...But along with that, as Dr...

...Beard knows, as Bob La Follette knows, and as many a student and newspaper man who have watched Congress in operation at close-range know, Congress needs to modernize its procedures, streamline its machinery, and equip itself with adequate staffs to grapple with the challenge which representative government will face as never before in the years just ahead...

...M.H.R...

...Long before he himself came to the Senate—and that was nearly 20 years ago— 'Young Bob' was secretary to his father, fiery 'Old Bob,' so that he began to learn very early what was wrong with the creaky machinery of our National Legislature...

...MARQUIS CHILDS, one of the Washington columnists who doesn't agree with Bob La Follette "on this question and that question," to use his own language, made it clear in a column last week that Bob "is recognized as one of the foremost experts in the country on legislative procedure—in other words on how to get things done...

...Beard's comments on Congress are what Congress needs now and then to massage its ego and help it banish its inferiority complex...

...La Follette and the first work of the Committee under his direction...

...CONGRESS has suffered greatly as an institution and instrument of government as a result of loose and irresponsible criticism...

...Members of Congress, beaten into submission by a national tendency to sneer at men in politics and public life, the jibes of countless stage and radio comedians, and the more recent clamor by the "President-can-do-no-wrong" set for by-passing Congress—these and many other considerations have given Congress a walloping big inferiority complex...

...The problem became so acute a couple of years ago that Dr...

...I for one share Child's conviction that Bob La Follette has put his finger on at least a sizeable chunk of the problem...