A Lesson Learned

The future of liberal, forward-looking legislation in the Eighty-Fifth Congress must rest with Senators who believe in it. No extra-Congressional advisory committee will be able to dictate prospective legislation to Lyndon Johnson and his allies, nor can such a committee have much hope that the openly conservative Congressional leadership will be receptive to liberal admonition.

Johnson and Sam Rayburn have declined to serve on the "20-man" Democratic Advisory Committee and the eight persons who already have accepted posts include only three legislators, Senators Humphrey and Kefauver and Congresswoman Edith Green of Oregon. Consequently, Paul Butler's hope that powerful members of Congress would join seems to have been overly optimistic, if not naive, for in intent and organization the group was both an insult and a threat to Johnson, Rayburn & Co.

By declining to join, however, the conservatives have considerably clarified the situation, for the committee and for the liberals in the Senate. Were Johnson and Rayburn to serve on the committee, they could easily keep it from reaching any constructive positions by dilatory and factious tactics. Now the committee can serve as an important pressure group. True, Stevenson, Truman and Mrs. Roosevelt have neither votes nor patronage to dispense, but their views have considerable influence on uncommitted Democrats. With an effective research staff they could form a useful liberal voice of national prestige, with the wide respect that Americans for Democratic Action has never attained.

Humphrey, Douglas, et al may learn a lesson from Johnson's affirmation that legislative programs must be achieved in Congress. On the Senate floor they will have an opportunity to advance a liberal Democratic platform, and in that house's working they may be able to put much of it into law.

To do so they will play upon Johnson's presidential ambitions, for the canny Texan must know he cannot hope to win the 1960 nomination without support from the liberal Northern wing. He may therefore be disposd to compromise. But it is in the give-and-take of the Senate and House, rather than in the artificial workings of a committee with a top level but nothing beneath it, that any progressive legislation and responsible Opposition can be molded.