Hugh Scott

If Hugh Scott were your girlfriend's father, you might stop by a bit early so that you could chat with him a while before your date. He looks like a past president of the Kiwanis, has a Major Hoople-ish voice just perfect for harrumphing (although he does not indulge) and a sense of humor just dry enough to let him refer to a political enemy as "that rodent" and pull it off. In addition, the dapper Senator from Pennsylvania has a delightful penchant for the well turned phrase (he often emits a self-congratulatory chortle after some especially well burnished jewel), and speaks with the assurance of a man used to being listened to.

Scott's superb sense of his audience and the self-satirical aspect of his humor not only save the senator from being a windbag, but enable him to establish an intimacy with his listeners. In small groups, he will expound on some subject for a while, suddenly realize that he is beginning to prattle, and punctuate his monologue with a quick self-deflating dig that endears him to his audience. Answering a question at one informal gathering, he waxed almost poetic at some length about the glories of the Senate, finishing with the words, "and there is no other group of 100 men in the world more powerful than the Senate." Then he looked around, grinned contagiously and said, "Of course there may be a group of twenty-seven or a group of two" ......From there he was home free.

The Senate, as Scott himself says, is in many ways the ultimate private men's club, and the Senator has the justifiable air of one who not only "has arrived," but plans to stay awhile. He has definite "Come, let us reason together" ideas about the business of legislation. It was not the justifiability, but the propriety of Senator Robert Kennedy's recent "Shirley Temple" performance before Senator Edward Long's Judiciary Subcommittee that disturbed Scott. He criticizes Kennedy in terms of a young upstart who has hurt his chances for advancement in the cantilevered power echelons of the Senate by antagonizing a powerful elder.

Born of a "good conservative Southern Democratic family" 63 years ago, Scott was a Phi Beta Kappa at Randolph Macon College in his home state of Virginia and graduated from University of Virginia Law School. He practiced law with his uncle in Philadelphia and served for 15 years as assistant district attorney--"entirely too long for a man to be at a post like that." Disregarding his ideological legacy, he became a Republican "because they needed me more," and in 1940 was elected to the House of Representatives. He remained a Congressman continuously until 1958, except for the 1945-46 term, when Franklin Roosevelt's Pennsylvania coattails were even longer than Lyndon Johnson's 20 years later. From 1954 to 1958, he was the pivotal vote for the liberals on the House Rules Committee, a distinction which did not endear him to ex-minority leader Charles Halleck. In 1958, he defeated ex-governor George M. Leader in the Senate race, and in 1964 was re-elected over Miss Genevieve Blatt by 70,000 votes, while President Johnson was carrying the state by almost a million and a half votes.

Scott's interests range beyond the corridors of power. He is an expert in oriental artifacts, a specialist in the Tang Dynasty, and the author of a book on the subject. When he was at Harvard last week, he took an hour off from his busy schedule to examine the Fogg Oriental collection, and was asked his professional opinion on several hard to-identify pieces not yet on display.

Foremost in Scott's mind at present is the deadly internecine struggle within his own party. He frankly admits that the Republicans hit rock bottom and is attacking the problem from two angles. The first--and the motivation of his present college tour--is to try to draw young blood into the veins of the anemic GOP. The November debacle, Scott argues, has made the party of Lincoln the party of opportunity for those who want to make them selves heard in politics. His other tack is total war on the "lunatic fringe" which is desperately trying to salvage the vestiges of its power within the party.

Goldwater is out of the picture, Scott says, but even without a candidate, the right wingers are attempting to build up an organization. Scott makes no bones about his genuine terror of the "psychoceramics," (i.e., crackpots) and he feels that they must be completely annihilated, though without resorting to the deplorable methods they themselves employed in San Francisco.

A popular and respected man, Scott is looked upon as one of the strongest forces for revitalization within the party, and the GOP certainly never needed him more than it does now. The Senator has accepted the role with vigor; he has about him the aura of a man with a mission. And when he says, "We'll get our party back," one gets the impression that he is just the man to do it.