Nerves strung fiddle-tight, emotions running skin-deep, the U. S. watched its 76th Congress open a Great Debate last week. A thousand curious citizens pulled wires to wangle passes to cram into the Senate's gallery of 450 seats. Eighty-three Senators out of 96—a portentous proportion—answered the roll call.
Four days later six Senators lolled in their chairs, one of them asleep. The galleries were half empty. The U. S., and the Senate with it, was watching the World Series. In Vice President John Garner's cloakroom, office a near-quorum collected around his portable radio, bet...