Like a shotgun blast in a cornfield, Harry Truman's crack about too many "Byrds in the Congress" set off indignant flappings and cawings over Capitol Hill. The old cry of "purge" rang through its tiled corridors. The President was annoyed that the crack got out; he hadn't meant his caller (A.V.C. Chairman Gil Harrison) to repeat it. At his news conference he refused to amplify the remark, declared that he was not interested in purges. The people, he said tartly, would take care of that.
But Harry Truman was willing enough to purge some Congressmen if he could. He had...
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