THE CONGRESS: The Empire Builders

On the floor of the U.S. Senate last week, two aged, reactionary spoilsmen, both vindictive, determined and ruthless, were waging a joint fight for power. Both, chip by chip, were being whittled down to size. One was 80-year-old Kenneth Douglas McKellar, the choleric Tennessee feudist who heads the all-powerful Appropriations Committee; the other was Nevada's silver-maned, silver-minded Patrick A. McCarran, 73, chairman of the scarcely less powerful Judiciary Committee.

They were dangerous men to tangle with. There was no Senator who did not have federal projects in mind—rivers, harbors, post offices, federal...

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