The 77th U.S. Congress was ready this week to throw in the sponge. Its term had begun in the ominously peaceful days of January 1941, when an owlish, cactaceous man named John Nance Garner still presided over the Senate; any hope of ending its term in an aura of statesmanship had now faded.
For last week the greatest of all parliaments was in a hopeless muddle. Senators and Representatives, wearied by the terrible grind, their tempers frayed from working at cross-purposes, their distaste for Washington mounting, had gone home in droves. The House could not raise a quorum. The Senate witnessed...
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