The clock in the almost empty Senate chamber stood at a few minutes past 11 one morning last week as Democrat Lyndon Baines Johnson of Texas unfolded his lanky frame from his first-row seat and tersely asked unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to consider a minor bill already passed by the House. Senators drifting into the chamber almost ignored the majority leader's routine request, which was routinely granted. The bill, a piece of legislative trivia, would authorize the Army to lease an unused barracks building at Fort Crowder to neighboring Stella, Mo. (pop. 177) to replace its burned...
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