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Me or Him? Even before the Commerce Committee ended its hearings, Clint Anderson had gone to work behind the scenes at the job of defeating Strauss on the Senate floor. In search of voters, Anderson prowled tirelessly in cloakrooms and corridors, tally sheet in hand, circling and underlining names with a ballpoint pen. Anderson holds no great Senate power levers, but he is a popular and respected member of the club. When such a member asks a fellow Senator of the same party to vote with him on an issue of vital personal importance, it is hard to say no. As one Democratic Senator reported it, Anderson put his case in the bluntest terms: Are you going to vote for me, your friend and fellow Democrat, or are you going to vote for that Republican? Making use of the Senate's hallowed you-vote-with-me-and-I'll-vote-with-you principle, Anderson reminded fellow Democrats of past voting favors he had done them.
Working in Anderson's favor were the heaped-up frustrations of the Senate's big Democratic majority. The Democrats came to Washington last January full of hopes for their own programs. They found instead that President Eisenhower, dedicated to a balanced budget and armed both with his veto power and his immense personal popularity, was in control as rarely before. Balked at every turn, the Democratic 86th has taken out its unhappiness on Ike's nominees for high office—and Lewis Strauss is made the chief sufferer.
Bursts of Backfire. By last week, as the tide of personal and political bitterness reached flood stage, the fight against Strauss became awesomely ugly. Rumors flew to the effect that Strauss was going around to Senators' offices, trying to browbeat them, and claiming to be a victim of antiSemitism. The rumors were wildly exaggerated: Strauss actually visited eight Democratic Senators, did not mention antiSemitism, did nothing more aggressive than offer to answer questions about his record. Also harmful to Strauss were efforts by pro-Strauss businessmen to help him out by sending telegrams urging his confirmation. Some Senators got no telegrams, but others got scores and even hundreds, many of them from oil and textile executives who approve of Strauss's stand in favor of curbing imports of residual oil and Japanese textiles.
Another burst of backfire sounded on the Senate floor when Florida Democrat George Smathers announced that two vote-for-Strauss telegrams he received were fakes. After getting 300 pro-Strauss telegrams, said Smathers, he wrote to the senders explaining his opposition to Strauss. Two of them notified him that they had not sent any telegrams backing Strauss, and that in fact they were flatly opposed to Strauss's confirmation themselves.