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As he does with all young Democratic Congressmen, Rayburn took Mills in hand early, gave fatherly advice and counsel. "Don't try to go too fast," he says. "Learn your job." Or: "Don't ever talk until you know what you're talking about." Or still again: "If you want to get along, go along." By that he does not mean blindly sticking to the party line. He does mean living by the manners and morals of the
House as an institution. "The House is the greatest jury on earth," says Sam Rayburn. In his capacity as chief juror, he soon decided that Wilbur Mills was a real comer. He brought Mills along, got him elected to Ways & Means in 1942, saw him become chairman last year.
In a strong sense, Mills is Rayburn's right hand. As chairman of Ways & Means, Mills is responsible not only for tax writing, but for the program that Rayburn himself deems important above all others: reciprocal trade. This requires the most sensitive sort of judgment. Last year, for instance. Mills knew that a majority of his committee was willing to vote for reciprocal trade, then about to expire, as a permanent program. But he also knew that the House as a whole would not go that far and that if he tried for too much he might get nothing at all. So Mills settled for a five-year extension, steered through the House the strongest reciprocal trade bill ever. (Ultimate Senate-House compromise: four years.)
As chairman of the Ways & Means Committee, Arkansas' Mills automatically becomes the chairman of the Democratic Committee on Committees, which makes the party's House committee assignments. These are as vital to the career of every Congressman as they are to the efficient operation of House machinery. Through Mills, Rayburn can see to it that a promising youngster gets a good committee. If he kicks loose from the party traces too often, a Gentleman from Iowa, say, may find himself a member of the Merchant Marine & Fisheries Committee ("I don't mind them voting against the party sometimes," says Rayburn, "but I don't like it to be chronic").
Indeed, the whole direction of the Congress can be changed by the committee assignments. The House has long behaved much more responsibly than the Senate on reciprocal trade -mostly because Mister Sam has a flat rule against electing anyone to Ways & Means who is not "safe" on the subject. This year, as the result of a deliberate Rayburn-Mills effort, the Education & Labor Committee, for many years controlled by a mossback conservative coalition, has a moderate-liberal majority, may soon become more than a society for discussing the iniquities of Walter Reuther.
Minimum High Regard. As a committee and cloakroom negotiator, Wilbur Mills has few House peers. But when all the behind-the-scenes work has been done, it remains the basic job of the House to make laws -and that can only be done on the floor, where Majority Leader John McCormack holds forth, directing the tides of legislative battle.