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The importance of these figures lies chiefly in what clue they offer to the House of Representatives' action on neutrality. The House is tough to predict. Leader Rayburn of Texas and Whip Boland of Pennsylvania valiantly poll the House many times a session, usually by getting State leaders to poll their delegations. Yet they average a wrong guess of 20 votes on sharply controversial measures, thus cannot make a safe prediction when the vote is close. Last week United Press took its own poll, found a 15-20 vote margin in the House for repeal of the arms embargo. Washington dopesters agreed it would be nip-&-tuck.
And with such tight going, the Administration dared not allow the No. 1 House extrovert, toothy Sol Bloom, to drum-major the bill's parade to the floor. By prerogative of position—Bloom is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee—he must necessarily be on hand, but the Administration last week was casting vainly about for some means to shift unpopular Mr. Bloom to a tail-end spot, where he could play the steam calliope to his heart's content, but not get in the way of the parade.