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Show Freshman Senators Make Mark "I've never seen anything like it," my friend was muttering, "never in my 12 years on Capitol Hill." My friend explained, "I mean the freshmen senators in this 'class.' The class of '47. I've never seen such activity among any group of baby senators before the way these boys have pitched in to build major legislation; the way they handle han-dle themselves on the floor, presenting present-ing their points so effectively, and so on " It used to be the custom that freshman senators were seen and not heard. They were supposed to sit around for a year or maybe even two years, absorbing procedure and protocol, speaking when they were spoken to. But not the "Class oi' 47." My friend explained this unusual According to my informant, there are very few "accidents" in this senate. One or two at the most, and even those, he says, aren't too bad. He feels optimistic about the -rend; thinks it's a good thing for :he country. Most of the new "boys" are young several of them in their early or middle forties. They've come straight from the people, and maybe they are closer to the peo-j peo-j pie. New house of representatives members, he says, can be trained to party .teamwork under the type of strong leadership provided by Speak- er Joe Martin, but the senate fresh-' fresh-' men of '47 will never be led or influenced in-fluenced out of their independence of action, "Watch them," my friend predicts. "This class is going to be a notable one in the history of the j senate." ;J , activity among the newcomers as due to two reasons. One: There are so many newcomers new-comers 16 on the Republican side alone. This means Republicans had to put newcomers on subcommittees. subcommit-tees. Subcommittees are small three men, usually and traditionally, tradition-ally, the chairman of the subcommittee subcom-mittee handles the legislation in question on the floor. Thus this year's freshmen have had opportunities opportu-nities denied their predecessors. Two: He points out that this year's crop of newcomers are unusually capable men. Under Roosevelt's large majorities, he said, "accidents" "acci-dents" were apt to be swept into the senate men who were put up by the party with no real confidence that they would be elected but they rode in on the tail of Roosevelt's popularity. |