THE VENERABLE SENATOR
By RICHARD THE President's appointment of Senator Walter George as his personal ambassador to NATO is at once a beau geste and a shrewd political act. Senator George is greatly liked and respected for his years, for his gentleness of character, for his resistance to the kind of demagogy that is always the easy road to success in the piney-woods country he comes from, for the formidable knowledge of currency ques- tions and diplomacy he has acquired by his decades of service on the Senate Finance and Foreign Affairs Committees. One can legitimately question whether Senator George is equipped to make any really serious contributions to NATO. But there is no doubt that the President did a very decent and human thing in appointing him—nor is there any doubt that the President is the better off for the appointment. One of the most legitimate of Democratic complaints with the Eisenhower administration is that the President, while asking bi-partisan support for his foreign policy, has given the Democrats no role at all in making or executing American strategy. Now he has named a venerated Democrat to a position that certainly 116s an important sound to it. Whether it will allow Senator George to exercise any initiative and Whether Senator George will have any initiative he wishes to exercise are—well, they are questions, and we shall see what we shall see. Meanwhile, the Senator will move to the world scene. What the contemplation of this brings to mind is a fine plot for a novel, perhaps for William Faulkner, but better, one suspects, for Robert Penn Warren. Many years ago Senator George was a Georgia judge. It is rather a bleak life, being a Georgia judge, TIlt
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011‘1 Inc had on' led oo and when Walter George heard that Senator Tom Watson died, he saw an escape. Watson was a demagogue of impre' ability. He combined agrarian radicalism with a raging big( 'The scum of creation has been dumped on us,' he used to 'What brought these Goths and Vandals to our shores? manufacturers. . . Walter George tried for Watson's and got it without having to descend to Watson's level, hec Watson was dead. After a while, though. he ran up against Talmadge dynasty. The elder Talmadge, Eugene, made a g hit in Georgia politics by wearing brilliant red suspenders snapping them while he talked, boasting that he never call' county that had any streetcars in it, and—when he Governor—grazing milk cows on the State House lawn. Et' Talmadge had no use for Walter George, but by the time he prepared to give the Senator any real trouble the Senator acquired a good deal of seniority and a good many frier Also, Senator George was in full vigour in Eugene Talmad day. But Senator George grew older, and Talmadge had a Herman, pronounced Hummon and often spelled that Herman has now reached full vigour, and Walter Geol.,' seventy-eight. Herman decided a few years ago that WO:1 Walter George's job. It was clear that he would do anYt'l necessary to get it. No one who has watched piney-w°, politics could have the least difficulty imagining the Wu; campaign that Senator George has spared himself by retir It would have been the Tom Watson kind of campaign, the venerable Senator being accused of fraternising witil., scum of the earth, of being a 'nigger-lover,' of being a raci —indeed. of being all the things he is not. He decided a, few months ago that he was too old and tired for this sort of contest. All of his many friends, including the President. agree. He is if well out of it. Herman will come to Washington next year. Washington will be equal to him. 15 And Walter George. will go to NATO. He is a conservative, greatly distressed by the idea of deficit financing, and an inter- nationalist of the Southern school, which means a heavy em- IL on free trade and a general approval of such institutions uS NATO. He will bring to his new office gentlemanliness, modesty, and thirty-four years of experience in the United Slates Senate.
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