The bandits of Capitol Hill

TABLE TALK DENIS BROGAN

Washington--The latest McCarthy victory is even more startling than earlier triumphs, for if the machine Democrats cannot carry New York (where the McCarthy ticket has hand- somely defeated both the remnants of the Kennedy forces and the ignominiously routed Humphrey forces) what can they carry? And just as the• best people (as I discovered) were both astonished and annoyed at the hundreds of thousands who lined the tracks on which Robert Kennedy's funeral train rolled on to Washington, so the 'wise money' seems to have underestimated the hostility to the war and to the Johnson administration Of which Mr Humphrey was and is a conspicuous part).

So, after the news from New York, Washing- ton awaited the campaign speech of Mr Hum- phrey to the National Press Club. This is often described as the most critical audience in Washington, if not in the United States. I have never noticed this highly critical spirit. Pos- sibly out of good manners, the lop brass' of the club applaud warmly the most banal and preposterOus statements. (I remember when Dr Sukarno wowed them.) So I did not expect that Mr Humphrey would be giVen a rough ride. nor was he. The Vice-President was in full voice, as genial, likeable and liked as usual. He

was a little balder than when I had last seen him, bustling and confident; he had little to say though he said it with emphasis. There was no agonising reappraisal of the American situation, -no candid discussion of the disconcerting news from New York.

Everybody liked Hubert; no one seemed to have any particular impression of what he had

said. It was unjust to think of Ramsay Mac-

Donald, but there 110A a bit of the 'on and on and up and up' touch. Mr Humphrey obviously proposes to play it pianissimo until the Con- vention ratifies the choice of the part■, managers. Whether the American people will ratify that

choice, no one knows. Nor is the American

people given much ot a lead, for Mr Nixon is not campaigning at all. His silence is deafen- ing: it recalls the magnificent performance of Thomas Blod which so impressed BBC audiences a few years ago.

Yet there are problems to be faced, if not solved. There is a problem of violence in Washington. I was told of a hold-up here

recently in which the gunman said he needed S25 to get to Philadelphia. His victim had MO in his possession and. after thought, the .gun-

man gave $125 back. 'I don't think it's right to take all that: 1 only need $25 to get to Phila- delphia.' Another current anecdote tells of a, (white) resident who went out strolling in the neighbourhood of the Capitol one evening and was held up by a Negro gunman. The victim explained that he had no money, that he always , emptied his pockets before going out for, a stroll. The gunman was indignant. 'You despise this neighbourhood. -don't you?"No, I don't, I . live here after all, but I think it is wiser to keep ,.

my pockets empty.' The gunman reflected, - shrugged and, admitting there was something.. in the argument, went off. A friend of mine noted that he had been told that. it was safer to carry a little money so that an irate bandit .

wouldn't shoot you. But the bandits of Capitol Hill (not the members of Congress. but what I might call the laity) are more philosophical.

Are the members of Congress? The House of Representatives has passed or is about to

pass—a fairly effective gun bill. For once, the

merchants of death were defeated by the anger and near-despair provoked by the Kennedy murder. But there is a danger in the Senate committee. The conversion, to reason are recent and a result of a tide of protest. which, the gun lobby hopes, may soon ebb. Haste is de- precated. There is no tide of protest when there is no startling crime: public temper is too excited when there is a great crime (the thou- . sands of day-to-day crimes don't count). That slightly timidity figure. Senator McCarthy, has protested against sudden action. Perhaps he shares the view of the Cambridge academic politician described by F. M. Cornford. 'Nothing should ever be done for the first time.' The defenders of the American pursuit of happiness by way of the gun are getting their breath back. There has 'just been published a long, well-printed advertisement, warning the American people of the conspiracy to deprive them of their guns. (Commies' are behind such a move, of course.) It was with interest that I noticed that more than half of the sig- natories, obscure but no doubt rich business- men and their wives, came from Dallas and Los Angeles. Verb. sap.