Abstract

Democrats Against the Party

The pouter-pigeon posturing of members of the new U.S. Congress is one of those comic performances to which this body periodically treats a tolerant public. The exhibitionism is common enough and ordinarily harmless. It delights the exhibitor, amuses the cynical, and fools a certain number of impressionable or uninformed people. But in the present instance it bodes ill for the Democratic Party. From a national point of view it looks as if the dominant Democrats in Congress were laying the groundwork for a long stay in the wilderness. This expectation is not based simply on the expressed determination of Congressmen to assert the rights and prerogatives of the legislative branch of the government. There is nothing ill-omened in that. A sense of responsibility on the part of members of Congress regarding its legislative function would be an asset to the party, just as the extra-legislative activities of special investigating committees have often been wholesome. Signs of a bleak future for the Democratic Party are found rather in the boasts of these exponents of Congressional independence about how they intend to exemplify it. Evidently they propose to undo, as far as they are able, everything that has made the Democratic Party triumphant, everything that has won for it the confidence of the people, during the past ten years.