The Week

Associate Justice William O. Douglas has lamented that the Supreme Court hears fewer hours of argument per year and sits fewer days per week than it used to in the good old days. “The myth about the Supreme Court,” says Douglas, “is that it’s overworked.” Overworked? Who ever said that? What we said was it was overwrought, and maybe should be hanged.

In the issue of national review that appeared just before the election, we published a survey of the records of Republican congressmen. The survey showed how many times each one had crossed the aisle to vote with the Democrats on statist measures which would not have passed except for Republican support. Roughly speaking, it was an index to how conservative and how close to the mainstream of the Republican Party—each Representative had shown himself to be during the 88th Congress. We now report, by no means jubilantly, on how the gentlemen fared at either end of the spectrum, giving only statistics. Reading from left to right: 34 [i.e., number of times voted with the Democrats]—1 [i.e., one Republican representative voted that number of times with the Democrats] (r) [i.e., he was re-elected]; 31-1 (r); 26-2 (2 r); 25-1 (r); 24-6 (4r); 23-2 (1 r, 1 DR [i.e., did not run]; 5-11 (5 r, 3 DR); 4-9 (6 r, 1 DR); 3-15 (10 r, 1 DR); 2-19 (14 r, 2 DR) ; 1-28 (15 r, 3 DR) ; 0-24 (11 r, 5 DR) .

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Associate Justice William O. Douglas has lamented that the Supreme Court hears fewer hours of argument per year and sits fewer days per week than it used to in the good old days. “The myth about the Supreme Court,” says Douglas, “is that it’s overworked.” Overworked? Who ever said that? What we said was it was overwrought, and maybe should be hanged.

In the issue of national review that appeared just before the election, we published a survey of the records of Republican congressmen. The survey showed how many times each one had crossed the aisle to vote with the Democrats on statist measures which would not have passed except for Republican support. Roughly speaking, it was an index to how conservative and how close to the mainstream of the Republican Party—each Representative had shown himself to be during the 88th Congress. We now report, by no means jubilantly, on how the gentlemen fared at either end of the spectrum, giving only statistics. Reading from left to right: 34 [i.e., number of times voted with the Democrats]—1 [i.e., one Republican representative voted that number of times with the Democrats] (r) [i.e., he was re-elected]; 31-1 (r); 26-2 (2 r); 25-1 (r); 24-6 (4r); 23-2 (1 r, 1 DR [i.e., did not run]; 5-11 (5 r, 3 DR); 4-9 (6 r, 1 DR); 3-15 (10 r, 1 DR); 2-19 (14 r, 2 DR) ; 1-28 (15 r, 3 DR) ; 0-24 (11 r, 5 DR) .