Spurious as Store Teeth

This exasperating and pretentious book (Citadel, by William S. White: Harper and Brothers, $3.75) puts itself forward as the “Story of the U.S. Senate,” told out of a deep conviction that the “kind of society we are to maintain” depends upon the “vitality and honor” of the upper chamber of our federal legislature. But in point of fact it redeems neither of the commitments implicit in these claims. Save on the level of anecdote, it adds little or nothing to our knowledge of Senate history, and rehashes in only the sketchiest and most casual manner the findings of earlier Senate historians. Its thesis as to the relation between the vitality of the Senate and the character of our society—surely the former depends on the latter, rather than the other way ’round?—is merely asserted, not demonstrated. Nor are we ever told what kind of society the author thinks we ought to maintain: He would like it, clearly, to be equipped with a Senate much like the one we have. But he seems to have given not one moment’s thought to those current trends in public policy, strongly entrenched moreover in the Senate he so much admires, that by undermining the power and significance of our several states must, before long, deprive the Senate of its traditional —and only possible—meaning. His book should have been called: Random Notes on the Senate: The Story of a Times-Man’s Infatuation with an Institution.

Institution, mind you, with a great big capital I—which of course is how it should be written, and how Mr. White himself always writes it. Which brings me to the book’s one considerable strength, namely: its clarity and vigor. First, in setting forth what I have just called the traditional and only possible meaning of the Senate. Second, in defending those characteristics of the Senate that are inseparable from that meaning.

WK

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Willmoore Kendall

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This exasperating and pretentious book (Citadel, by William S. White: Harper and Brothers, $3.75) puts itself forward as the “Story of the U.S. Senate,” told out of a deep conviction that the “kind of society we are to maintain” depends upon the “vitality and honor” of the upper chamber of our federal legislature. But in point of fact it redeems neither of the commitments implicit in these claims. Save on the level of anecdote, it adds little or nothing to our knowledge of Senate history, and rehashes in only the sketchiest and most casual manner the findings of earlier Senate historians. Its thesis as to the relation between the vitality of the Senate and the character of our society—surely the former depends on the latter, rather than the other way ’round?—is merely asserted, not demonstrated. Nor are we ever told what kind of society the author thinks we ought to maintain: He would like it, clearly, to be equipped with a Senate much like the one we have. But he seems to have given not one moment’s thought to those current trends in public policy, strongly entrenched moreover in the Senate he so much admires, that by undermining the power and significance of our several states must, before long, deprive the Senate of its traditional —and only possible—meaning. His book should have been called: Random Notes on the Senate: The Story of a Times-Man’s Infatuation with an Institution.

Institution, mind you, with a great big capital I—which of course is how it should be written, and how Mr. White himself always writes it. Which brings me to the book’s one considerable strength, namely: its clarity and vigor. First, in setting forth what I have just called the traditional and only possible meaning of the Senate. Second, in defending those characteristics of the Senate that are inseparable from that meaning.