ON THE RIGHT
There is a lot to be said for the seniority system in Congress and a lot to be said against the Reverend Adam Clayton Powell Jr.; and the question now is, which of the two national commitments should be given precedence? Granted there are any number of concrete reasons to justify congressional action to remove Mr. Powell from his position of authority as chairman of the Education and Labor Committee. The reasons being advanced by a group headed by the hero from Florida, Congressman Sam Gibbons, are that Mr. Powell is using, or rather abusing, his powers as chairman in order to play all kinds of grubby politics; that he is dispensing favors here, withholding them there, pushing that piece of legislation, dragging his feet on that other piece of legislation; hiring this man and firing the other, all according to that intricate pattern of ideological and personal self-service which, if only he had lived to observe it, would have provided the raw material for a masterpiece by Machiavelli.
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