Word: argumentative
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Republican Senator Clifford Case, Minnesota's Democratic Senator Hubert Humphrey and Illinois' Democratic Senator Paul Douglas last week presented a brief to the Senate's presiding officer, Vice President Richard Nixon, making the liberal case that the Senate is not a continuing body. Basis of their argument: The Constitution provides that "each House may determine the rules of its proceedings." This means, they hold, that each House can adopt its own rules in each Congress. Their proof: the House of Representatives does so, and "the identical constitutional provision cannot reasonably be given a different interpretation as applied...
...uphill, never down. Lamas stage skeleton dances to drive away evil spirits. The country has no newspapers, and mail goes by pony express. There are no lawyers, because the government thinks that lawyers stir up more trouble than they are worth. A magistrate hears both sides of an argument, makes his judgment. Crime is so rare that there are never more than 15 prisoners in jail...
Halleck was the only man with a chance to oust Martin. He had the argument of experience (majority leader while Martin was Speaker in the 80th and 83rd Congresses). And his voting record oscillated enough to please both conservatives and liberals (isolationist until Pearl Harbor, strong backing for the war effort afterwards; firm opposition to Administration-backed social welfare measures until 1953, warm support of very similar measures afterwards...
Some Martin supporters also advance the argument that in a year when House Republicans are in so great a minority, the only tactics that will earn the Party any sort of national respect are those of compromise, which Martin had so perfected. As Martin said Tuesday, "You don't give the other fellow a crack on the jaw... when he has more votes." Halleck was elected as the jaw-cracking type...
...darkness on the side of the angels. The film is based on The Crucible, Arthur Miller's angry drama of moral ideas and political implications, which ran for almost six months on Broadway in 1953. Unhappily, Playwright Miller tried to reason his demons out of existence with intellectual argument rather than exorcising them with literary magic and dramatic spells. As a result, a play that held an image for the ages became no more than a vigorous tract for the times...