ABSTRACT
When visitors come to Washington and see the Capitol, they step into Statuary Hall and queue to the right or left according to their choice of House or Senate galleries. In September, 1959, a group of thirty political scientists gathered at a conference on American political parties. One session of the conference was given to a discussion of the national party committees. Two of the four panelists had been members of the staff of the Democratic National Committee, and the other two had been members of the Republican National Committee staff. The national party committees are obscure, changeable, pragmatic, and hard to define, yet surprisingly permanent. The members of the national committee assemble one to three times a year in various cities around the country, Washington and Chicago being among the favorites, and on these occasions, in theory at least, frame national committee policy and program. A major purpose of the national committee is to survive.
