The only fireworks in the inaugural ceremonies at Washington, carefully planned to achieve economy and sedateness, were the speech and actions of Vice President Dawes. Instead of accepting the office with all the customary trite mouthings of the nation's highest-paid figurehead, he wound up carefully and clipped the corner of the senatorial plate with a simply fiendish accuracy.

It is hard to blame the Senate for its resentment against this attack on one of their oldest prerogatives--the right to talk, which was originally created to add to the dignity of the individual senator. Mr. Dawes shattered the sedateness of Inauguration Day in denouncing it.

There is little doubt that in theory the Vice President is right. Filibustering has become a decided evil; but as long as the Senate demands its ancient right, he is powerless to affect it.

From the beginning of the next session and for some time thereafter the public can watch for a merry exchange of discourtesies between the Senate and its presiding officer. Mr. Dawes has been known to get his way pretty generally in the past, and the stubbornness of the Senate has long been the butt of the nation's humorists.