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There was sufficient pretext to demand Colmer's ouster: he had given his lukewarm support to the anti-Kennedy electors in Mississippi.

Reprisals are not unheard of in such situations, but the recent tendency has been for the Congress to forgive its prodigal sons.

In 1949 the Dixiecrats escaped unscathed after their 1948 rebellion against Harry Truman, and in 1957, after Congressman Adam Clayton Powell campaigned for Dwight Eisenhower in 1956, his fellow Democrats did not touch his committee assignments, although they did strip him temporarily of his patronage.

( In the heat of the anti-Colmer drive last week, Judge Smith threatened reprisal against Powell.

Said he: `` We will see whether whites and Negroes are treated the same around here ''.

) But Speaker Sam Rayburn, after huddling in Palm Beach with President-elect Kennedy, decided that this year something had to be done about the Rules Committee -- and that he was the only man who could do anything effective.