Adjournment

The end of June drew near and with it the hour at which Speaker Nicholas Longworth, Republican ringmaster, had decreed that the 69th Congress should fasten its portfolio flaps and go home for the summer. But the 69th Congress showed no intention whatever of obeying Mr. Longworth.

Contrarily it voted heavily against a June 30 adjournment and seemed resolved to wrangle to a finish two matters which were not of the Administration's making nor very much to the Administration's liking. They were matters which the Administration had not had in mind when, last month, it postponed the adjournment to wait for France to ratify the latest debt agreement. The delay appeared to constitute the Administration's first serious political error, for it also made possible the dragging to Washington of the embarrassing Pennsylvania primary investigations.

The two matters were farm relief--which might once have been postponed until autumn on the excuse of insufficient time--and rivers-and-harbors appropriations-- which involved major issues as well as a bag full of self-ingratiating tricks by scores of politicians.

The Senate finally got farm relief out of the way (see FARMERS), only to see rivers-and-harbors swell to proportions more formidable than ever. The bill provided approximately a $50,000,000 mass of miscellaneous moneys for dredging creeks, bayous, inlets in many states; building bridges; buying canals; and most important of all, for deepening the Illinois River near Chicago to let lake steamers pass down to the Mississippi and Gulf of Mexico. The language of the bill had the effect of legalizing previous diversions of Great Lakes water by Chicago through its drainage canal out of Lake Michigan to the Illinois River. Other states bordering the Great Lakes are fighting this diversion tooth and nail in the courts. Their Congressmen have grown hoarse and damp-eyed relating piteous tales of the mud flats, grounded steamers and stricken trade resulting from fallen lake levels. The matter has been reported in "threatening" terms by Canadians to their Parliament.

The House having logrolled the rivers-and-harbors bill through, Senatorial enemies of this Illinois River put their backs up with redoubled determination. The lobbies were as full of gentlemen from Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Minnesota declaring that the bill must await a Supreme Court decision on Great Lakes levels, as they were of gentlemen from Illinois and other states with fingers in the pie, led by Representative Martin Madden, who swore they would hold the House until the Senate acted.

For better or worse, the 69th Congress stuck at its mutton as the month simmered away.