The House Week

Work Done. Last week, the U. S. Representatives:

Debated a bill of $89,000,000 appropriations for the Departments of State, Justice, Commerce, Labor; passed it; sent it to the Senate.

Debated a bill of $272,000,000 appropriations for the Department of Interior; passed it; sent it to the Senate.

Navy Program. "It was a slap in the face for President Coolidge," said Representative McClintic of Oklahoma, Democrat. It was also another thwack for Secretary of the Navy Wilbur, when the House Naval Affairs Committee voted last week, 15 to 1, to rewrite the Administration's Navy building program. The Committee did not wish to change the volume of the program. It only meant to make sure that the ships authorized (25 light cruisers, nine destroyer leaders, 32 submarines, five aircraft carriers) shall be laid down in five years and completed in eight years. Toward this end, the Committee erased from the bill drafted by Secretary Wilbur a clause giving the President authority to suspend building in the event of a naval limitation conference.

The proposed Navy program will cost $740,000,000. It is the first of four legs of the 20-year Navy program totalling $2,580,000,000, as outlined by Secretary Wilbur (TIME, Dec. 26). Last week Secretary Wilbur wrote the Naval Affairs Committee that he has made a mistake in his previous communications to that body. He had said the 20-year program would cost the U. S. $168,000,000 per annum. Then he had discovered $129,000,000 was the right figure.

United Static. The U. S. was invented before its roads and railroads. In the 18th century it made some sense to allow 13 months between the time of a Congressman's election and the day he had to reach the Capital and take his seat. But it makes small sense today, and the four months allowed the President and Vice President, from Election Day to March 4, are similarly unnecessary.*

In 1923, Senator Norris of Nebraska began urging a constitutional amendment to let the peoples' voice be heard afresh, in Congress and in the White House, without anachronistic delay. Thrice the Senate approved the Norris Resolution. Thrice the House remained static. Last fortnight the proposal to exterminate "lame duck" legislators and executives passed the Senate again, 67 to 6, and was sent to the House. It provided that Congress shall meet every year on January 4; that Congress shall sit every other year until through its business and at least until April 30 in the years between; that Presidential inaugurals shall be moved up from March 4 to Jan. 24.

Last week, the House Committee on elections voted to report the resolution promptly and favorably this time instead of pouching it. But the House was still static. Republican Floor Leader Tilson said: "There is little interest in the House." Speaker Longworth said he could observe "very little sentiment" for the Amendment. Chairman White of the Committee on Elections said the Amendment would surely pass the House if ever it could reach a vote.

* Had President Lincoln been able to take office promptly after his election in 1860, he might have been able to conciliate the Secessionists and avert the Civil War. The Confederate Convention was not held until a month and a half after South Carolina seceded--at Montgomery, Ala., in February, 1861. During that time, President Buchanan, baffled, irresolute, discharged by the electorate, accomplished nothing.