Above the Cataract

Five weeks after embarking on its first annual session, the 74th Congress of the U. S. last week was still drifting along on the current of routine appropriation bills. Only one little rapid had been negotiated: the rejection of the World Court Protocol. Only one prominent landmark had been passed: the renewal of the RFC for two years. But the session floated in a placid pool on the brink of the legislative cataract into which it will plunge when it starts in earnest on the President's program.

The ultimate reaches of that program were only vaguely outlined. Directly ahead but still unreached were two major measures: the banking bill, the Public Utility Holding Company bill. Only two others were already in hand:

Work Relief. In the Senate Appropriations Committee the $4,000,000,000 Work Relief bill, rubber-stamped by the House under gag rule, was receiving its first critical appraisal. The Committee fought in miniature the battle that will be refought on the Senate floor: between 1) Conservatives who oppose handing the President $4,000,000,000 to spend as he chooses and would prefer a dole costing only half as much; 2) politicos who want to cut the $4,000,000,000 up into so many slices of pork; 3) Liberals and Progressives, many of whom would like to double the sum spent and boost work relief pay from a subsistence level ($50 a month) to prevailing wage rates; 4) Inflationists who want to finance the program with greenbacks.

To prevent these factions from tearing the bill to pieces by pulling in opposite directions, the Administration tried to push the bill through in a hurry. For that reason an $880,000,000 deficiency appropriation for FERA was added to the $4,000,000,000 with the warning that if the bill was not passed by Feb. 10, FERA would be out of funds, all relief would end. Opponents of the bill obligingly offered to separate and pass the deficiency appropriation. The Administration declined. But the Committee was not to be hurried. Last week Feb. 10 came and went, and relief did not end--Mr. Ickes, rummaging in his desk, had found a stray $50,000,000 to keep FERA going.

Thus the first issue was settled: the Senate would not be hurried, would fight the matter out. In committee the Conservatives just missed victory when an amendment to substitute the dole for work relief failed by a tie vote; the Liberals won a temporary victory by a 12-to-8 vote to boost relief wages to prevailing rates; the Inflationists lost on a greenback amendment. But these were inconclusive skirmishes, to be refought in the Senate. Despite opposition only a major accident was likely to upset the Administration's plans because 1) its bill is in effect a compromise which all the warring factions would prefer to the proposals of their opponents; 2) in conference the well-gagged House can probably veto any changes.

Social Security. Slowly ripening in the House Ways & Means Committee was Franklin Roosevelt's tripartite proposal for 1) unemployment insurance; 2) old age annuities; 3) Federal subsidies to states that pension their aged indigent. Congressional enthusiasm over it did not run high.

But one thing Congressmen were interested in: how to kill the Townsend Plan without inviting political reprisals from thousands of their constituents. Robert Doughton, 71-year-old, 6 ft. -3 in. tall Chairman of Ways & Means, did his colleagues a notable service by cross-examining Dr. Townsend in a way that made it easy for them to laugh him out of the Committee room

How, Mr. Doughton demanded, did Dr. Townsend know he had the one and only panacea for economic ills?

"I have 20,000,000 people supporting this plan."

Was Dr. Townsend sure that a 2 percent tax on all business transactions would raise $24,000,000,000 a year?

"I'm not in the least interested," cried the harried Doctor, "in the cost of the plan."

The final legislative quietus was put on the Townsend Plan when certain facts were pointed out to Southern Congressmen: if aged negro mammies and pappies drew $200 a month, none of their offspring would do a lick of work--the South would be ruined. Therefore no Southern Congressman need sign a petition to bring the Townsend Plan to the floor and if it were not brought to the floor no one need vote for it. Everyone breathed easier.

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