Prevailing Sentiment

The U. S. Senate is an assortment of 96 statesmen and timeservers, wise men and fools, honest men and hypocrites, hardy-hearts and lily-livers, but the collective assortment has one distinguishing characteristic: it goes its own way and makes public life hard for every President. For the greater part of the past two years the Senate has not been true to character. Last week, however, the Senate was again the Senate.

Most striking evidence of this return to form was the behavior of Senator Wagner of New York. Twenty-five years ago Robert Wagner, son of a German janitor in Manhattan, served in the New York Legislature with Franklin Roosevelt, aristocratic scion of an old Dutch family. Together they fought for liberal social legislation, became fast friends. "Bob" Wagner went on to the Senate while "Frank" Roosevelt was in training for the Presidency at Albany as Governor. Last year Senator Wagner served as chief advocate at the Capitol of President Roosevelt's New Deal for labor. Last week Senator Wagner turned against two of his old friend's prime social policies and fought the President tooth & nail.

One of Senator Wagner's attacks was the introduction of a Labor Relations Bill. Last spring he jettisoned his own labor ideas to join in passing the President's compromise labor legislation setting up the present Labor Relations Board. His bill last week proposed to make the Labor Relations Board supreme arbiter over all labor boards, give it power to enforce the policy of giving unions which can poll a majority of the workers in a plant the right to bargain for all the plant's workers. The American Federation of Labor favors such a policy, but not President Roosevelt who has made it clear that 1) he favors proportionate representation in collective bargaining; 2) he intends to support the Automobile Labor Board which is setting up such a system. By introducing his bill without any White House backing Senator Wagner served notice that, as between two friends, he would stand with the A. F. of L. rather than Franklin Roosevelt. The results are yet to be seen.

But in another matter the results of Senator Wagner's efforts were immediate. In the debate on the $4,880,000,000 work relief bill which occupied the Senate most of last week, Senator Wagner came out flatly for an amendment to require the payment of the prevailing wage scale on work relief projects. The President had proposed and the Senate Appropriations Committee had approved with qualifications, setting men to work at $50 a month or thereabouts--roughly twice what they would get as a dole. The Administration had two reasons for its stand: 1) workers must not be led by high wages to seek relief jobs in preference to industrial jobs; 2) work relief at subsistence wages will double the cost of relief, but work relief at prevailing wages will add about 50% more to that cost. The A. F. of L. clamored for prevailing wage payments, on the theory that the $50 per month rate would somehow tend to undermine existing union scales.

Taking a defiant stand against his White House friend, Senator Wagner cried last week: "The time has passed when we can dodge responsibility by calling everything relief and applying the standards of relief. If we are satisfied with relief alone, we shall never achieve economic reconstruction. If those on public works are treated on a relief basis, every objective of public works will be defeated. Morale will be lowered, not restored; wages will go down, not up; purchasing power will shrivel, not expand; business will be demoralized, not stabilized. The wage policy of the New Deal will be thrown into reverse, and the business machine will be driven back into the deepest trough of depression."

There are no two more ardent Democrats than the Senators from Virginia. But Carter Glass's outspokenness against most New Deal policies is hardly newsworthy any more. Harry Flood Byrd* on the other hand has mostly followed the New Deal's desires. Day after Senator Wagner left the reservation, Senator Byrd followed him, moved also by convictions but of a different kind. Said he: "The course we are pursuing--borrowing money for public expenditures and increasing our enormous deficit each year--will chill the confidence of businessmen in the future prospects of reasonable profits. . . . Business is ready to resume its forward march once it can be assured that the currency will remain sound, that the budget will be balanced . . . that economy and efficiency will inspire the Government."

He proposed to cut the relief bill from $4,880,000,000 for work relief to $1,880,000,000, the absolute minimum required for a dole.

Final upset of the President's plans was assisted by the resurgency of conviction in the U. S. Senate, but it was completed by Senators who cut their cloth not according to principle but according to political profit. Several men of principle tried to save the President from defeat. Senator Byrd's opinion of spending five billions is pale beside that of Carter Glass, but, rather than see the prevailing wage amendment adopted, Senator Glass manfully fought the President's battle. He read the Senate a letter from the President, solemnly assured his colleagues that he had "substantive reason to believe" that the President would veto the bill if the prevailing wage amendment were adopted.

It did no good. To Senator Wagner and other insurgents who favor more & bigger appropriations for relief flocked many an Old Guardsman seeking to put the President in a hole, many a Democrat who wanted to curry favor with the A. F. of L., many a Senator who believed that five billions for relief was too much, that the surest way of killing it was to boost the figure so much higher that the President could not accept it. Shrewd Huey Long, striving to wreak his vengeance on the Administration, succeeded at the last minute in transferring a critical "pair." Result: the prevailing wage amendment won 44-to-43--24 Democrats deserting the President, all but four Republicans deserting the principles of economy.

For the time being that vote licked the President's relief bill. Senator Robinson had it sent back to committee for major repairs. This added one more delay to the adoption of a measure which originally the Administration had to "have enacted by Feb. 10 or all relief will stop." Secretary Ickes three weeks ago rubbed his magic lamp and found a stray $50,000,000 to keep relief going. Last week he rubbed again and found another $45,000,000. It seemed likely that either the President would have to make substantial concessions to some group or Mr. Ickes would have to continue rubbing his lamp.

* Senator Byrd's brother, Richard E. Byrd, last week arrived in New Zealand, $50,000 in debt for a year in the Antarctic, was met by his wife Marie.

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