Blame, if Any

Thou who dost shepherd the night winds and makes the clouds His chariot, pass along the horizons of our daily lives. . . . Forbid that we should be lured to drink from the goblets of spiced sin or let fall the wreaths of manhood from our foreheads. . . . Through Christ, Amen.

As the House Chaplain sonorously wound up his opening prayer one forenoon last week, a small frown knit the bushy brows of Speaker Joseph Wellington Byrns. The House was being criticized for its slow legislative pace--and somehow he was being held responsible (TIME, April 22). He realized that a crisis was at hand, for two spiced goblets threatened his legislative program: 1) the baseball season was scheduled to open that afternoon in Washington, and 2) members were agitating for a three-day recess over Good Friday.

No sooner had the House resolved itself into the .committee of the whole to con-sider the Social Security Bill than Speaker Byrns descended from the rostrum and proceeded to read the House a lecture on time-wasting. He warned members that important bills were coming up, that they had no right to "adjourn as we did yesterday at 4:15 in the afternoon." With emphatic swings of his arm he declared:

''We must stay here for a reasonable time each day. ... I do not know of anything better"--he looked around for possible baseball enthusiasts--"except going to church, than to come here and devote ourselves intelligently and faithfully to the discharge of the people's business."

That afternoon no House member went to the baseball game because it was postponed on account of cold. Nevertheless the House adjourned at precisely 4:15 p. m. Next afternoon the stands at the ball park were dotted with Representatives witnessing the opening game of the season. But Speaker Byrns was not downhearted. With or without members, the House made progress on the Social Security Bill which it finally passed on Good Friday (see below).

Feeling better than he had in weeks, Speaker Byrns almost jubilated: "We are beginning to get our things in such shape now that the blame, if any, for a long session will rest where it should--on the Senate."

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