Slow Motion

When Congress convened in Extraordinary Session last fortnight, extraordinary tasks confronted it: the President's four-point legislative program, to which Recession had added the pressing problem of tax revision. When Congress completed its second week of the Special Session, its task was still just as formidable as it had been. In its second week in Washington, the Senate managed to stop filibustering about antilynching, but debate had not become notably intelligent. In the House, the most noteworthy result of, the second week was an opportunity long sought for one of that body's most obscure members to project himself briefly into the national limelight.

In the Senate. What ended the filibuster about anti-lynching--which had served its purpose of keeping the Wagner Van Nuys Anti-Lynching Bill from reaching a vote --was the Pope-McGill Farm Bill, giving the Secretary of Agriculture power to set up crop quotas for wheat, corn, cotton, rice and tobacco, establish "ever-normal granaries by buying surpluses in fat years." Unfortunately for its proponents, when the Farm Bill which Ellison D. ("Cotton Ed") Smith's Agriculture Committee had been wrestling with for a week finally reached the floor, the tone of that body's proceedings was not greatly improved.

Most obvious defect of the bill was that it made no provision for raising the money for the payments it authorized to farmers who observed crop restrictions, despite the fact that the President last week reiterated his insistence that provisions for raising any necessary funds above the $500,000,000 now allotted for crop control be included in the bill. Another weakness of the bill was that the House Agriculture Committee was known to be drafting a bill with which it promised to be exceedingly difficult to combine the Senate's measure in conference after passing it. Third and most serious obstacle of all was a complexity such that neither the bill's sponsors nor the Committee's Chairman could explain to their colleagues exactly what the farm bill's 97 pages were all about. High point of futility in the week's debate was reached in an exchange between "Cotton Ed" Smith and Michigan's Arthur H. Vandenberg. To a Vandenberg inquiry as to how much it would cost the Government to pay farmers the benefits proposed by the bill, and where the money was to come from, Senator Smith replied that "an effort to benefit agriculture ought not to be arbitrarily limited."

Vandenberg: "That is a very noble sentiment to which I might subscribe. I should also say that a member of the Senate can scarcely vote intelligently upon this bill when he does not know what he is authorizing except 'such sums as are necessary.' As are necessary for what? . . . What sums are necessary? Is it a billion or two billion dollars?"

Smith: "Why, good God, if we had known that, we would have said so. We do not know and you do not know."

Vandenberg: "No, I do not and I am trying to find out."

Texas' Senator Tom Connally: "If the Senator from Michigan will tell . . . when it is going to rain and when the sun is going to shine and when we are going to have a drought--"

Vandenberg: "Or when we are going to have a balanced budget."

The House. Waiting for their own Farm Bill last week, House members had nothing to do except to go on listening to oratory on subjects ranging from neutrality to Social Security. Liveliest altercation of the week was caused by Labor Committee Chairman Mary Norton's attempt to coax the Wages & Hours Bill out of the Rules Committee where it has reposed since last August with a petition to discharge the Rules Committee. When Majority Leader Sam Rayburn announced that he had signed the petition, urged his confreres to do likewise, Republican Leader Bertrand Snell was inspired to a dour comment. Said he:

"I have just witnessed a very amazing spectacle on the floor of the House of Representatives. For the first time in my 25 years as a member I have seen a majority leader, with a majority of 4-to-1, rise to appeal to his members to sign a petition to discharge his own Rules Committee from consideration of his legislation. That is definite proof of the statement I have often made: that the Democrats cannot efficiently run the House of Representatives."

That Republican Leader Snell sometimes has an even harder time running his much smaller faction of the House--its 90 Republican minority-- than Majority Leader Rayburn has with his unruly Democratic majority had been made apparent on the very first day of the Special Session. To a request for adjournment for three days, which needed unanimous consent to be effective, an obscure Republican from Evanston, Ill. had objected on the grounds that "Congress should get down to work." By a minority of one, Representative Ralph Edwin Church thus forced the House to meet the following three days of its first week, despite the fact that, with no farm, tax, wage & hour, reorganization or regional planning bill to consider, there was no work for its members to do. Consequence of this move on the part of Representative Church had been a burst of publicity far exceeding any he had ever received before in his four years in the House.

Publicity is so precious to Congressman Church that he will talk for half-an-hour to any reporter rash enough to telephone him. He also disseminates to his constituents a leaflet called This Week in Washington, by Ralph E. Church. Last week, encouraged by success, Representative Church climaxed his public career. On Thanksgiving Eve, when the Senate had already sensibly adjourned, Sam Rayburn proposed that the House adjourn until two days later. Instantly, Illinois' Church, still insistent that the House keep its nose to the grindstone, was on his feet to ask whether it was true that there would be no action on the Tax Bill till the regular session.

Rayburn: ". . . The gentleman can get that information from the Ways and Means Committee."

When Illinois' Church started to enlarge on his eagerness to enact tax legislation which had not yet been drafted. Leader Rayburn, fearful of what was coming, appealed to Speaker Bankhead: "I did not yield to the gentleman to make a speech."

Illinois' Church: "I am going to make a short statement ... or I shall object."

Leader Rayburn: "The gentleman may object if he wishes to do so."

Illinois' Church: "I object."

One objection was enough to kill Sam Rayburn's request which, by the complex parliamentary conventions of the House, was no 'longer before that erratic body later when Illinois' Church--having created enough confusion for one day--was ready to withdraw it. Consequence was that the House of Representatives last week, for the first time in U. S. history, met on Thanksgiving Day.

On Thanksgiving Day last week. 20 minutes after the House met at noon. Sam Rayburn seized his chance to ask for unanimous consent to adjourn until Monday--which he could not have done the day before since rules permit adjournment for no more than three days in a row. Confident in his formula for attracting attention, Illinois' Church objected again but this time Sam Rayburn was too quick for him. By re-framing his proposal as a formal motion to recess, which requires a vote and cannot be defeated by a single objector, he got the House away to dinner and a three-day respite from Illinois' Church. On Monday, when the House reconvened, Agriculture Committee Chairman Marvin Jones brought up his Farm Bill. This meant that the House at last really had some business to attend to--and that Ralph Edwin Church's private parade in the U. S. headlines was completely finished.

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