Work Done

Last week The House:

>> Steeled itself to vote down (119 to 73) a plan to pension members of Congress after 15 years' service from a fund to which they would contribute $500 per year, matched by contributions from the Treasury.* Excerpts from the debate:

Georgia's Ramspeck--"Let us have courage to do something for ourselves!"

Kentucky's Creal--"This is a nice issue to take to the people in 1940, isn't it!"

>> Deadlocked in conference with the Senate over funds to help run the District of Columbia (payroll: 11,000 workers), with an ultimatum that the sum be not more than $5,000,000 for fiscal 1940. Virginia's Senator Glass was equally adamant on not less than $6,500,000. Washington bankers offered the District credit.

>> Won its conference fight with the Senate to limit to $61,500,000 (instead of $100,000,000) the new bond issues authorized for TVA to buy private utility properties. The House gave up a provision restricting TVA's operations to the Tennessee River's watershed, but achieved the same limitation for the time being by earmarking all the new money for specific purchases, thus requiring TVA to apply to Congress again before starting any more projects. The bill went to the President.

>> Changed its mind, joined the Senate in voting (221 to 124) to support at $12,000 per year a privately built library .at Hyde Park for Franklin Roosevelt's books and State papers. Admission to the grounds: 25-c-. Fumed Republican Dewey Short of Missouri: "Not even immortal Shakespeare or Milton or Wordsworth would have the unmitigated gall and brazen effrontery to ask that a monument be erected to them to house their precious pearls of wisdom before their death. . . . Egocentric megalomaniac!" Minnesota's Republican Knutson suggested the papers be brought to Washington so that future statesmen might learn "how not to run a government."

Majority Leader Rayburn: "[The President] is doing a beautiful and generous thing."

The Senate:

>> Worked over the House's changes in Social Security so as to: 1) freeze at 1% (instead of 1 1/2%) the old-age insurance tax for both employer and employe; 2) raise widows' payments; 3) start payments in 1940 instead of 1942; 4) increase payments to workers who leave employment early (before 60). In the old-age grant section, the Senate provided that the U. S. should contribute $10 for the first $5 put up by a State, match dollars thereafter, thus assuring a total grant of $25 per month for needy oldsters in States willing to give $10, a maximum of $40 in States giving $17.50. This plan's author was Senator Connally of Texas. Colorado's Johnson got it further provided that no Federal money at all shall go to States that fail to give at least $10. For child and maternal health service the Senate upped the House's $3,800,000 to $5,820,000, for crippled children from $2,850,000 to $3,870,000 (Wisconsin's La Follette). The bill went to conference.

>> Began committee hearings on President Roosevelt's $2,660,000,000 "self-liquidating" loan program, introduced by Majority Leader Barkley.

*British M.P.s had introduced a bill to pension themselves week before.

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