Homesick

For many a moon Congress has yearned to go home. Republicans had promised to stick and see that Franklin Roosevelt did not get the country in trouble. Democrats had to stay until after the election or lose face with voters at home. But now elections were over. Passed for the first time in the history of the U. S. was peacetime conscription. Passed were bills to spend $16,920,627,477.15 ($9,114,345,921.58 worth for defense). Last week, weary with waiting, watching and working, its "must" legislation complete and a new Congress about to convene in six weeks, the 76th Congress hoped it could go home and relax.

Pining for a sight of the Shorthorn cattle on his Texas ranch, bald Sam Rayburn, Speaker of the House, sighed: "I want to go home so bad I can taste it." His only worry was whether he could round up a quorum to vote adjournment. Many a Congressman had already slipped away, would hate to plod back just for the formality of a vote. If he did not get his quorum, the 76th Congress, still technically in session, might, like the hunters of the boojum, softly and silently vanish away.

One man in Washington who was just as anxious to get rid of Congress as Congress was anxious to leave was Capitol Architect David Lynn. Since 1938, Architect Lynn has been expecting the Capitol roofs to fall in. The 120-ton ceiling over the House, the 90-ton ceiling over the Senate, constructed of ornamental glass and wrought iron, hang from cast-iron trusses. Tests have shown that some of the trusses have shifted as much as an inch and a half under the stress of snows, winds, years.

After two years of talking about it, Congress last June appropriated $585,000 to fix the roof. While Congressmen snoozed, debated, passed bills and paid no further heed to the danger hanging heavy over their heads, Architect Lynn anxiously waited for a chance to move in and erect temporary steel props. That job will take five or six weeks. If Congress ever decided to stay away for six months, he would tear off the whole roof, build a new one.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.