Technically, No Adjournment

Last week at least 97% of the Congress wanted to adjourn and go home. As a matter of fact, 147 House members, 66 Senators had already gone; eleven Republicans who had loudly insisted the Congress must stay in session to guard the nation from anything & everything have been junketing on Caribbean waters; occasional sessions of both chambers, attended by a scant 50 or so members, heard mostly lame-duck quacking. In the House, labor-baiting, gimlet-eyed Clare Hoffman of Allegan, Mich, and Lame-Duck Ralph Church of Evanston, Ill. still objected to technical adjournment. They had their way.

If Congress as a whole was not in Washington, at least it was still in session--able to meet in earnest and keep an eye on Franklin Roosevelt. So Session III last week edged toward a record: by Jan. 2 it will have sat 366 days, longest session in history. Its two achievements: 1) passage of the first peacetime conscription law in U. S. history; 2) appropriation of more money ($23,000,000,000) than any peacetime Congress.

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