260-to-165

One afternoon last week in the House, forthright Representative Stephen Pace of Americus, Ga. decided he had had a bellyful of talk. Up stood Democrat Pace and let fly: "The bill is now in shape to pass in 30 minutes. My hope is that, now that all the rights and powers of Congress are in the hands of a simple majority of Congress, this eternal controversy will end."

The House heard but did not heed: two days and hundreds of speeches later, the House passed the Lend-Lease Bill, 260-to-165. The vote by parties--For, 236 Democrats, 24 Republicans; Against, 135 Republicans, 25 Democrats, 3 Progressives, 1 Farmer-Laborite, 1 American Laborite.

In three days of general debate 111 members made speeches, some of them many times. The tone had been quiet, generally. Observers noted that, if the 77th is a war Congress, it is unlike every such U. S. Congress heretofore. Nearly every speaker on both sides preened himself on his lack of emotion, took pride in his own hardheaded, coldly practical viewpoint. All the tears shed for Britain could have been collected in an eyedropper; all the hate for Hitler couldn't have been compressed into enough arsenic to furnish a murder mystery. The Congress tried in its own way to keep its head on straight. Franklin Roosevelt had taken the "silly, foolish dollar sign" off aid-to-Britain. Congress put the dollar sign back on in jig-time, and tried vainly to add on a few cent-marks.

But canny little Speaker Sam Rayburn had done a shrewd job. The bill passed with only face-saving amendments, put in to salve Congressmen frightened by dictatorship-bogies. Rayburn had evaluated the high talk of compromise with absolute accuracy. He knew that the Republicans who talked loudest about unity, about unanimous agreement if concessions were made, were pledged to vote against the bill no matter what its final form.

The Speaker sat tight, matched each compromise speech with gracious words, but held his lines fast. The result was clear in the adopted amendments, which would:

> Set a two-year limit, or until June 30, 1943, on the period in which the President may contract for arms and equipment for Britain. This meant little, since the House almost to a man believed the war's final turn will occur before that date.

> Set a five-year limit, or until July 1, 1946, on delivery of such items.

> Require the President to consult Army and Navy chiefs before sending defense items abroad. Meaning: none. The President appoints his own chiefs.

> Not specifically grant new powers to the President to order naval vessels to convoy ships to belligerent ports. Meaning: none. The President has such powers in the Constitution, which would have to be amended to remove them.

> Set a $1,300,000,000 limit on the value of defense items that may be transferred: i.e., items built with funds previously appropriated. Meaning: none. Mr. Roosevelt may set his own values as he chooses; no limit is set on the amount of aid to be given out of future appropriations.

> Require Congressional approval of future appropriations and authorizations. Meaning: Congress still holds the purse strings. Effect: none.

> Retain in Congress power to rescind the Lend-Lease authority by concurrent resolution (simple majority) of both Houses. Meaning: not very much. As an academic argument against its effectiveness, Article 1, section 7 of the Constitution requires Presidential approval of all concurrent Congressional resolutions except to adjourn (customarily only those embracing legislation are submitted to the President). A two-thirds majority in each House would be needed to override his veto. Practically, such a resolution would require majority public opinion for passage. (This amendment, submitted by Representative Everett Dirksen of Pekin, Ill., was hailed as Republican coup-of-the-week when it was voted in while 65 Democrats went to lunch one afternoon. It was a one-day wonder.)

> Require that contracts to transfer defense items should include a clause that the consignee government shall not again transfer title to others without U. S. consent. (This amendment was a White House afterthought.)

> Require the President to report to Congress at least every 90 days on his actions under the bill.

The bill was halfway through Congress. In the Senate the victory vote margin might be greater. Of 96 votes, 33 was the maximum hope of the isolationists; 25 was more likely; 20 and less was possible. But the talk would be longer, louder, and off a bigger sounding board. This week the Senate Foreign Relations Committee would conclude hearings, with Wendell Willkie, just back from England, as a final witness; would file a report. Next week debate in the Senate would begin. It was still a probability that the bill would be signed by the President by March 1.

Time, and Mr. Pace's sentiments, worked for Franklin Roosevelt and his bill. Congressional mail had dropped way off; all the other bogey-bills had drawn much heavier mailbags. The House attention stayed on Sam Rayburn and on tall, balding Republican James Wolcott Wadsworth of Geneseo, N. Y.--who made the best House speech of the week, merely pleading for a unity of purpose in grave times.

Attendance was only soso during the House debate, and slender to sparse at the Senate hearings, except when Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh appeared, to reiterate his House testimony of Jan. 23. The other headliners did poorly--General Robert E. Wood, isolationist mail-order tycoon ; isolationist ex-Governor Phil La Follette of Wisconsin; belligerent Isolationist Robert R. McCormick, Chicago Tribune publisher. There were 22 others, from Historian Charles A. Beard to Kansan Alf M. Landon, from Military Expert George Fielding Eliot to Chamber of Commerce President James S. Kemper.

The witnesses were nearly all defeatist about British chances or fearful of provoking Hitler. Two predicted civil war if the U. S. went to war for England. One, Dr. Charles Clayton Morrison, editor of The Christian Century, most vigorously intellectual Protestant religious magazine, and a leading third-term opponent, said that the bill was a "blueprint for dictatorship," equivalent to a declaration of war; accused the President of scaring the people, and declared: "Such a war will not be America's war. It will be the President's war. America has never fought a President's war."

To such men as Dr. Morrison a Catholic priest spoke in a national broadcast at week's end. Rev. Maurice S. Sheehy, head of The Catholic University of America's Religious Education Department, in heartfelt tones condemned isolationist "fence-sitters" who refuse to face the destructive threat of Naziism and Fascism to Christian civilization.

"To my fellow Catholics in Italy, I would say: 'The people of Italy have no better friend than the people of the U. S. . . . America has taken the Italian to its heart. . . . We believe that bondage to Hitler is as bad as bondage to Stalin. Rise up in your might, sons of Italy, and follow the peaceful aspirations of our Holy Father and your own King. Italy belongs in the axis of Christ. . . .' "

Father Sheehy said his own Irish blood "clamored for vengeance against England," but that, despite the pull of his "inborn prejudices," he had concluded that England's cause is the cause of freedom, of the United States and of Christianity. Tired of talk, of the vexation of spirit produced by mere babble, Father Sheehy left for Jacksonville, Fla. to join the Navy as a chaplain.

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