Congress' Week

Waiting for the Senate's weekend recess, newsmen heard a crackling noise from the main corridor of the Senate wing. The old English Minton floor tiles, laid in the 1850s and now irreplaceable, had begun to heave upward. They buckled into a ridge 20 feet long. Capitol architects guessed the cause was a sudden change of temperature. Reporters happily accepted the theory that someone had opened a door from the Senate chamber and let out a blast of hot air.

For two days Democratic Senators had kept temperatures up with long-winded assaults on the presidential succession bill, which would place the Speaker of the House next in the line after the Vice President. Though the measure had the approval of Harry Truman, Senate Democrats were unwilling to see Republican Speaker Joe Martin put ahead of Cabinet members into a position just once removed from the White House.

Sly Proposal. In a final maneuver to harass Republicans, Georgia's Russell slyly proposed that the president pro tempore of the Senate, Arthur Vandenberg, be placed in front of Speaker Martin.

But Arthur Vandenberg himself quickly scotched the suggestion. "Presidential succession," he said, "should first reside in the officer reflecting the largest measure of popular and representative expression at the moment of his succession." That ended that. The succession bill was passed and sent on to the House.

Other legislation stalled. The Stratton bill to allow admission to the U.S. of 400,000 displaced persons languished in committee, despite increasing public pressure. In Manhattan, the General Federation of Women's Clubs, reversing an earlier resolution, voted overwhelmingly to support the bill. An RKO-Pathe documentary movie short called "Passport to Nowhere" made a first-run appearance with a plea for U.S. compassion toward European refugees. But immigration sensitive Congressmen preferred to sidestep such a politically explosive issue. The Stratton bill was dying on the vine.

Late Approval. Just three days before June 30, the end of fiscal 1947, only the Treasury and Post Office appropriation bill had reached the President's desk. Three other appropriation bills were ready for Senate-House conferees, eight were waiting House or Senate* action. To provide pay for federal employees in fiscal 1948, Congress would have to authorize continued spending at the present rate until the legislative snarl could be untangled.

* Including an appropriation for the Civil Aeronautics Administration navigation aids, which had been sliced nearly 70% by the Senate Appropriations Committee. The baffling explanation for the cut: "The committee fears that following the installation of a large number of these sets, attempts will be made at all-weather flying and the number of accidents will increase."

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