Work Done

Many Congressmen were out politicking. Before they left Washington, they had reached a tacit gentleman's agreement that not much serious work would be done in Congress while they were gone. The little that did get done was right in line with the election-year emphasis on economy and tax cuts.

The Senate:

P: After listless debate, passed a Republican resolution to carve $2.5 billion off President Truman's $39.7 billion budget.

P: Received the European Recovery Program bill from the Foreign Relations Committee. The bill bore a strange financing device. Colorado's Eugene Millikin, who will later handle the Republican knife on taxes, devised a method to give ERP all of the $5.3 billion needed for its first year of operation and also have several billions left over for tax slicing. It was a neat bookkeeping trick: $3 billion of ERP's cost will be charged against 1948's books, to be met out of the estimated $7.5 billion 1948 surplus, leaving only $2.3 billion to be charged against the 1949 budget.

The House:

P: Passed two dozen minor bills.

P: Its Un-American Activities subcommittee put Communist Benjamin Davis, a New York City councilman and member of the Communist Party's national executive board, in its witness chair. Negro Ben Davis was happy at the chance to taunt the committee, which he called "tainted with illegality." He defied Congress to pass a bill requiring U.S. Communists to register as agents of a foreign nation, predicted that Communists would simply ignore it. Said Davis: "We . . . refuse to be put in the category of political suspects. . . . Gentlemen, it is not within your power to legislate the failure of this mighty movement."

P: Its Foreign Affairs Committee clamped a ban on newsreels, television and radio record-making during future hearings on ERP. Its announced reason: too much klieg lighting, noise and confusion. The first witness to be affected by the ban this week: Henry Wallace.

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