Homecoming

Congress came back this week to do something about the "emergency" Harry Truman had proclaimed--and its opening day was like a college homecoming. Democrats, Republicans and Dixiecrats all seemed delighted to be back. Senators spent more time in back-slapping and handshaking than they did in actual session (11 minutes). In the House, the boys seemed no less glad to see each other.

But behind these smiling faces and smitten backs were sullen tempers that threatened to ignite a partisan hotfoot and turn the session into a bitter political battlefield (see cut). Southern Senators had agreed on the strategy to be used against any civil-rights program--Harry Truman's or the Republicans': filibuster at the first show of a bill. Most Republicans, taking their cue from noncommittal Tom Dewey, were waiting for the reaction to Harry Truman's message to Congress; but among them there was also heady talk of forcing a swift adjournment.

Congress knew just about what to expect from the President. He had worked all week on his message, brushing up its language during a weekend cruise on the Potomac. The speech would go back over most of the same ground he had already covered at Philadelphia (TIME, July 26): federal aid to education, an increased minimum wage, a civil-rights program. Two added starters: approval of the international wheat agreement and the $65 million loan to build U.N.'s permanent headquarters.

The 'big unknown was the anti-inflation section. But Harry Truman was going to wade right into two of the hottest issues of the campaign: housing and high prices. His message asked for passage of the Taft-Ellender-Wagner bill and most of the ten-point anti-inflation program he had put before Congress last fall, including standby authority to ration and control the prices of scarce commodities "which vitally affect . . . health and welfare."

Said the message: "High prices are not taking 'time-off' for the election. High prices are not waiting until the next session of the Congress . . . Eight months more of inflation will be too long."

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