Lesson for I he Party

Ohio's Robert Taft had been telling his fellow Republicans lately that unless they plugged for social-welfare legislation the Republican Party was doomed. Last week in the U.S. Senate, Robert Taft gave a vigorous demonstration of what he was preaching. Batting down the opposition of Democrats and Republicans alike, Ohio's Taft, almost singlehanded, hammered through a $300 million bill to help the nation's schoolchildren.

Virginia's self-appointed treasury-guard, Democrat Harry F. Byrd, nagged Taft with quotes from Taft's own statements opposing a similar bill in 1943. Taft frankly said that he had been converted, that he had come to realize that some states could not afford adequate educational standards. Said he: "I do not think we should . . . refuse to give one cent for this purpose, merely because perhaps some day we shall be asked to give more."

Behind Taft's leadership, the Senate beat back an attempt, by Massachusetts' Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., to tack on an anti-segregation provision, which would have smothered the bill in Southern votes. An effort of Missouri's Republican Forrest Donnell to bar Roman Catholic schools from even indirect help collapsed, and so did one by Connecticut's Democrat Brien McMahon to require such indirect help. Such questions were left, as Taft had insisted they should be, to the states. In the end, the Senate passed the bill 58 to 15.

It would provide $5 for each school-age child (5 to 17) in every state, plus additional funds on a sliding scale for the poorer states, e.g., Mississippi would get the highest allotment, $29.18 for each child. The states could use the funds for any grade-or high-school purpose, including building improvements or teachers' salaries. Last year Republican leadership in the House killed a similar Senate bill. But if the House Republicans were listening to Taft, the measure would have a lot less trouble this time.

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