By a Hair

Fight on, my men . . .

A little I mehurt, but yett not slaine;

He but lye downe and bleede awhile,

And then He rise and fight againe.

--Percy's Reliques

The President, unhorsed in the Senate battle over civil rights, came a cropper again, this time in the fight in the House to overthrow the Taft-Hartley Act. Harried from every side, his congressional forces were trapped between a softened version of the Taft-Hartley Act and the Administration's moderately toughened version of the Wagner Act.

As the debate rolled into its second week, Speaker Sam Rayburn made one last effort to break the impasse. Knowing that the Administration's bill was a lost cause, he and his aides had cooked up five compromises which they hoped would attract votes. The provisions, with a few minor changes, were lifted from the Taft-Hartley Act itself. The most important of them was the one giving the President authority to use the weapon of injunction in national-emergency strikes.

Up to Sam. Mr. Truman did not think much of such a proposition. But the House strategy was up to Sam, Harry Truman added. Labor leaders also gagged at the idea of accepting the hated injunction. Nevertheless, they quietly passed the word to their friends in Congress to support Sam's substitute. They were even ready to accept the injunction if they could get rid of most of the Taft-Hartley Act. That is, the majority of them were. John Lewis, who had had to pay through the nose for defying injunctions, was dead set against any compromise at all.

Speaker Rayburn had relinquished the chair and was prowling around the House, perching here & there, nervous and anxious. Minority Leader Joe Martin took the floor to defend the softened version of the Taft-Hartley Act (the Wood bill), which was backed by the Republican-Southern coalition. Then Rayburn's compromise package was introduced. Sam himself stepped out on the floor. Eloquently, somewhat defensively, he appealed for votes for his measure: "Let us not have one sector of Americans known as labor . . . believe that we would press down upon their brow a crown of thorns."

Veteran Rayburn could tell from the dutiful applause that he had lost. In obedience to John Lewis' orders, some Democrats from Lewis' coal-mining districts slid over to the Republican side; Sam's proposition went down by a 211-to-183 vote. Then the House took a roll-call vote on the Wood bill. The coalition measure won its preliminary test by 217 to 203.

Help from the South. It might have been all over then & there if New York City's Vito Marcantonio had not popped up with a demand that a final, printed version of the bill be read. The maneuver put off the final vote until next day.

That night Rayburn & aides went to work on Southern Democrats, pleading for votes against the Wood bill so that the Administration-controlled House Labor Committee would at least have a chance to frame a new law. They pointed out that passage of the Wood bill would be a complete surrender to the Republican minority. Some Southerners listened. Next day, ten who had voted for the Wood bill somersaulted and voted against it. It was breathtakingly close. Down went the Wood bill by a hairline vote of 212 to 209.

To Horse Again. Democrats cheered with relief. They had not won anything; they had simply turned aside what would have been a humiliating defeat. The Taft-Hartley Act still stood, untouched, on the books. While the fight shifted to the Senate, the House Labor Committee would try to figure a way out of the Administration's dilemma: how to toughen up the old Wagner Act enough to win back Southern support, without making it so tough that Northern Democrats would rebel.

Harry Truman bled for a while in silence. Then he picked himself up and told everyone firmly that he felt fine. Furthermore, he said, he was going to repeal the Taft-Hartley Act, even if it took him the rest of his four years.

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