Battle for a Tax

During the preliminaries of the struggle over extending the excess-profits tax. House Speaker Joe Martin outlined the problem in one sentence. Emerging from a half-hour meeting in which he tried to get support for EPT extension from New York's old (77) Dan Reed, chairman of the Ways & Means Committee, Martin reported, in characteristic good humor: "We were only one word apart--he said 'no' and I said 'yes.' " Last week the one-word distinction caught House Republicans in a party-rending conflict between Dan Reed's belief in precedent and principle and Joe Martin's convictions on loyalty to the Administration.

A Memory of Mellon. Neither man was, by nature, quite cut out for his part. The rebel, Reed, considered himself as loyal and regular a party man as there was in the House: in the 18 times he has run successfully for election in his upstate New York district since 1918, he has never asked a voter to vote for him personally--only for the Republican party. His support comes principally from the rural voters in his district, and yet he was refusing as a matter of principle to extend EPT because he thought EPT damaging to business. Moreover, Reed believed that he was saving the Administration from itself; Treasury Secretary George Humphrey had acknowledged that EPT was a "bad tax," and had defended extension to next January only as a matter of expediency. Reed remembered that a tax cut had stimulated business in Andy Mellon's day, firmly believed that the same would be true today.

Joe Martin was as much of an ingrained conservative on taxes as Dan Reed. Also, as Speaker of the House, he was keenly aware that Dan Reed's Ways & Means Committee was the traditionally unchallenged source of all revenue bills. Like all House Speakers, Martin was deeply conscious that his very authority depended on parliamentary precedent and the power of his committee chairmen. He could have ducked the whole EPT issue. But in recent months Joe Martin has discovered a higher loyalty to Dwight Eisenhower, and in that loyalty has developed a sense of leadership which his colleagues had never seen in him before.

For weeks Martin had respected Dan Reed's committee rights. Then, last week, when Reed stonily refused three personal

Eisenhower pleas to let the committee vote on EPT extension, Martin placed his own prestige on the block for the Eisenhower Administration.

Pivotal Holdout. On Wednesday, he came out of a legislative conference at the White House and promised to use "every possible means" to get a vote on EPT. Next day Martin prompted a meeting of the House Rules Committee. His drastic strategem was this: ignore Ways & Means prerogatives on revenue bills, let the Rules Committee consider a new EPT bill (one had just been conveniently dropped into the House hopper by Connecticut's Antoni Sadlak), and take the new bill directly to the floor for a vote. The course was risky, and failure would impair Joe Martin's leadership--and the Administration's legislative program--from now on.

An overflow crowd of reporters, photographers and Congressmen jammed the committee room for the crucial hearing before the Rules Committee. The session was delayed for 47 minutes while Martin, Majority Leader Charles Halleck and Rules Committee Chairman Leo Allen talked to G.O.P. committee members in Allen's private office, trying to nail down a majority vote. Tennessee's Carroll

Reece turned out to be the pivotal holdout. Taft-before-Chicago-Man Reece was having some patronage troubles down home with some Ike-before-Chicago rivals, and he refused to commit himself on a vote as the hearing began.

"Unlawful Bandit." Charlie Halleck was the first of 13 witnesses. Said he: "We are going to carry out what is obviously the will of the members of both sides of the House. We are faced with the necessity of asking for this rule." Ten Republicans on Dan Reed's committee had guaranteed, said Halleck, that they would vote out an EPT bill, if they could only get Reed to call a meeting. But with Reed blocking the road, there was nothing to do but act through the Rules Committee. Halleck established beyond much doubt that the Rules Committee had the right to act, wound up half-apologetically: "In my 19 years in Congress this is probably the most difficult thing I've ever had to do."

When Halleck was finished, Dan Reed rose to reply. His face flamed anger, his bony jaw jutted, Chairman Allen offered him a chair, but Reed snapped: "I'm still able to stand." He stood, straight as an oak, while he boiled over. "This [rules] committee has no authority . . . EPT is nothing but an unlawful bandit cutting the throats of industry . . . This [hearing] may be the destruction of representative government. If that's true, this is no place for me." Reed's voice rose to a passionate shout. "What have I done in my 35 years that you would do this to me?" Then Dan Reed sat down, still glowering.

As testimony went on, Carroll Reece slipped out to take a telephone call from G.O.P. Patronage Boss Leonard Hall, chairman of the Republican National Committee. He was back a few minutes later, and not long afterward. Chairman Allen got a scribbled message from another Congressman who had been on the phone. It read: "Len Hall says Carroll's all right." Virginia's Howard Smith, the senior Democrat on the Rules Committee, leaned over to Allen. "Leo," Smith whispered, "you got the votes?" Leo nodded. Shortly afterward Allen cleared the room for the vote. On a voice vote (7-4), the Rules Committee backed Joe Martin and started the EPT extension on its way to the House. Holdout Carroll Reece voted with the majority.

Strange Bedfellow. The whole procedure was strong, though necessary, medicine, and most Democrats had as little taste for it as most Republicans. The Democrats were tempted to give Dan Reed solid support, to vote down the Rules Committee's recommendation on the grounds of irregularity, and thus contribute to Martin's troubles. But over the weekend some northern Democrats began to realize that voters, not understanding congressional procedure, would remember only that Democrats had helped to kill a tax popular with the party's left wing. To make the point, Martin proudly showed off a wire of support from a strange bedfellow--the C.I.O.'s legislative counsel. Leo Allen coyly reminded Democrats that expiration of EPT "would be giving Gen eral Motors $122 million--and we can't do that."

This week, as the time came for the crucial vote, the House was filled and tense. But Joe Martin had a remarkably cheerful air. The reason: his agents had reported that the Rules Committee recommendation could carry by a 30-vote margin, and he had just used this leverage to good effect on both Democrats and Republicans on Dan Reed's Ways & Means Committee. After a long quorum call, Martin gave the floor to Charlie Halleck for a surprising announcement: the G.O.P. leadership had decided not to ask for a vote on the Rules Committee's EPT report. He was convinced, said Halleck gravely, that the bill would be "handled in the normal manner by the Ways & Means Committee." His last words were drowned in a wave of cheering.

As the cheers died away, Old Dan Reed was on his feet demanding a showdown. "I'm not surrendering!" he shouted, shaking his fist. "Let's get the vote now and see where you stand. Stand up like men!" The House stood up and cheered honest, stubborn Dan Reed. The Democrats, who appreciated the trouble he had caused the Republicans, cheered the hardest.

Enormous Save. But Dan Reed did give an all-important inch. Right after the session adjourned without a vote, he acknowledged that he would call another meeting of his committee, after all. He would do it in his own time--probably July 8--and it would not be a meeting about EPT. But Dan Reed knew, as Joe Martin knew, that once the Ways & Means Committee was in session, any member of the committee could move that EPT be taken up. And Joe Martin had enough committee votes in his pocket to send EPT to the floor over Dan Reed's unchanging "no!"

From all appearances, Martin's leadership had won the day. If things went as most Congressmen thought they would, Joe Martin's victory was one for congressional history. His unprecedented move through the Rules Committee had saved both the EPT bill and congressional precedent in the only way they could have been saved together. And he had wound up so strong that he did not have to use his strength in a rock-crushing, party-splitting vote.

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