Fast Work

Shifting into high gear last week, the Senate also:

P: Passed a bill to deny Red-led labor unions the NLRB's protection of their collective-bargaining rights. P:Voted 85-0 to tack onto the Red-led union bill a rider designed to "outlaw" the Communist Party, a proposition opposed by Attorney General Brownell and FBI Director Hoover on the ground that it would drive Communists underground. This surprise move was sprung by Wayne Morse and two Democrats, Minnesota's Humphrey and Massachusetts' Kennedy, as a partisan response to McCarthyite charges that Democrats are soft on Communism. Michigan's Homer Ferguson pointed out that the rider merely outlaws a name, does not cope with overt subversive acts. "What conduct would the Senator make illegal by his amendment?" he asked Humphrey.

P: Passed and sent to the White House the Witness Immunity Bill, after accepting the House's provisions for federal judges, instead of congressional committees, to decide which Fifth Amendment witnesses should be forced to testify.

P: Sent the Atomic Energy bill back to joint Senate-House conference for further revision. Democrats charged that the bill's patent and licensing system denied preferred treatment to public and cooperative electric power organizations and would encourage private atomic energy monopolies. On a vote of 48 to 41 they won their point.

P: Authorized a temporary national debt limit increase until next June of $6 billion. The House had voted to raise it permanently by $15 billion.

P: Passed a Social Security revision bill extending coverage to 7,000,000 new workers and improving retirement benefits in many categories.

P: Passed and sent to the White House a bill giving 2,000,000 veterans a 5% boost in disability compensation and increasing allowances for veterans' dependents up to 25%.

P: Appropriated $2,790,824,816 for foreign aid, after adopting a $200 million slash put forward by South Carolina's Burnet Maybank. The Senate's total is $100 million below the House appropriation, $264 million below the program authorization, $648 million below the President's request.

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