Don't Blame Me

In another time and climate, Washington's hoary old dodge-the-blame game might have been amusing. But last week Democrats and Republicans were playing the game for all it was worth over the tragic demise of hardfisted, desperately needed labor legislation. In another part of the capital, Arkansas' John McClellan and his Senate investigating subcommittee continued to document graft, corruption and outright racketeering that led repeatedly to the nation's biggest unions, e.g., the powerful Teamsters, whose boss Jimmy Hoffa is deep in a plan to organize all U.S. transportation. In the face of such evidence there was plenty of blame to dodge as the Senate-passed Kennedy-Ives bill was entombed, apparently for all time, in the House Labor Committee.

Labor Secretary James P. Mitchell recalled accurately that the Administration had submitted last January a reasonable, workable program for preventing union abuses, that the Democratic Senate had watered it down, and Republican prodding (mostly by California's Bill Knowland) had put some starch back into it. In the House, said Mitchell, Speaker Sam Rayburn let the bill age on his desk "40 days and 40 nights" before referring it to the anarchic House Labor Committee, chaired by North Carolina's molasses-moving Graham Barden.

Massachusetts Democrat Jack Kennedy, Senate sponsor (with New York's Republican Irving Ives) snapped back that Mitchell, for all of his ringing statements, had "never lifted a finger" to help get Republican support for the bill. On the other hand, said Kennedy, the National Association of Manufacturers, after discovering features objectionable to management in the bill, had flooded the House with "intemperate, exaggerated and misleading attacks." Speaker Rayburn chimed in to explain that he sat on the bill 41 days in hope of rounding up votes enough to suspend House rules and bypass Barden's committee. That gambit failed when the N.A.M. stirred up too many "noes."

N.A.M. surely deserved some blame, but the Democrats would most regret the failure. Labor might be relieved; "You can say we're not sorry it failed," commented one labor official. But the U.S. as a whole had been deeply stirred by McClellan's revelations of corruption in Big Labor, might at election time wonder why a Democratic-controlled Congress had not done something about it. The man to ask was Democrat Sam Rayburn, 45-year House veteran, who has wielded his gavel too long and ruled the House too well to botch a legislative job accidentally.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.