Victory for Veto

"Whether I want it or not, I've got it, growled House G.O.P. Leader Charles Halleck. What Indiana's Halleck was tossing between his thick political calluses was the hottest potato that the President of the U.S. had thrown him all session. The assignment: keep the House from overriding the President's veto of Congress' cherished $1.2 billion rivers and harbors bill (TIME, Sept. 7), a pork barrel packed with projects dear to the folks back home--and offensive to Ike because it called for 67 new projects not in the Administration's budget. The bill originally rolled through the House on a thunderous voice vote, rumbled on through the Senate with a hogshead-sized bipartisan majority (82-9).

Halleck, at home with fearful legislative odds, closed the ranks of his dogged Republican minority (153 out of 437) to save the President's perfect veto record last week by one cliffhanging vote. And his victory was bitter medicine indeed to House Speaker Sam Rayburn, who had vowed to "lick 'em on this one."

Economy Whisper. For six days Halleck worked to whip his forces into line. Absentees were summoned to Washington from as far away as Warsaw and Moscow (only authorized absentee: Washington's golfing, honeymooning Republican Jack Westland). For 35 Republicans who were doubtful, or definitely in favor of overriding, Halleck and G.O.P. Whip Les Arends had quiet warning ("Either you go along with the President, or you don't") and promises from Interior Secretary Fred Seaton to revive eight politically strategic projects in next year's budget. Virginia Democrat Howard Smith, ever the foe of spending, whispered that he might be able to line up 15 or 20 other Southern Democrats for an economy-minded coalition.

At high noon on voting day, Halleck went on the House floor pretty sure that he was licked, but still full of fight. He watched closely as Minnesota's Walter Judd tallied each vote. As the clerk started back through the list to check those who had not answered the first call, Halleck's breaks came with a rush. Two of his Ike-backing votes, landed by overdue planes, walked into the House. The three-man G.O.P. delegation from Kansas swung over to Ike. Another Congressman muttered, "I'm not chicken," swung too. When the roll call ended. Walter Judd excitedly whispered, "We're one vote ahead."

Strange Smell. But the trained nostrils of Indiana's Halleck, who was waiting quietly for the customary announcement of the official tally, smelled something. Mr. Sam Rayburn stood in stony-faced silence without announcing the vote. Halleck soon saw why. Missouri's Clarence Cannon, normally parsimonious chairman of Appropriations, led a three-Democrat switch from the "nay" column to the votes for override. The party-line Democratic power-play angered Republicans into a rare surge of party spirit. At Halleck's sharp command ("Get the hell down there and ask about your votes"), 20 or 30 Republicans rushed to the House well to create a delay by asking the clerk if they had been recorded correctly. This gave Halleck and other sweating workers time to focus the new party heat on their stragglers. "Come on. come on. go down there and vote with us," they urged. Pennsylvania's Willard Curtin and Ivor Fenton came over to the Administration's side. So did Colorado's Edgar Chenoweth. Their votes trimmed the override tally two votes below the necessary two-thirds.

Still Rayburn refused to announce the vote, broke House custom by ordering a recapitulation first. From the floor, Halleek badgered Rayburn into admitting that under House rules no new arrivals could be added to the tally during the recapitulation, but Wisconsin's Democrat Henry Reuss rushed in, got counted for override. Halleck stomped to the well, demanding the floor to announce another Republican switch to his lineup, but it was not necessary.

Beaten, Rayburn announced the 274-138 count, one vote less than the two-thirds required to override the President's veto. Only six Democrats (five Southerners) and eleven Republicans-bolted their party lines. Republicans cheered and applauded. "Charlie," sang Tennessee Democrat Robert Everett, "you're the only guy who could persuade a calf to wean itself." Halleck flushed a happy, rosy red, and Ike's remarkable record of successful vetoes rose to 144.

In the old Supreme Court Chamber of the U.S. Capitol's Senate wing late one afternoon last week, reporters flushed a pair of tired Senators. Democrat John Kennedy of Massachusetts and conservative Republican Barry Goldwater of Arizona showed the strain of 2 1/2 grueling weeks of battle, generally with each other, inside the 14-man Senate-House conference committee assigned to work out differences between Senate and House versions of the Labor Reform Act of 1959. A reporter asked Kennedy how labor unions would feel about the final bill just agreed on, and Goldwater playfully answered for him by shoving an imaginary labor knife into Kennedy's back. Kennedy laughed, turned serious. "Compromises are never happy experiences," he said. "I think it's the best bill we can get--and get a bill."

Most other Congressmen, viewing the long-debated bill from all political positions, felt about the same. The Senate promptly passed the bill on what members counted the same as a unanimous vote: only oddball Democrat Wayne Morse of Oregon and oddball Republican William Langer of North Dakota opposed. The House voted next day, 352-52, sent the bill on to the White House. When President Eisenhower signs, as he doubtless will and with some satisfaction, the reform act will become the U.S.'s first substantial labor legislation since the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 (which was passed over President Truman's veto).

The new law cost more sweat and legislative pain than any other act since Taft-Hartley. Jack Kennedy's political prestige was committed to the relatively mild Kennedy bill (even though it had been beefed up in a floor fight led by Arkansas' John McClellan), and the Kennedy bill passed the Senate 90-1. President Eisenhower's power and prestige were committed to the sterner bill sponsored by Georgia Democrat Phil Landrum and Michigan Republican Robert Griffin which he had bulled through the House (229-201) with his effective television appeal (TIME, Aug. 17). Few old hands on Capitol Hill believed that Conference Chairman Kennedy could close the wide gaps between the two without losing control of his committee, letting the bill go back to both houses for another hot, hopeless battle.

In the end, Kennedy avoided disaster by giving way to most of LandrumGriffin's amendments to the Taft-Hartley Act. In effect Kennedy: P:I Accepted the House's strong ban on secondary boycotts (barely mentioned in the Senate bill), including the Eisenhower-requested ban against picketing of innocent retailers who sell goods from struck plants.

P:Agreed to give state labor boards jurisdiction over small-business-labor disputes now rejected by the National Labor Relations Board, thus strengthening the Senate's halfway attempt to solve the "no man's land" problem. P: Accepted the House's stronger ban on blackmail picketing, but beat down a severe House section that would effectively prevent almost all picketing in advance of a plant's NLRB election.

Lost in the headline controversy were the new labor law's substantial contributions to the U.S. criminal code. Sentence by sentence, the Bill of Rights and supporting sections of the Labor Reform Act create a new arsenal of weapons against the union bullyboys and embezzlers. Some key sections:

Members' Rights. Labor-boss coercion is outlawed, members get the unqualified right to vote in union elections (by secret ballot), may speak up against policies, get fair and public hearing in disciplinary procedures, sue in U.S. courts if justice is not provided under union procedure.

Goldfish Bowl. Every labor organization must file comprehensive reports with the U.S. Secretary of Labor on the working of its constitution and bylaws as well as on all financial transactions, including large payments and loans to officers and staffers. Similar reports are required from management on all payments to union officers and to labor-relation consultants. Maximum penalty: $10,000 fine and a year in prison.

Trusteeships. Each "trusteeship" takeover of a recalcitrant local by top union bosses, long a favorite exploitation device, must be reported in detail to the Secretary of Labor. Maximum penalty: $10,000, or one year, or both.

Elections. Secret elections, protected by poll watchers and ballot-count watchers, are required every three years for local union officers, every five years for national officers, by secret ballot among membership or at a convention composed of delegates chosen by secret ballot.

Safeguards. Since they are positions of trust, union offices may not be occupied by Communists; ex-convicts (including those convicted of violating members' rights); leaders who take a loan bigger than $2,000 from union treasuries, embezzle union funds, or have conflicting business interests. Top penalty: $10,000, or one year in prison, or both.

-Democratic defectors: Virginia's Smith, William Tuck and Watkins Abbitt; Georgia's John James Flynt; Tennessee's Tom Murray; and Minnesota's Fred Marshall. Republican defectors: Pennsylvania's Leon Gavin and Carroll Kearns; Tennessee's Howard Baker; Washington's Walt Horan; Iowa's Ben Jensen; New Hampshire's Chester Merrow; Massachusetts' Edith Nourse Rogers; Kentucky's Eugene Siler; Illinois' Edna Simpson; Wyoming's Keith Thomson; and Nebraska's Phil Weaver.

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