"Those Fellows Are Rough"

John Kennedy sat down at his hand-carved 19th century desk last week and "with great pleasure" signed into law a $1.25-an-hour minimum wage bill. After passing the Senate, the bill hurdled the House last week, 230-196. The victory did much to restore Jack Kennedy's position in Congress, which had been weakened just five weeks before, when the House defeated virtually the same bill, 186-185. How, in so short a time, could so many votes be changed? Answered one top Republican in grudging admiration of the White House's hard-lobbying tactics: "I'll tell you. Those fellows are rough."

The Administration aimed its biggest guns at beating down Southern Democratic opposition to the Kennedy bill. Speaker Sam Rayburn swung among Congressmen from Texas to Tennessee, telling them that a Democratic President's prestige was at stake. Other proponents dangled patronage bait, reminded doubting Democrats that Kennedy will soon be awarding 73 new federal judgeships. They also warned that any "nay" voter surely would be branded as "antilabor"--an argument that particularly moved the Democratic co-author of the Landrum-Griffin labor law, Phil Landrum, who yearns to become Governor of Georgia and would like labor's support. Stepping up the pressure, White House Aide Larry O'Brien had in groups of Congressmen for breakfast almost every day, preaching: "Go along with us, just this once. If the voters back home complain, we'll leave you alone on our other bills."

Such tactics swung a dozen Southerners, enough for the Administration to win. Seeing that, Republicans began to buckle. Six New Jersey Republicans decided to vote for the bill, fearing that to do otherwise would cost former Labor Secretary James Mitchell the support of labor in his run for the governorship. Five Massachusetts Republicans also voted "aye," if only to lift Southern wages closer to their own and thus slow the exodus of New England's textile industry to the South.

It was quite a bill that Congress bought. For 24 million workers already covered by the minimum wage law, the measure provides a raise from $1 to $1.15 by Labor Day and to $1.25 by September 1963. For 3,600,000 newly covered retail, service and construction workers, it provides a $1 floor this fall, with step-by-step raises to $1.15 by September 1964--just two months before the next presidential election--and to $1.25 in September 1965.

Other congressional action last week:

P: Both Houses approved a Senate-House conference version of a bill empowering the President to appoint 73 new federal judges--which will greatly reduce the backlog of court cases, greatly increase Jack Kennedy's patronage powers.

P: By voice vote, the House passed a bill to pump another $9.8 billion over the next eleven years into the federal highway program. That would permit the building of a 41,000-mile interstate network to be completed in the early 1970s. Resisting heavy pressures from the oil and trucking lobbies, the House voted to bankroll the bill by continuing the current 4-c--per-gallon tax on gasoline and diesel fuel (both were slated to drop to 3-c- next month), and to boost taxes on trucks, tires, inner tubes. The bill now goes to the Senate, which is expected to examine it critically.

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