"If We'd Run from This One . . ."

"Charlie Halleck is mighty sorry that he ever bit into this apple," chortled a House Democratic leader last week. "They've picked the worst possible issue to fight us on and we're going to lick 'em."

Lick 'em they did. Next day the House approved a $450 million appropriation for emergency public works, which had only a few days before been voted down by the House Appropriations Committee. Minority Leader Halleck, who had led a party-line fight against the bill, was disappointed. But he could hardly have been surprised: the public works appropriation was tied to aid for economically depressed areas; as such, it affected the home districts of a vast majority of Representatives. And since when have politicians started voting against the pork barrel?

"Behind the Eight Ball." In a way, the Republicans had been trapped. Sensing a strong public reaction against the Administration's deficit-spending policies, they have made economy the foremost issue of the 1963 legislative session. They could, therefore, hardly support the public works appropriation in all its freespending glory. Explained Wisconsin's Republican Representative Melvin Laird after the floor vote: "Sure it was a tough one, perhaps the toughest we could have picked. But if we'd run from this one, I don't see how we could continue to claim that we really believe in economy."

For a while, the Republicans did surprisingly well in their fight. The 17 G.O.P. members of the Appropriations Committee present voted against the bill--and, with the help of five conservative Democrats including Chairman Clarence Cannon of Missouri, they turned it down, 22 to 19. That action caused consternation inside the Kennedy Administration. Said a White House aide: "It looked as if we were really behind the eight ball."

But not really. After all, the bill just contained too many goodies for too many Congressmen. The measure offered the possibility of public works to 266 congressional districts. Indeed, the program had already furthered 862 projects in 99 districts represented by Republicans.

"Bludgeoning & Blackmailing." With those persuasive political figures in mind, the Administration and the House Democratic leaders went to work. Majority Whip Hale Boggs and his staff, worried about Democrats who had already left for their Easter vacations, got on the phone, persuaded dozens, including six from California, to return for the vote. At White House urging, labor organizations, along with local-government groups, began calling and wiring Congressmen, telling them what the money would mean to the old home town. Texas' Democratic Representative Wright Patman inserted in the Congressional Record a 33-page list of all the communities that had applied for money under the bill. All this activity enraged Charlie Halleck. "They were really bludgeoning and blackmailing,'' he fumed.

But the pressures worked, even upon some Republicans. In economically beset Pennsylvania, Republican Governor William Scranton announced that he was all for the public works appropriation, even sent ex-Representative James Van Zandt to Washington to lobby for the measure. As it turned out, eight of Pennsylvania's 14 Republicans voted for the bill.

The final vote was 228 to 184. Leaving the House floor, Democratic Floor Leader Carl Albert said happily: "I feel good, mighty good. We really had to win that one. If we'd lost it, we'd have been in trouble--so deep in trouble that I hate to think about it."

But Albert's troubles were not over. Even in a losing cause, 151 Republicans and 33 Democrats voted against the appropriation. On future spending issues, less politically touchy than the pork barrel, that number seemed likely to grow.

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