Aid to Appalachia

Without changing a comma, the House of Representatives last week passed the Administration's aid-to-Appalachia bill and sent it to President Johnson to be signed into the Great Society. The bill provides for $1.1 billion, mostly for highway construction, in the eleven Appalachian states.

The final House vote was 257 to 165. but not even that lopsided tally was the true measure of the Democratic victory--or the Republican defeat. The new G.O.P. floor leader, Michigan's Gerald Ford, seeking to create a more positive party image, has announced a policy of "constructive alternatives" to all major Administration programs.

In last week's instance, the Republican alternative offered $995 million not just to Appalachia but to all 50 states. That was defeated 152 to 65. which was demoralizing enough. Even more humiliating was the outcome of a Republican move to recommit the bill with instructions to substitute the G.O.P. plan. Of 136 Republicans voting on the motion, 44 opposed it--an astonishing defection rate of 33%. At the same time, the G.O.P. effort wrought a rare show of Democratic unity, with only eight out of 287 defecting.

Last week Congress also:

> Approved, in the House Education and Labor Committee by a vote of 23 to 8, the Administration's $1.3 billion school-aid bill, which would provide federal grants of $1.06 billion for public elementary and secondary schools and $200 million for books and educational centers that would be used by public and private (including parochial) students alike. A Senate version of the bill is still in committee.

> Upheld, in the Senate Rules Committee, the present filibuster rule, which requires the votes of two-thirds of the Senators present and voting to cut off debate. Among the changes unsuccessfully proposed by Senate liberals: reducing the number of Senators needed to invoke cloture to three-fifths of those present and voting.

> Received, from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, a report on organized crime and illicit drug traffic in the U.S. It urged that Congress consider legalizing wiretapping, make it a crime to belong to organizations such as the Mafia, set up a national crime commission to investi gate crime and act as a clearinghouse for crime-fighting intelligence.

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