Biting the Bloodhounds

The legislative career of the war on poverty seems less like a series of congressional debates than an annual re-enactment of Eliza crossing the ice.

Each year the bloodhounds--mostly hard-breathing Republicans and South ern Democrats--nip closer, but each year Eliza stays an inch or two ahead.

After the Republican victories in the 1966 elections, the story seemed des tined for a speedy end. Not so. Last week, in the most dramatic victory the Johnson Administration has had in the 90th Congress, the House of Representatives approved the poverty program by the biggest margin yet. The original script* was hardly more miraculous.

Using the poverty program's obvious flaws as powerful ammunition, the G.O.P. House leadership aimed to dismantle the Office of Economic Opportunity altogether. The plan was to carve up the program's appendages among existing Government departments while, at the same time, substantially reducing overall antipoverty appropriations. The scheme seemed persuasive to many conservative Southerners and normally liberal big-city Democrats, who complain that local politicians do not have enough control over many OEO projects in their areas. After last summer's riots, there was bitter talk about not rewarding rioters, and the plan's success seemed to be inevitable. Few on Capitol Hill could challenge the self-confident assertion of New York's Charles Goodell, chief Republican strategist, that the three-year-old war on poverty would be "maimed, mutilated and mangled" before it passed the House in 1967.

"Bossism & Boll Weevil!" The Democratic leadership knew that its only chance to beat Goodell's scheme was to win over or at least neutralize Southern Democrats, who had never much liked OEO and who could now, as a result of the riots, find a good excuse for voting their distaste. How could they be pried loose from the Republicans? The Administration forces decided that some "dramatic change" would be needed in the program itself.

No one was sure just what new formula would work until Oregon's Edith Green suggested that state and local officials be given the control over local programs that they had long asked for. The leadership agreed, not only mollifying Southerners but also assuring that big-city Democratic machines would throw their all into the battle. The dramatic change had been found. "Bossism and boll weevil!" cried an outraged Charlie Goodell. The remark won his cause few Southern votes.

Still, victory was by no means certain, and as the debate began, an unlikely coalition of mayors, educators, labor leaders and big businessmen belatedly joined the battle. Scattered local programs began to close for lack of appropriations at the same time, and Congressmen who had been cool suddenly realized what the war on poverty meant back home. What Arizona Democrat Morris Udall called OEO's "hidden and silent" support started to surface.

Some unexpected allies also appeared. Columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak came out with a story noting underground complaints about Speaker John McCormack, and there was a sudden outpouring of sympathy for the Speaker, a well-loved figure, and just about any bill he wanted. Though he did not show his face or utter a word, Education Commissioner Harold Howe also proved a force. Under the G.O.P. plan, several of OEO's programs, including the Job Corps, would go to Howe's Office of Education, but Southerners would do almost anything--including voting to preserve OEO--to avoid giving more power to a man they regard as a radical integrationist.

It was all too much for the G.O.P. House leadership, which saw many of its members desert the standard. "The way things are going," sighed G.O.P. Whip Leslie Arends, "we couldn't put the Ten Commandments into this bill."

In the end, 186 Democrats and 97 Republicans voted for the measure, 50 Democrats and 79 Republicans against it. Though Republicans did hold funding to $1.6 billion, the chances are good that when the program emerges from conference with the Senate, which gave it $2.2 billion, it will have more money than it has ever had. It was as if Eliza had turned around and bitten the bloodhounds.

* Her feet bloodied, her hair blowing, Eliza jumped from ice floe to ice floe, not stopping until, "as in a dream," she had left Kentucky behind and found herself safe on the Ohio side of the Ohio River. Contrary to the myth ic and dramatic versions of folklore, Harriet Beecher Stowe's heroine was not actually pur sued by bloodhounds.

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