Bilious Mood

On the morning after the State of the Union address, ranking members of the Senate majority who make up the Democratic Policy Committee gathered for a private meeting. "It was the damnedest thing," one participant remarked afterward. "Not a single word was said about the President's speech."

The chief topic was adjournment:

"When can we get out of here?"

That, by and large, seemed to be the mood of the 90th Congress as it began its second session last week. The superficial conviviality of reunion coloring the first couple of days faded even faster than the suntans and windburns some members had brought back from Southern resorts and Northern ski slopes. The residual climate was grey, portending six or seven months of bilious dissension both among Democrats and between the parties, leading up to a rugged election season. Predicted Mike Mansfield, the spare-spoken Senate majority leader: "It will be a difficult session."

Non-Business. Of course Congress, like some primitive tribes, must have its bit of ritual prior to the bloodletting. Loyalist Democrats, in their wisdom, found the President's speech "wise"; doubting Democrats like Wilbur Mills bespoke their position with silence; the Republicans tsk-tsked that the President had merely delivered a state-of-the-campaign address. Other non-developments materialized on cue. On opening day, the Senate bickered over whether to admit to the record an antiwar petition by Jeanette Rankin, 87, a former Congresswoman from Montana, who led 3,200 protesting women to the snowy foot of Capitol Hill. It took a roll-call vote to uphold the tradition of delaying such "business" until after hearing the President.

At week's end the pace was no faster. The Senate settled down for perhaps weeks of delay while Southerners maneuver against a relatively minor bill to improve enforcement of civil rights statutes; the bill would make it a federal offense to prevent the exercise of certain rights, such as voting. Enactment of the measure is expected eventually, but the President's major civil rights proposal, on open housing, has minimal prospects for success.

The House meanwhile marked time with procedural matters, awaiting the next round of the tax fight. Ways and Means Chairman Mills has consented to new hearings this week on the Administration's proposal for a surcharge, but the outlook for passage remains bleak. Even if Mills relents in his personal opposition to the measure, the sentiment in the House is now over whelmingly negative. Many in Congress believe that Johnson has been "cooking the books," as they say in the House of Commons, in order to make his spending and deficit forecasts seem smaller than they will actually turn out to be. Mills insists that the Administration must hold the line on expenditures before he will accept a tax increase. The G.O.P. position, maintains Republican Leader Gerald Ford, is still that the best way to curb inflation is to cut spending. Neither Mills nor Ford has offered any proposals for retrenchment.

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