Senate Program

The Steering Committee of the Senate is an unofficial body of the majority party which decides what bills out of the mass presented shall occupy the time of that august body. Last week, the Republican Steering Committee met and decided tentatively.

First will come, of course, the appropriation or supply bills, originating in the House, to furnish the money for running the Government in 1925-26. Such treaties as the Foreign Relations Committee may report will also come up for ratification. All agricultural bills were left off the tentative program until the President's Agricultural Commission shall report in January or February. Aside from these measures, eleven bills, all favorably reported by committees in the last session of Congress, are listed to occupy the vacancies in the Senate's time. The eleven:

1) A bill to provide foreign trade zones in ports (a device similar to the creation of "free ports"). In these zones, goods from abroad can be landed, stored and re-exported without payment of customs duties.

2) A bill to revise the laws relating to the jurisdiction of the Circuit courts of Appeal.

*3) A bill to permit the Supreme Court to establish rules for common law actions in district courts.

4) A bill to allow the establishment under certain restrictions of branches by National Banks.

5) A joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution whereby future amendments must be ratified by direct vote of the people of the several states or by conventions elected for that purpose.

6) A bill to provide for building a bridge (TIME, Aug. 25,. ART) to be called the McKinley Memorial Bridge, across the Potomac from the Lincoln Memorial in the Capital to the Virginia side.

*7) A bill to establish a federal industrial reformatory for youthful first offenders.

*8) A bill for the settlement of the "French Spoliation Claims."

*9) A bill to reorganize the executive branch of the Government, creating a new Cabinet post for a Department of Education and Relief.

10) A bill to liberalize civil service retirement laws.

11) A bill to make valid and enforceable agreements for arbitration of maritime and commercial disputes in interstate and foreign commerce.

At once a great outcry went up at the important measures omitted from the list. It includes nothing in relation to taxation, to railroads, to the World Court. Yet, 'tis said that probably not more than half of the eleven named can be crowded into the short session and it is dubious whether all of these can be passed by both Senate and House.

*Approved and recommended by the President in his message to Congress.