Work of the Week

The U. S. Congress is a large, complicated and slow-moving mechanism. Every two years fresh fires have to be started in its cold boilers. Its 531 cogs have to be adjusted into place. The accumulated gases of politics have to be blown out of its chambers. Only after these preliminaries can it proceed to function as the Constitution intends.

Because the 72110! Congress was slow getting up steam and into motion, an ignorant public clamor arose against its apparent do-nothingness. But late last week, after ten days' tinkering and amid considerable clanking and sputtering it got its unwieldly bulk really rolling.

Government-by-committee is the essence of Congress. The House has 47 committees, the Senate 33 and in these are the important decisions made. A British Cabinet member addresses the House of Commons from the floor. A U. S. Cabinet officer does his talking obliquely to a committee of Congress. Nine times out of ten floor debate and votes are only amplified ratification of a committee's handiwork. The first job of a new Congress is, therefore, to set up its committees.

Seven days were required for the Democrats, after taking control of the House, to arrange their committee slate. Speaker Garner divided the plums according to the inviolate seniority rule. To the South went 27 committee chairmanships, to the North and West 20. New York and Texas could each boast of six committee chairmen.*

First woman chairman was Mrs. Norton of New Jersey who as head of the District of Columbia Committee became "Mayor of Washington." Good Democratic care was taken of Minnesota's Kvale, Ione Farmer Laborite. in committee assignments.

In the Senate, a continuing body where no switch in party control occurred, committee posts remained unchanged.

Congressional committees found no shortage of legislative proposals to start work on. In ten days 6.383 bills were introduced in the House. 2,311 in the Senate, the great majority on private matters for aggrieved constituents. Michigan's Senator Couzens wanted a railroad probe while Senators Capper of Kansas and Hastings of Delaware wanted short selling scrutinized. Senator McKellar of Tennessee proposed making War Hero Alvin C. York a captain. Senator Brookhart of Iowa wanted to knock out the gold standard. To make the purchaser of liquor equally guilty with the seller was the legislative ambition of Senator Sheppard of Texas. Senator Hull of Tennessee wanted to repeal tariff flexibility. Senator La Follette of Wisconsin proposed to appropriate $250,000,000 for direct unemployment relief whereas Senator Wagner of New York called for a two billion dollar bond issue for public works. Senator Kean of New Jersey would turn Muscle Shoals over to Alabama and Tennessee. A bill by Senator Dill of Washington would equip the Senate chamber for radio broadcasting.

In the House Georgia's Crisp proposed annihilating the Farm Board. Alabama's Almon would grant veterans 100% loans on their bonus certificates. Massachusetts' Tinkham wanted a Washington Hall of Fame and New York's Celler, a Negro industrial commission. Georgia's Vinson would build the Navy up by $760,000,000 to full treaty limits. New York's Bacon proposed bus and truck regulation by the I. C. C. Wet bills, including a constitutional amendment by Connecticut's Tilson to return liquor control to the States, glutted both houses. Texas' Blanton touched a Dry low by seriously advocating the use of the Army, Navy, Militia, Shipping Board, and Inland Waterways Corp. for enforcement.

But the House & Senate Committees did not begin their labors on any of these measures. Instead they turned first to relief legislation. From the Ways & Means emerged the Moratorium resolution to make big black headlines (see col. 3). Less spectacular but no less important was the work of the House Banking & Currency Committee. First it framed a bill for $100,000,000 additional capital to the Federal Land Banks and then heard Eugene Meyer, Governor of the Federal Reserve Board, on the merits of a $500,000,000 Reconstruction Finance Corp. as requested by the President. The Appropriations Committee reported out its deficiency measure. In the Senate the Agriculture Committee approved a proposal by Montana's Wheeler, to turn over an undetermined amount of Farm Board wheat for U. S. hunger relief.

Once the House got moving, it clicked off legislation at top speed. Much to the loud dismay of voteless Washingtonians, it approved proposals by Michigan's Mapes for a District of Columbia tax on incomes and increases in the gasoline and estate levies. It whirled through the Moratorium in eight hours (see col. 3). It passed a measure appropriating $203,000,000 for bonus loans, $120,000 for additional employment agencies. It okayed the $100,000,000 capital increase for the Federal Land Banks after voting down (190-to-165) a general farm moratorium amendment.

The Senate dawdled through its second week without electing New Hampshire's Moses or anyone else President pro termpore. As a stop-gap it took up a bill by Connecticut's Walcott to "insure adequate supplies of wild life, plant and animal, including forests, fish and game for the people of the U. S.," passing it as its first concrete achievement this session. At the request of California's Johnson it asked the State Department to disgorge all diplomatic data on the Manchurian situation and then unanimously called for another investigation of food prices. In an off moment it did pass the House's bill for an additional bonus appropriation which was the first measure to reach the White House for signing this session.

During the first fortnight of the 72nd Congress the Democratic House gave a much better legislative account of itself than the Republican Senate. Though the Senate expected the Moratorium to be passed, it was not to be hurried. Leaders' plans to rush it through in one day, to wear the Senate out by sitting until midnight, were balked by Senator Johnson who thundered: "'Haste, haste, haste!', they say. I will tell you why--they know that the international committee meeting at Basle is going to recommend a two-year extension, and they want this out of the way first. " Senator Johnson, hero of that session, blocked an early vote by moving recess, spoke for an hour, planned to orate more next day.

As usual the new Congress was charged by impatient critics with being local-minded, stubborn, dilatory. Such criticism sprang from the plain fact that its members, by and large, manifested a strong nationalist spirit as opposed to the internationalism of the times. For months President Hoover has been watching Europe intently, offering it a helping hand while Senators and Congressmen have been at home among their people, their eyes turned inward on the U. S., not outward on the world. They know, perhaps better than the man in the White House, what citizens are saying, thinking, feeling. Now back in the world atmosphere of Washington, their words and deeds, right or wrong, were taken to reflect the mass opinion of the nation.

*New and important committee chairmen were: Byrns of Tennessee, Appropriations: Collier of Mississippi, Ways and Means; Pou of North Carolina, Rules; Jones of Texas, Agriculture; Steagall of Alabama, Banking & Currency: Sumners of Texas, Judiciary: Rayburn of Texas, Interstate & Foreign Commerce; Dickstein of New York, Immigration; Linthicum of Maryland, Foreign Affairs; Quin of Mississippi, Military Affairs; Vinson of Georgia, Naval Affairs; Black of New-York, Claims; Mead of New York, Post Offices.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.