No Soup

As Congressmen filed hungrily into the ornate, high-ceilinged House restaurant one noonday last week, big pots of white-bean soup bubbled in the kitchen. White-bean soup has been a tradition on the House menu since the day, years ago, when mighty Speaker Joe Cannon thunderously decreed: "By God, we are going to have bean soup in here every day." Uncle Joe's daily lunch was bean soup and cornbread. Daily lunch of thousands of good men & true ever since has been bean soup and cornbread, with maybe a dash of ketchup.

The hands of the big clock pointed to 1. Suddenly the restaurant's colored waiters sidled towards the doors. Suddenly, as if by magic, they disappeared. Bean soup (15-c-) was on the menu, all right, but there would be no soup served that day. The waiters to the nation's Congressmen had gone on strike --the first strike in the Capitol's history.

They wanted more pay. For the three and a half hours a day that most of them worked, their wages with tips averaged $55 a month. Waiters in the Senate restaurant get $10-$15 more.

Back in October, Congressman Lyle Boren of Oklahoma had introduced a resolution to get the House waiters a boost, but nothing had happened. Now they had decided on direct action.

A few stayed--half a dozen out of some 33 on the staff--but these were not enough. A few Congressmen were amused, tried waiting on themselves. Others were outraged.

By the third day Manager W. A. Brockwell got most of the waiters back, with the promise that he would do something for them, somehow. Once again bean soup moved from kitchen to gullets.

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