"I Think We Are Cowardly"

Maryland's lean Millard Tydings, his sharp jaw jutting, his face red with wrath, rose to address his colleagues in the U.S. Senate. In his opening words there was an ominous restraint, in his tone a deadly edge. Senator Tydings, holder of the Distinguished Service Medal, the Distinguished Service Cross, grimly said he would speak "from a very slight knowledge of modern warfare."

He spoke of the Senate's bumbling, reluctant treatment of the manpower problem, of its already plain intention to pass a toothless measure instead of the House-approved May-Bailey bill for limited national service.

Then ex-Lieut. Col. Millard Tydings, A.E.F., got down to stronger words: "Think of the men standing on the battlefronts in the dark, learning that back home the great Congress of the U.S. has said that the people at home are doing a good enough job, nobody is to be bothered, a man can loaf if he wants to and there will be no penalty. . . . I think we are cowardly in this Congress, when we read that up to this time 1,000,000 men have been killed, wounded, or are missing, and permit unlawful strikes to take place. . . ."

The Reaction. Thus, with many a frown, many a flushing face, the Senate started its second week of debate on an issue the House had handed it on Feb. 1. Its Military Affairs Committee had twisted & turned as though it were all a nightmare, had voted weak bills, stronger bills, had taken out penalties, had put them back in. The Senate itself had done more of the same. Rumbled Alben Barkley, majority leader: "Let us get action ... let us vote on something. ... I think we have spent a great deal of time messing around." Maine's Wallace H. White Jr., minority leader, agreed.

There were other harsh words on the Senate floor. When North Carolina's Josiah William Bailey sought to apply the principle of the May-Bailey bill to the Senate's hodge-podge affair, he was soundly beaten. Bitterly he said: "Cologne fell today. Our soldiers may have to go on through Germany. Let them go, with the understanding that here at home we will do just as we please. . . ."

Finally, by a vote of 63-10-16, the Senate passed the "voluntary" O'Mahoney-Kilgore substitute, with fine-or-jail penalties for employers who violate controls of the War Manpower Commission, with utterly no compulsion for workers. Snorted Georgia's Senator Richard B. Russell, who had been for a national service act: "Now

1 have seen everything!"

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