Congress' Week

During the congressional campaign, voters seemed to have got the wild notion that Republicans intended to cut taxes right & left, and right away. Last week the great disillusionment set in.

With a stone-cold eye, and a 374-to-35 vote, the House passed a bill--recommended by Harry Truman--to continue wartime excise taxes on furs, jewelry, liquor and luxuries for an indefinite time. Next day, Speaker Joe Martin spread more gloom when he announced that the Republicans could not think of cutting personal income taxes by any specific percentage until means were found to cut Harry Truman's $37.5 billion budget, and begin payments on the national debt. In the Senate, Republican Spokesman Robert A. Taft was all for some kind of a reduction in 1947 income taxes. But he predicted that "there will be no across-the-board 20% tax cut as a general policy."

Such hedging, plus Democratic gibes, brought paunchy Ways & Means Chairman Harold Knutson, father of the 20% tax cut idea, to a boil. When Michigan's squat Albert Engel laid a restraining hand on his arm after a tax argument in the House restaurant, Knutson whirled, knocked it off, and snapped: "Don't you take hold of me!" Lawmakers who separated them had the odd feeling that the month-old 80th Congress had really begun to live.

Heckling. It had also begun to hunt facts & figures. In one cramped committee room, Lieut. General Ira Eaker, Deputy Air Force Commander, told Senators of A.A.F. "all weather" flying experiments that may help prevent civilian crashes. In another, members of the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy and crotchety Senator Kenneth McKellar, their guest for the day, plied wary David E. Lilienthal, acting chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, with questions. The Committee wanted Lilienthal, onetime head of TVA, to convince them that he rated Senate confirmation in his new job. Senator McKellar, however, merely wanted to heckle his old TVA foe. Sample conversation:

Senator McKellar: "You and I have been friendly all the time, haven't we?"

Lilienthal: "In spite of your attacks on me . . . I have only a friendly feeling toward you."

"You don't think I'm trying to put TVA under my thumb, do you?"

"Senator, ever since we had our first meeting on this, we've understood each other perfectly."

"Are you a Communist?" "No."

"A Democrat?" "No."

"A Republican?" "No. I'm just an independent voter."

Senator McKellar: "Humph!"

But the Lilienthal hearing brought out some significant points: 1) the U.S. is still making atomic bombs; 2) some atomic secrets have leaked out of the U.S.; 3) the military feels it is being squeezed out by civilians on atomic energy control. The probability that some top secret atomic information had leaked to Russia was confirmed by Bernard Baruch in a closed hearing this week.*

Fighting. While committeemen groped for more, New Hampshire's Styles Bridges warned that Russia intends to turn Germany into a satellite and ally; and the first rumblings of the long and bitter reciprocal trade debate began to disturb the Senate.

All over the Hill, meanwhile, Congressmen conspired, sounded off, labored or capered, according to their mood. In the Senate gym, Washington's Freshman Senator Harry P. Cain put on the gloves for a short go before the cameras with Nebraska's sagging Kenneth Wherry, the Senate Republican whip. In his office, Georgia's Senator Walter George pondered a program to lay off 500,000 Government workers and save the Government $4 billion.

And just to keep the House humor from losing its ancient tone, Massachusetts' cherubic, 75-year-old Charles Laccille Gifford told the seven female members that he feared too many women were getting into government. Beaming broadly, he explained at considerable length that the ladies were so attractive that no Representative could possibly resist their political blandishments.

* For atomic news of other countries, see INTERNATIONAL.

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