Congress1 Week

It was an exciting week in both Houses of Congress. On the Senate side, Ohio's John Bricker literally got shot at (see below). In the House, Wisconsin's Glenn Davis* won a washing machine by clouting a 200-ft., fifth-inning home run in the annual congressional baseball game. The G.O.P. beat the Democrats, 16 to 13.

Republican Congressmen were pleased with the week's work. With obvious enthusiasm, the House passed and sent to Harry Truman the presidential succession measure which put the Speaker of the House next in line for the nation's highest office. Speaker Joe Martin, now just one heartbeat from the White House, said that he hoped President Truman would continue to enjoy "the best of health."

No Job for Biddle. In the Senate, Michigan's Arthur Vandenberg scored a personal triumph. For five months he had bottled up in his Senate Foreign Relations Committee Harry Truman's nomination of onetime Attorney General Francis Biddle as U.S. representative on the U.N.'s Social and Economic Council. Biddle finally requested that his name be withdrawn. The President's prompt second choice: Willard L. Thorp, Assistant Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, who had Vandenberg's warm backing.

This week, the Senate got down to voting on the income-tax reduction bill, which was repassed by the House last week with 26 votes more than needed to override the veto Harry Truman had promised (see The Presidency). When the vote came, it looked as though Harry Truman had won again. The vote, 60 to 32, was two short of the two thirds majority necessary to override.

So Sorry. In the press of other business, Congress had failed to provide for emergency payments to 1,500 congressional employees while the legislative appropriation bill was being held up, as it had provided for other federal employees. Little white cards with red lettering went out to the unhappy 1,500: "Pay day is postponed until further notice." That would also apply to Senators, but not to Congressmen, who had already drawn their monthly checks. But members of both houses were cheered to hear that the Senate's District Committee agreed with the House: the 15% rent increase which Congress had voted for the nation would not be permitted in Washington.

* No kin to the U.S. Military Academy's Mr. Outside.

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