Bills & Barbs

Before leaving for Bolivar, Harry Truman hacked away at the stack of 263 bills left him by Congress.

He signed most of them--the appropriation bill for foreign aid with real pleasure. But he seized every possible occasion to aim a fresh shaft at Congress. He reluctantly approved pay raises of $330 to $450 a year for 1,318,000 federal employees "even though the act meets neither the needs of the employees nor those of the Government."

In appropriating for TVA, Congress had refused to include $4,000,000 for a steam generator to backstop TVA's water power in dry seasons. "A reckless and irresponsible decision," said the President, pointing out that TVA supplies power for the Oak Ridge atomic plant. He signed the bill to extend the terms of AEC commissioners for two years, but declared that "the refusal of the Republican leadership to put the public interest first. . . invests the atomic energy program with an aura of uncertainty and partisan politics." (He did not recall that he had set Republican teeth on edge by insisting that Chairman David Lilienthal be reappointed for a five-year term.)

The President saved his heaviest fire for S.2790, a bill "to amend the Servicemen's Readjustment Act." Said Truman scathingly: "For reasons which are quite understandable, the Republican leaders of the House of Representatives insisted upon calling this measure a 'housing bill.' " This "hasty patchwork," he said, failed to provide farm housing, slum clearance, financial aid for large-scale home construction, prefabricated housing, or low-cost rental housing. Cried Harry Truman: "In this case, as in many others, the 80th Congress has failed miserably."

At week's end, President Truman put his name to the last bill. He had vetoed 13, signed 250.

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