Panic

With the air of a man who is sure of his own strength, Mississippi's wily old demagogue John E. Rankin rolled his stupendous veterans' pork barrel onto the floor of the House, and defied the quaking Congressmen to throw it out. What old John wanted was $90 monthly at 65 for every veteran, whether he needed it or not. The cost would add up to something like $125 billion over the next 50 years. But determined John Rankin had posed his colleagues an agonizing choice between conscience and constituents.

Hanging nervously in the background, Administration leaders left the counterattack to the men best able to get away with it--the veterans in the House. Colorado's Democrat John Carroll, veteran of both World Wars, started the fight. Protesting the unprecedented scale of the bill, he moved to kill it outright. In the first showdown, the House voted twice to do so, but on standing and teller votes in which names are not recorded. Slick Parliamentarian Rankin was not to be licked so easily. Immediately, he demanded a roll call.

"Revival of Righteousness." Birddog lobbyists of the American Legion, controlled by World War I veterans who would profit soonest from the scheme, squatted watchfully in the galleries. Thus faced with going on the record, a group of frightened Congressmen did what John

Rankin expected them to do: an ignominious somersault. On two roll calls, the House reversed itself, voted to keep Rankin's proposition alive. Crowed Rankin: "A revival of righteousness."

Next day, the veterans of the House rallied their forces, rolled up their most impressive weapons. Michigan's Republican Charles E. Potter, 32, who lost both legs fighting in Europe, walked on artificial limbs to the well of the House. Said Potter: "I hate to see the veterans of this country used as political pawns in this great Washington game of cheat." The veterans bombarded the bill with amendments, hoping to reduce it to such a jumble that nobody could vote for it.

On the third day of bitter debate, a thrice-wounded World War II veteran, Texas Democrat Olin Teague, moved again to kill the bill. His white hair on end, ranting John Rankin demanded a roll call and pleaded: "Do not shut the door of hope in the faces of those old men who fought World War I." As the ayes and nays of the final roll call droned on, the House was so tensely quiet that the click of the clerk's mechanical hand-counter was audible in the galleries. By a single vote, 208 to 207, the House had finally dredged up the courage to kill the bill.

Behind the Times. Not since the House squeezed through extension of the draft by a one-vote margin on the eve of war in 1941 had its members been thrown into such an irresponsible panic. In the showdown, the economy-shouting Republicans had looked even worse than the Democrats. Republicans had followed their leaders, Joseph Martin and Charles Halleck, in voting 2 to 1 for Rankin's raid on the Treasury. Democrats, whose leaders stood fast against the bill, voted 3 to 2 to stop it.

Old John stalked from the floor, angrily declaring that pensions were dead for this session. But next day, he was back with a new bill. This time, however, all he asked was $72 a month for World War I veterans who could show at 65 that they needed it. Old John was a little behind the times on that one. A great number of such men were already being cared for under legislation passed before World War II.

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