From the Stomach

Outside on the Capitol grounds one warm night last week, tourists and hand-holding lovers listened under a creamy moon to an Army band. Inside the Capitol, some 400 Congressmen milled, yelled and reeled through the next-to-last voting stage of the Defense Production Act.

Most of the week, the House had sat as the Committee of the Whole--the parliamentary device by which the House gives a bill a preliminary run around the track without anyone having to go on the record. Southern Democrats and Republicans, in the saddle most of the time, had ridden down some of the Administration's most cherished amendments, substituted some of their own. One--the dream of Bob Poage, a drawling cow-countryman from Waco, Texas--would put all prices on a cost-plus basis, thus guaranteeing industry a profit on every item it makes, no matter how basically unprofitable any item might be. The Poage amendment, besides requiring more accountants than there are in the world (said Price Controller Mike Di Salle), would blow price ceilings into the stratosphere.

Better than Expected. Parliamentary tactics grew so confused that half of the members, half of the time, did not know which side they were voting on; Percy Priest, Democratic whip, pranced up & down the aisle, beating his forehead in frustration, trying to keep his boys in line.

Amendments were put up, passed or rejected, sometimes at a rate of one every two minutes. In about eight hours, 75 amendments were disposed of. At 1:10 a.m., while Mike Di Salle and Stabilizer Eric Johnston watched, stony-faced, from the gallery, the House rattled out its version of the controls bill, by a final 323-to-92 vote.

In the last whirlaround, some Republicans jumped off the coalition horse. They were mostly big-city representatives, suddenly worried about what they would tell their constituents if food prices should shoot up. As a result, the Administration won more than it had expected, even if the bill still fell far short of its hopes.

Spite & Suspicion. The Poage amendment was beaten. So was an amendment guaranteeing a four-month freeze as of July 7 on all wages and prices (except rents and farm prices), whipped up by James C. Davis of Stone Mountain, Ga. to embarrass the Administration and give the coalition the alibi that they had tried to get "real" controls. The amendment would enrage labor, which is still trying to get wage "readjustments," would freeze all present price inequities which Di Salle would like to correct.

On the other side, the present 10% rollback on meat prices was left intact, but further meat rollbacks were banned. Quotas on meat slaughtering--which Di Salle says are vital to prevent black-marketing and which Midwest Congressmen say will only create black markets--were eliminated. Important credit curbs, Regulations W (autos) and X (housing) were relaxed.

In the main, the House voted with its stomach, not its head. Congressional spite and suspicion, centering on Harry Truman, and parochial self-interest accounted for many a vote.

The Most Obvious. The Administration raised horrified eyes to heaven, but the vote was only another chapter in the long story of its own fumbling with the economy. A year ago inflation was only a distant threat; its pressures had not actually set in. Then Congress whooped through a tough control bill and thrust it on the Administration. While a panicky public went on a buying spree and bid prices up, Mr. Truman refused to use his powers. By the time he got around to it, high prices, largely induced by fear-buying, were almost out of his reach.

By last week panic had passed. Prices appeared to have leveled off. If the plateau was high, nevertheless it was level, and if any trends were discernible, they were down, not up. Manufacturers had more goods than they could sell. Almost everything looked safe--at the very moment when real inflationary pressures are just beginning to heat up.

The pressures are many and complex, but the most combustible are the most obvious: a record number of people employed--62 million; a record high of $250 billion in personal incomes. Bank loans have almost doubled since 1946, are more than $63 billion. In the history of the U.S., there has never been so much money around. Simultaneously, with all this buying power at hand, goods available should begin to decrease; while arms production expands, civilian production is being cut back 30-35%. Unless arms spending is cut, Defense Mobilizer Charles E. Wilson estimates that by next year there will be from $10 billion to $20 billion more money in U.S. pockets than there will be goods to spend it on. Unless this money can be taxed into the Treasury or coaxed into bonds, unless credit is curtailed, unless prices meanwhile are kept in line (so say Wilson, Johnston and Di Salle), the pressures might blow up the economy.

The House declined to take the doom-criers' word for it. Congress voted to take the chance that everything will continue to be level and safe for a while. The final bill is not written yet. Senate and House conferees will meet this week to iron out the differences in their bills. The Senate's bill gives the President even less power than the House's. The best they will hand Harry Truman in the end will be something of a leaky hose.

Last week on Capitol Hill: P:The Senate Crime Committee gave up trying to quiz Florida's Governor Fuller Warren on what he knows about crime and gambling in his state (TIME, July 16). The committee's rules are that all testimony be taken under oath; Warren has refused to testify under oath. The committee reluctantly concluded that it could not ordera governor around. P:The Senate voted to increase by $3 a month Federal assistance to the aged, blind and disabled, boost aid for dependent children by $2 a month. Cost: $140 million more a year. P:Both houses upped the President's request for $15 million for Midwest flood victims, made it $25 million.

Work still undone:

P:EURJ All the regular appropriation bills. Stopgap spending authority, under which the Government has been operating since June 30, will expire next week.

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