The Big Wind

When he finally quit at 10:06 one morning last week, Oregon's Wayne Morse was the U.S. Senate's new alltime talk champion: he had filibustered for 22 hours and 26 minutes without leaving the Senate floor.* His intake: two cups of bouillon, two glasses of orange juice, a few sips of water, five cups of tea, two cups of coffee, a few crackers, part of a chocolate bar. His output: upwards of 100,000 words on subjects ranging from offshore oil (the matter under debate) to horseback riding, to baloney (the edible kind). When his self-imposed ordeal was over, the pink rose in the lapel of Morse's dark blue suit was withered, but 52-year-old Maverick Morse himself was still sprightly enough to chat with reporters and pose smilingly for photographers before going to his office for a three-hour nap.

When Morse reappeared, minus the rose but still wearing the same blue suit, reporters knotted around with questions. Had he made any special preparations for his stunt? None at all, except to get seven hours' sleep the night before instead of his usual four or five. "I always keep in good shape," he explained. How was he able to resist the call to the men's room? Good control, he said, vowing that he had had no auxiliary devices strapped to his leg. What was the purpose of his marathon talk? He was one of "a band of liberals" who wanted to "focus public attention" on the tidelands "giveaway," said Morse. He was obviously satisfied that his exhibition of strength and endurance had contributed to the focusing process, though the question was a major issue in the election campaign, and the bill itself had been in debate in the Senate for 18 days/- when he got up to speak./-

The "band of liberals," led by Alabama's Hill, New Mexico's Anderson, Minnesota's Humphrey and Illinois' Douglas, had filibustered since April Fools' Day to delay voting on the majority-favored Holland bill, which would grant the seaboard states title to offshore lands within "historic" boundaries. The filibusters still insist that they are not really filibustering, and capital correspondents, who would thunder at the first sign of an old-fashioned Southern filibuster, have gone along with the game by refraining from using the word "filibuster" in their copy.

After Morse's feat, the rest of the 28-hr.49-min. session (longest since 1950) was an anticlimax. Backing down from the stand he had taken earlier in the week,

Majority Leader Bob Taft agreed to suspend debate on tidelands, and allow a vote on federal rent controls. The Senate passed the House extension measure by a voice vote, then recessed--after hearing Taft's warning that round-the-clock sessions lay ahead if the filibuster continued much "longer.

Meanwhile, the House last week: P:Passed and sent to the Senate a bill to extend federal rent controls, which were due to expire April 30. New expiration date: July 31.

P:Turned down, by voice vote, an Administration request for a year's continuation of the current 35,000-unit-a-year public housing program. In appropriating $451 million--61% less than the Truman budget had asked--for 22 federal agencies, the House provided nothing at all for public housing.

*The previous record holder (18 hr. 23 min., in 1908): Robert M. ("Fighting Bob") La Follette. who had the benefit of rests during quorum calls. The preMorse record for talking longest without quorum calls (as Morse did) was held by Louisiana Senator Allen Ellender (12 hr. 20 min., in 1949). /-Of such legislative shenanigans, the elder Henry Cabot Lodge once observed: "To vote without debating may be ... rash, but to debate and never vote is imbecility."

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