Compromise Victory

In handling the House-passed foreign-trade bill, Senators did nearly all their bargaining in the Finance Committee and reached an escape-clause compromise (TIME, May 9) that was acceptable both to reciprocal-traders and to all but the most rabid protectionists. When the bill got to the floor, it had the support of the most influential Senators of both parties. Against such strength, the opposition collapsed. Last week the Senate passed the trade bill, 75 to 13.

Other Senate action:

P: The Public Works Committee voted 8 to 4 to shelve President Eisenhower's highway-construction program. The committee then generally approved a substitute bill written by Tennessee's Democratic Senator Albert Gore. Where the Administration had proposed financing through a special bond issue, the Gore bill called for the highway program to be paid for out of regular appropriations.

P: The Senate passed and sent to a conference committee a $327 million Interior Department appropriations bill. The Administration had requested $313 million.

P: The Senate unanimously passed and sent to the House a bill to give former Presidents a $22,500 annual pension, plus special office space, a secretarial staff and free mailing privileges. Their widows* would get $10,000 a year.

* There are three: Mrs. Woodrow Wilson, Mrs. Calvin Coolidge and Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt (who said she would not accept a pension).

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