No. 53

President Eisenhower last week vetoed a bill for the first time this year, the 53rd since taking office. The bill: an 8.8% pay raise for postal workers that would cost $180 million a year.

Only two of Ike's previous vetoes were of major bills. In 1953 he vetoed an attempt to end the 20% excise tax on movie admissions. Last year he vetoed a 5% postal and civil-service pay raise, partly because Congress had refused to finance it with higher postal rates. Repeating this objection last week, the President spoke of "the imperative need for postal rates that will make the postal service self-supporting and be based on service rendered to the user." Said he: "We can no longer afford to continue a costly deficit operation paid for by millions of taxpayers in amounts out of all proportion to the postal services that they as individuals receive." His other reasons for the veto: the bill 1) discriminates against rural letter carriers, special-delivery messengers and "many" supervisors and postmasters; 2) enormously complicates wage-calculating procedures; and 3) goes beyond his recommendation for a 6 1/2% raise, which itself is "substantially greater" than the rise in living costs since the last wage levels were set.

Replying to a newsman's question, the President said that not in a long time had he studied anything more earnestly. On Capitol Hill, the bill's backers hoped to override the veto.

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