The Tortoise & the Hare

With its five-minute rule and other time-saving parliamentary devices, the House of Representatives is a legislative hare, ordinarily loping far ahead of the tortoise-like Senate and its treasured prerogative of "unlimited debate." But last week, with the finish line near, the tortoise was ahead of the hare.

Hoping to adjourn by the end of this week, the House nonetheless indulged itself in the political pleasures of a week-long debate on a civil-rights bill that had long since been doomed. The House did manage to work constructively for about two minutes: the time it took to deal with a presidential veto. President Eisenhower had turned down the $2.1 billion military construction bill for a good reason: it invaded the executive field by requiring the consent of congressional committees for Defense Department action on guided missile and military housing programs. The House approved a new version, with the objectionable clauses removed.

On the other side of the Capitol, the Senate moved steadily toward adjournment, whooping through 134 bills (nearly all of them minor) in one two-hour period. The Senate's big items concerned two politically loaded pieces of legislation. On one, the proposal for a federal dam in Hell's Canyon on the Idaho-Oregon border, the Democratic leadership took a whipping from the Administration. On the other, social-security expansion, the Democrats passed an Administration-opposed bill that will be useful this fall. In all, the tortoise was doing nicely.

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