For Merit's Sake

The House of Representatives last week passed the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 --the dry-as-dust title of a measure that is likely to affect the lives and fortunes of Americans for many years to come. The 298-to-125 vote was unexpectedly large, and the Kennedy Administration, after a series of bitter legislative setbacks, understandably congratulated itself on a significant victory. But the issue was in fact much harder fought than the vote indicated, and the outcome was in doubt until the final hours.

Down to Zero. What saved the bill, in the final analysis, was its merit. It is probably the best and the boldest measure presented so far to the Congress by the Kennedy Administration. If passed by the Senate (which seems highly probable), it will give the President, for the first time in U.S. history, sweeping powers to slash tariffs down as far as zero on many products in return for tariff concessions by other nations. Only a few years ago, such a bill would have seemed hopelessly visionary. But in just the past few months the European Common Market, long an ephemeral concept to most Americans, has taken shape as the embodiment of an invigorated and competitive Europe that the U.S. can ignore only at its peril. The Common Market--and the growing tendency of other nations to join in trade blocs--meant one thing to the U.S. economy: in order to overcome the tariff favoritism granted to each other by the Market's member nations, the U.S. must be able to bargain for a share of the new and potentially huge market--or find itself on the outside looking in. Since nearly a third of all American exports now go to Europe, exclusion or crippling barriers would mean not only the loss of important markets, but a crushing blow to U.S. hopes of cutting the balance-of-payments deficit by promoting wider trade.

To President Kennedy the trade expansion bill was vital. It could, he said, "affect the unity of the West, the course of the cold war, and the growth of our nation for a generation or more to come." All the living ex-Presidents--Republicans Hoover and Eisenhower as well as Democrat Truman--came out for its passage. The Committee for a National Trade Policy, a bipartisan business group, strove to convince the nation of the bill's importance.

House Ways and Means Chairman Wilbur Mills of Arkansas, who has given the Kennedy Administration trouble on other measures, carefully and lovingly tailored the trade revision act so as to ensure House passage. In the light of all this, it is a remarkable fact that the bill, for a couple of cliffhanging days, seemed likely to fail.

A to Z. Why? There were several threatening factors. Protectionism is moribund as a national issue, but there were still plenty of businessmen--from almond growers to zinc producers--who were agitating against the bill. President Kennedy has presented a good many politically shaped bills to Congress--and has condemned, in political terms, those Congressmen who have not gone along with him.

Thus some Congressmen figured that they might as well have the game with the name, particularly since they could thereby cater to some of the businessmen back home. Beyond all that, many Democrats as well as Republicans were resentful of the high-pressure lobbying tactics used by the Kennedy Administration.

And so, when Majority Leader Carl Albert personally counted the House Democrats, man by man, he found only 201 in favor, well short of the House majority of 219 needed to pass the bill. That meant that Republican help was required--and it was by no means certain to be forthcoming. Hardened against Kennedy, House Republicans had given him only one vote on his tax-revision bill, one vote on the defeated farm bill. Now Republican Noah Mason of Illinois, a ranking House protectionist, moved to send the trade bill back to the Ways and Means Committee with instructions to approve only a one-year extension of the obsolete Reciprocal Trade Act. Mason's proposal was the most extreme of any suggested against the bill, and a less destructive motion might well have carried.

The House fell into hushed silence as the clerk called the roll. But Mason's extreme motion did not unify the Republicans, and it was voted down by 253 to 171--with the help of 43 Republicans.

Then the House, by an even wider margin (including Republican Floor Leader Charles Halleck and his lieutenants), passed the bill designed to strengthen the U.S. for the economic challenges of the years to come.

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