Fenn v. Flu

Inertia, self-interest and red tape have for years blockaded every effort to reapportion the seats in the House of Representatives, as required by the Constitution, in conformity with the present-day population of the U. S. House seats are still held on the basis of the 1910 Census. When the House met this month, it was announced that a bloc of 100 members would, if necessary, filibuster to put through some Reapportionment bill, presumably the long-shelved measure written by Chairman E. Hart Fenn (Connecticut) of the Census Committee to reapportion on the basis of the 1930 census (TIME, Dec. 17).

It looked as though a Fenn bill might actually be reported out of committee before the holidays. But last week a new obstacle was presented. Five members of the Census Committee sent word they had the influenza--Washington's Johnson, Pennsylvania's Swick, New York's Jacobstein, Michigan's Clancy and White of Kansas. Wisconsin's Peavey and others were out of town. Without a quorum the committee could not act. For the umpteenth time Reapportionment was postponed.

If and when the question ever does reach open debate, Representative Homer Hoch of Kansas (which is threatened with losing a seat) will make a sharp but probably futile point. He will submit that House seats should be allotted, not on a basis of mass population, but on a basis of the citizens in each State, the voting population. This idea will be hotly fought by California, which stands to gain perhaps six seats in a Reapportionment based on the 1930 census. California's population, like New York's, was swelled enormously between the census of 1910 and the restrictive immigration law of 1924, by immigrants who have not yet (and in the case of California's Orientals, never can) become citizens.

Connecticut's Fenn is a patient, high-minded 72-year-oldster. Homer Hoch of Kansas is an electric, driving "youngster" of 49. It is not likely that Mr. Fenn will catch the Homer nodding but neither is it likely that the Hoch logic will persuade the big-state delegations to vote down Mr. Fenn's long-laid plan.