Senate Week

Work Done. The Senate of the U. S. last week:

P: Debated the ethics of secret voting (see below).

P: Debated and passed the first Deficiency Bill carrying $75,000,000 for tax refunding. Attached was the revamped Harris amendment (see Prohibition), and the McKellar amendment providing for public hearings by a Treasury Department Committee in all tax refund cases involving more than $10,000. The Bill was returned to the House.

P: Debated the Cruiser Bill. Senator Hale, sponsor, accepted an amendment by Senator Borah favoring a restatement of the laws governing the conduct of belligerents and neutrals in war at sea, such restatement to be completed, if possible, prior to the Limitation of Armament Conference in 1931.

The looming "small navy" filibuster was abandoned but the "small navy" men declared they would fight to reduce the number of cruisers, to eliminate the time clause which provides that five cruisers a year be laid down annually for the next three years.

P: Passed a bill approving the Chicago World's Fair of 1933.

P: Adopted a joint resolution authorizing $25,000 for maintaining order during the Hoover inauguration. Said South Carolina's Blease: "It is a reflection on the American people that we have to hire policemen . . . after the magnificent Hoover vote." "We have to have more police men," added minority leader Robinson, "to take care of the Republicans." P: Ratified three treaties designed:

To check liquor smuggling from Japan to the U. S.

To provide reciprocal naturalization rules between Czechoslovakia and the U. S.

To provide a Panama-U.S. convention for the adjustment of claims by citizens of each country against the other. P: Passed a bill providing that a deported alien re-entering the U. S. thus commits a felony; sent it to the House.