Saturday Night & After

For the most part everyone, though ill-tempered, was too tired to make serious trouble. In the Speaker's Lobby Representative Kramer of California made a lunge at Representative Maverick of Texas. In the President's Room Senator McKellar took a resentful swing at a newshawk. On the floor Senator Bennett Clark with doubled fists rushed Senator Millard Tydings but was restrained before he got to him. Weary men munched sandwiches on the floor, bottles passed in the cloak rooms, and the Nation's legislative business got done as it never had before in 1935. With satisfaction and unanimity Speaker Byrns and Senator Robinson predicted that Congress would close Saturday night.

Under such conditions the Alcohol Control Bill, the Public Utility Bill, the Gold-Clause Bill, earlier pronounced dead, were successfully revived and passed (see p. 12). An appropriation of $16,000 for the expenses of a Grand Army of the Republic convention in Washington was cheerfully passed, though the G. A. R. intended holding no such convention. Not until the smell of pork reached Congressional nostrils did matters start to get out of hand.

First Pig Sticking. The House spent one uproarious night last week in a free-for-all over a $370,000,000 omnibus Flood Control Bill which was another name for Rivers & Harbors, which was another name for political pork. Next day the Senate Commerce Committee considered the bill for about an hour, rolled enough more logs to boost the total to a round $500,000,000. That night, with both Houses working until midnight, the Senate planned to hold its roast pork dinner. But its plans were shattered by Maryland's Senator Tydings, who, though no Jew, has scruples against pork. He started to talk, found himself in an ebullient mood and poured his heart out over each item in the bill. Enthralled the Senate listened. Merry Tydings:

"Rutland, Vt., is to get $49,000. That is for the construction of dikes up there. You know, Vermont very much resembles Holland. It is low, flat country. They have to have a lot of dikes up there or the sea will come in and absolutely wipe Vermont off the face of the earth. "Then I think of my noble friend, who now rises,-o sticking his finger in the hole in the dike to save the country. ..."

After two and a half hours the Senate gave in to the Tydings filibuster and flood control was sent back to committee. But not until Saturday when the motion to adjourn at midnight had already been passed, did the pork and no-pork issue grow serious. The last "must" measure of the session, the Third Deficiency Bill appropriating $93,000,000 to pay the first ten months of Social Security and various lesser items, was before the Senate when small, snappy Senator Byrnes of South Carolina uprose in wrath. Outraged by AAA's offering Southern farmers only 9-c- instead of 12-c- per Ib. loans on their 1935 cotton, he proposed an amendment requiring a 12-c- cotton loan. Shoulder to shoulder with the cotton bloc stood the wheat bloc proposing a 90-c- a bushel loan to wheat growers. Together they voted both amendments into the Deficiency Bill. Then came a rude shock. Small, grey-haired Chairman James Paul Buchanan of the House Appropriations Committee would not permit a conference on the Senate amendments.

The Rock of Buchanan. When Vice President Garner was Speaker he used to delegate his Compatriot James Buchanan of Brenham, Tex. to perform many of his strategies on the floor of the House. When Tennessee's Byrns was named Speaker, Oldster Buchanan took over Byrns' old job as Chairman of Appropriations--a tough man for a tough job. For "Buck" Buchanan is the kind of man his colleagues do not jostle. Having just footed up the total of the session's expenditures, over $10,000,000.000, an all-time high, he was feeling gruff towards porksters. He told the Senate's envoys that, so far as he was concerned, the whole Deficiency Bill could fail before the House had a chance to consider 12-c- if cotton and 90-c- wheat loans. Aghast, the Senators pointed out that if the bill failed the Social Security Board could not function.

Said Representative Buchanan laconically: "We got along for 143 years without a Social Security Board."

Senator Harrison and other prime Senate persuaders appealed to him. He would not budge. From 9:00 p. m. Saturday on, the House idled while the Senate was in its customary furor. Senators bandied the charge that the House would have to be responsible for cotton and wheat. Grim little "Buck" Buchanan was the only Congressman who made a pilgrimage to the White House. The President was no more anxious than the House to take the onus of denying two fat slices of pork to two important groups of farmers. Mr. Buchanan obligingly said nothing of what happened at the White House, but remained solid as a rock. "I can stay here as long as those Senators," he told newshawks. "Those damned amendments would cost more than $500,000,000 a year. If we are going to make wheat and cotton loans, why not make loans on everything including sorghum molasses and onions? Would I accept the Senate amendments? Hell, no!

He did not have to. On Monday the Administration, shrewdly gauging Congressional weariness, offered a compromise. The cotton loans would be upped from 9(-- to 10-c- per Ib.; the difference between 10-c- and 12-c- would be paid to the cotton growers; this 2-c- subsidy would be paid at time of sale instead of next January, and at the prevailing spot price instead of the average price between September and January. The proposed 90-c- wheat loans would be abandoned. At first blush this seemed eminently satisfactory to all hands. In the Senate, Floor Leader Robinson asked unanimous consent to reconsider the vote on the deficiency bill, the purpose being to knock off the loan amendments, and thus release the bill from the House. It was a fine chance for someone to do something spectacular, and time and tempers were growing shorter.

Up rose Senator Huey Pierce Long of Louisiana, his hair in his eyes, his arms waving. Roared he: "I object!"

Instantly alarm spread over Senate faces. No one could say what Huey Long was trying to do. It quickly became clear.

"You've done worse than make a legislative trade,'' he shouted. "You've dropped the wheat people so they can't have their day in court. This may be my swan song."

It was obvious that the Senator intended to filibuster until midnight for which adjournment was set. Half a dozen Senators protested. Washington's Schwellenbach, ringleader of the "freshman" group who made the Kingfish toe the mark during his previous filibuster (TIME., June 24), sat down behind him to harry him, see that he observed the rules. Huey Long rambled on & on, stalking up and down, heeding no pleas, no sarcasms. He called the House "435 dumbbells," was called to order. Democratic leaders conferred on stopping the clock until Huey Long was exhausted, finally decided not to.

At midnight he was hoarse but still ranting. Word came that the House had adjourned. Senator Long yielded to a Senate resolution for adjournment, sat down, mopped his brow. The Senate adjourned. The $93.000,000 deficiency bill, which was to pay for the first months of Social Security, was dead.

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