Death & Taxes

Last week the Congressional drive for adjournment by week's end was retarded by the death of Speaker Byrns (see above). Senate and House promptly agreed on a seven-day recess during the

Republican Convention this week, hoped for quick adjournment next week by the simple process of putting on ice all legislation which has not yet passed both Houses. Major measures slated for discard under this plan were the Wagner Housing bill, substitute Guffey Coal bill, Copeland Ship Subsidy and Pure Food & Drug bills. By the same principle, at week's end, only remaining "musts" were taxes and Relief. Easy agreement was expected on the Relief (First Deficiency) appropriation bill, which had just gone to conference. Only real threat to adjournment plans was the possibility of a prolonged conference wrangle over the tax bill, passed by the Senate last week with the understanding that many a compromise would be made between the sharply differing House and Senate terms. Meantime, swept along on the adjournment tide to final approval by both Houses and submission to President Roosevelt were:

P:The Hayden-Cartwright bill authorizing $486,000,000 to continue Federal road building in 1938-39.

P:The Commodity Exchange Control bill regulating speculative trading in grain, cotton, rice, mill feeds, potatoes, butter and eggs.

P:The $526,546.532 Naval Supply bill, biggest in peacetime history.

P:A bill giving the Virgin Islands a measure of home rule, including universal suffrage, a territorial legislature.

P:Bills creating nine new Federal district judgeships in Missouri, Oklahoma, West Virginia and New York.

P:A bill authorizing the Government to pay the equivalent of local taxes on its low-cost housing projects, fix rents lower than previously required.

P:The Omnibus Flood Control bill, authorizing $320,000,000 for reservoirs, dams, levees and spillways throughout the land; and a complementary $272,000,000 bill, sponsored by Louisiana's Overton, for flood control in the lower Mississippi Valley. Bursting with political pork, the Omnibus bill was passed by the House four days before adjournment last August, filibustered to death in the Senate by Maryland's Tydings. Revived by the floods of last March, it was pared of its local favors by a stern economy order from President Roosevelt. Called by Senator Copeland "the first porkless water bill ever passed in the history of Congress," it requires payment of land and damage costs by States or localities, approval of every project by the War Department's tough-minded Board of Engineers for Rivers & Harbors.

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