216-to-198

"Aleshire?" . . . "No" . . . "Allen of Illinois?" . . . "Aye" . . . "Allen of Delaware?" . . . "Aye". . . .

At 9:10 one evening last week, as the clerk of the House of Representatives thus started to call the roll of members, a deathlike silence spread through the chambers, enveloped the normally chattering galleries. The House was voting on a motion to recommit the Black-Connery Wages & Hours Bill to the Labor Committee "for further study and revision." Judging from previous experience, most Congressmen felt that if the bill was sent back to committee, it would probably never reemerge. After five long weeks of fruitless wrangling, Congress was finally taking its first conclusive action on one of the four items which Franklin Roosevelt had called it into extraordinary session to pass.

As the roll call proceeded, Ayes and Noes seesawed so regularly that when the clerk reached the last name--Zimmerman of Missouri--almost nobody was sure who had won. Last of all the clerk called the Speaker, who is required to vote only in case of a tie. When Alabama's William Bankhead answered loudly "No!", there was a rattle of applause, then silence until the vote was counted. A few moments later, Speaker Bankhead announced the result of one of the sharpest legislative battles since the New Deal began. Said he: "Those voting Aye, 216; No, 198. The bill is recommitted to the Labor Committee."

Back of last week's dramatic finale lay an extraordinary seven-month struggle. Introduced in the Senate by Alabama's Hugo LaFayette Black and in the House by Massachusetts' late William P. Connery Jr., the Wages & Hours Bill had the major aim of setting up an authority to impose on U. S. industry minimum wages & maximum hours of labor. The Senate passed it last July, but in the House it was held up by a hostile Rules Committee until a majority petition to discharge it was completed three weeks ago. Last week, by the time that the bill reached its final test, two developments had reduced its 9 chances of passage. One was Recession, which made Congress wary of any legislation which put a new burden upon Business. The other was the discovery that no organized group, including Labor whom it was supposed to benefit, was particularly eager for the bill to pass.

The South, where living conditions and wage rates are lower than in the North, was cast by nature in the role of antagonist to wage-&-hour legislation. Hence last week's fight was conducted mainly along sectional lines. Leaders of the opposition were Sam McReynolds of Chattanooga, who predicted that the Bill would "put the life and death struggle of industry in the hands of Madam Perkins," and Martin Dies of Orange, Tex. who said: "Let me ask you boys from the North this. . . . Why have you set yourselves up as arbiters to undertake to say to us that our living conditions are not proper and do not constitute the standard of living that you seem to think we should have?" He sat down amid a chorus of enthusiastic rebel yells.

Lawrence Connery of Lynn, Mass., elected to serve the unexpired term of his late brother William who sponsored the bill, had his own caustic comment on the proceedings. He proposed that the Black-Connery Bill's name be changed, because, altered by a host of amendments since its introduction, it was no longer "in accord with Billy Connery's aims."

Said Michigan's Representative Michener: "I take it you would leave the bill named'The Black Bill?' "

Replied Mr. Connery: "I have no objection to that. . . ."

Although Majority Leader Sam Rayburn and the Labor Committee's Chairman Mary T. Norton were at first confident that they had enough votes to pass it, straws soon appeared in the wind. The House voted down a substitute bill suggested by A. F. of L.'s President William Green, calling for a flat minimum of 40-c- an hour and a flat maximum of 40 hours a week, entrusting the law's administration to the Department of Justice instead of to the Department of Labor. (The Senate had proposed a five-man board.) Day after his substitute failed, Mr. Green sent identical telegrams to all House members asking them to vote for recommittal of the Black-Connery Bill. To members of Congress the A. F. of L., not the C. I. O., stands for Labor, and William Green's intervention was decisive.

As the Wages & Hours Bill went down to defeat, Chairman Norton remained slumped in her seat, incredulous while her fellow members gathered to congratulate her on having made a hard but losing fight. Several days later, an "unofficial House steering committee" indicated after conferring with President Roosevelt that some form of wages-&-hours legislation would be reintroduced during the regular session.

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