Hippodrome

Congressional antics in election years are traditionally clownish. Many a sense-making, God-fearing Congressman goes more than somewhat screwy in a desperate effort to avert the biennial wrath of his constituency. But last week's two-ring Congressional circus was tops.

Big Ring. The House hippodrome was the wildest show. Majority Leader Sam Rayburn, of Bonham, Tex., utterly lost control of his cageful of snarling Democrats, and Minority Leader Joe Martin, of North Attleboro, Mass., quietly turned loose his herd of trumpeting Republicans. Trampled in the confusion were the hopes of the Wild Men of the South to amend the Wage & Hour Act so drastically as to make it almost inoperative.

Wildest man was hot-eyed Eugene ("Goober") Cox of Camilla, Ga., Tory hatchetman who dominates the House Rules Committee. Mr. Cox felt the fury that comes only to those who outsmart themselves. Intent on sabotaging the act, he rammed to the floor three sets of amendments sponsored by Graham Barden of New Bern, N. C., which would have exempted from the law practically all workers engaged in handling agricultural products--a prospect greatly pleasing to the strawberry producers and other farmers in Mr. Barden's district.

Mr. Cox reckoned without election-year greed. Every right-thinking legislator in the House saw this as his great opportunity to prove to the important interests in his district how much he loved them. A drumfire of amendments hit the House hopper; soon the Barden Bill was riddled. Failing to recognize his brain child in the messy result, Mr. Barden urged the House to kill the monstrosity--which was mercifully done.

Then came the mild, ever-so-gentle amendments of Mrs. Mary Teresa Norton of Jersey City, N. J., buxom chairlady of the House Labor Committee. Mrs. Norton's amendments, handiwork of New Dealers, were so slight as to be imperceptible. The House jumped on the Norton amendments ravenously. So infectious was the fun that New Dealers and Republicans joined in, soon inflated the Norton bill into a balloony caricature of a law. So many workers were exempt that Representative Frank Hook of Ironwood, Mich, heckled: "You have exempted everybody but the unemployed . . . might as well do that."

Euthanasia. The work was easy; and lightly done, for while working in the Committee of the Whole only 100 members are needed for a quorum. This left the remaining 335 free to take naps, drink mineral water, tell each other lies, go to the ball game. On the seventh day of debate the House anesthetized it by sending it back to a committee pigeonhole. Republicans were content: now they can campaign this year in the country on the basis that the nasty old Democrats have refused to amend the inequities in the law. New Dealers were content: they admit only infinitesimal flaws in the law, think it needs mostly more enforcement. Only Messrs. Cox, Barden & Co. were infuriated--gone was their last chance this session to heave monkey wrenches into the law's workings.

Sideshow. The House Judiciary Committee is a solemn, stately body under the leadership of foxy old Hatton Sumners of Dallas, Tex., a shuffling old Roman. Mr. Sumners respects politics. Nothing in years has so upset him as the Hatch Act of 1939, making illegal all political activity by Federal jobholders. This year's Hatch Act, which would extend the law to apply to all State jobholders paid even in part by Federal funds, he regards with a bloodshot eye.

For almost a month Mr. Sumners had sat on the Senate-passed bill. Last week he found a new way to dispose of it. On little pieces of paper he had printed "No" and "Yes." Members of his committee had only to tear off the desired half, toss it in Mr. Sumners' crumply old Stetson. The wily old chairman announced the result: to kill the Hatch Bill, 14 votes; to report it out, 10.

This result gave Hatch-plugging John J. Dempsey of Santa Fe, N. Mex. a sharp attack of vertigo; 16 committee members had promised him to vote for the bill. Worse came: 13 members swore stoutly they had voted to report the bill. Only four admitted voting to kill, seven were noncommittal. Mr. Dempsey smelled not a rat, but an old fox; took out after Mr. Sumners, keening in a bell-like voice.

But last week's show seemed chiefly to prove that Session III of the 76th Congress was in no mood to legislate.

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