The Lame Duck Session

The 78th Congress gathered in Washington this week for a session that promised to be short on legislation and long on oratory. Eighty-five lame-duck Congressmen will be having their last quack. The legislative program will be as short as the Administration can chop it, since the leadership hopes to stall most controversial matters until the presumably more sympathetic 79th Congress convenes. (Democrats, who have been inching along since June without an actual majority in the House, will gain at least 27 seats in the next Congress.)

Chief item on the calendar: Who was to blame for Pearl Harbor? Congress must approve new legislation to postpone the trials of General Short and Admiral Kimmel beyond Dec. 7, a natural conversational opening for lame-duck Representatives.

Also before the 78th Congress: extension of the War Powers Act, which gives Franklin Roosevelt his authority for rationing and priorities; freezing of the Social Security Act in 1945, to postpone the 1% automatic increase in deductions Jan. 1. Lame ducks may also have two last chances to dip into the pork barrel: upcoming is a flood-control bill, and that perennial grab bag, the rivers and harbors bill. The House will have a chance at the billion-dollar highway program, already passed by the Senate. And both House & Senate will be entitled to one round of oratory at New Deal agencies, on a deficiency appropriations bill. But the major program of Term IV, as yet unprepared in the form of legislation (Dumbarton Oaks, Bretton Woods, reconversion, etc.) will wait until after the President's address to the new Congress in January.

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