The Shears

In the House offices and cloakroom last week, members bandied a forgotten name. This scissorbill from Missouri, they said, was beginning to sound like Samuel Jackson Randall. Handsome Sam Randall was chairman of the House Appropriations Committee in the Grant Administration--and he was something to summon up. His committee grabbed so much power that it controlled legislation just by loosening and tightening the Government purse strings.

Since then, rules have shorn the Appropriations Committee of much of that power, but Congressmen looked at its doings last week with a wary eye. Under the chairmanship of Clarence Cannon, dean of the Missouri delegation in the House, the committee had whacked off $576 million from the First Deficiency Appropriation Bill, including:

P: $24 million from veterans' housing.

P: $158 million from veterans' hospitals.

P: $128 million from navigation and flood control.

P: $2,400,000 from estimated NLRB requirements, with the observation that the taking of strike votes under the wartime Smith-Connally Act is an outdated activity.

With the last observation the House was in agreement: NLRB was still without the prospect of strike-vote funds this week. But, rising in wrath, the House restored more than $300 million of the funds its committee had knocked out, including all the veterans' appropriations and all but $6 million of flood-control funds.

Sam Randall had had his wings clipped by the 49th Congress. The 79th was clicking its shears at Clarence Cannon's committee.

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