New Roofs for the Nation

At the other end of the Capitol, the Administration had its sweet hour of triumph.

For most of the week the House was in a minor pandemonium, with members milling around, gliding in & out of doors, haranguing one another, jostling down the aisle to have their noses counted. In the midst of what looked like a county fair, Administration forces were making good at last on a major Truman campaign promise: federal help in building homes for the country's ill-housed.

The bill before the House was almost a carbon copy of the housing bill already passed by the Senate, which had the support of many Republicans--including Robert Taft (TIME, May 2). But in the House, a group of Republicans led by Minority Leader Joe Martin and Indiana's Charlie Halleck fought the bill every inch of the way. It was, Halleck shouted, "another dangerous plunge in ... our headlong rush to overcentralization of control."

The Administration had to stave off one crippling amendment after another. Congressman Ed Rees, a Kansas lawyer-farmer, proposed to kill all mention of low-rent housing. His amendment almost got through. A standing vote on Rees's amendment went down by one vote and Rees demanded a teller count, taken by queuing up in two groups--yes or no--and marching past the counters. Rees won then by 168-165. But on a final roll-call vote, Administration forces were able to beat Rees by a bare 209-204 vote. All through these nervous moments, Speaker Sam Rayburn and Majority Leader John McCormack prowled the floor, corralling votes, ably keeping their eyes on the intricate parliamentary maneuvering.

The whole bill, as finally passed, would put billions of federal dollars into a broad attack on the problem of an underbuilt nation. Its features:

P:A slum-clearance program, to which the Government will make a direct contribution of $500 million to help finance local programs, and put up an additional $1 billion in loans.

P:A low-rent housing program, for which the Government will dole out $400 million a year--if that much is needed--for the next 40 years; 1,050,000 low-rent housing units were ordered up in the next seven years (the Senate's bill would spend only $308 million a year on 810,000 units and the House figures will undoubtedly be adjusted to that in conference). The Government will make up the difference between the artificially low rents and the actual operating costs.

P:A farmbuilding program, under which the Government in the next four years will lend farmers $250 million a year and give them $12.5 million in grants (maximum amount: $500 for any one farm building).

How much would it all cost? Twenty billion, the beaten real-estate lobby had moaned, only to be called a liar by the President. Not over $10 billion, said Harry Truman. Who was right no one yet knew.

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