Year-Round Job

What with the heat and all the steamy oratory, Congress was beginning to get that old feeling again. Congress had been hard at it for nearly eight months, and by Congress' own rules the Senators and Representatives were supposed to get five months' paid vacation a year. The House was in a mood to go home. In fact, dozens of members had already gone home. It was necessary to ask the other house's permission for adjournment, but it was traditional for permission to be given. But last week, by a vote of 58 to 25, the Senate sulkily ordered the House to stick around and help clear up the snarl of bills still wedged tight in conference committee. Then, Senators began arguing among themselves about responsibility for their own delays.

"Drop the Handkerchief." From the beginning of the session, complained Majority Leader Scott Lucas, "I learned that not much speed could be made by trying to make haste, and that we must let nature take its course in the Senate." Well, the Democrats had a 54-member majority in the Senate, didn't they, asked Indiana's Homer Capehart. Why didn't they get down to business instead of "playing politics, fooling the American people, and playing drop the handkerchief?"

"I thank the Senator for his invaluable contribution," snapped Lucas. But if it got down to cases, he wanted to point out that the Republicans had used up 57% of the debating time, not counting the Republican-abetted filibuster of the Southern Democrats over civil rights. Michigan's Homer Ferguson produced some figures to shift the blame right back to the Democrats. As he had it, the Republicans had used up only 1,563 and one-ninth pages of the Record; Democrats had used 1,612 and four-ninths.

Minority Leader Kenneth Wherry got down to the point. Was there any reason why the Senate couldn't wind up its affairs in another month? Lucas read off a list of the measures still facing the Senate: $14.9 billion worth of appropriations, reciprocal trade, MAP, a farm bill. If the Senate could dispose of all that within a month, said Lucas, "I will eat a hat from any one of the stores in the Senator's city of Omaha, Nebraska."

Parade the Mace. The fact was, Lucas told his colleagues, that Congress would have to get over its easygoing ways. "The people hired us to stay here the year round, if necessary. It is not like the good old days, when Congress could meet, spend three weeks on the tariff, pass a few appropriation bills and go home."

That might be an answer to the Senators, but the House wasn't listening. Since the Senate wouldn't agree to a formal adjournment, the House had another out: it would simply start a series of three-day recesses, which require no Senate approval. For the next four weeks. Speaker Sam Rayburn announced, only a corporal's guard would need to stay in town--someone to act as Speaker, a functionary to parade the mace (which is the symbol of House authority), and someone to move adjournment every day after the journal has been approved.

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