Foreign-Aid Victory

Jenner is Jenner and Morse is Morse, and never the twain should meet. But last week Oregon's eyebrowed, highbrowed, liberal Democrat Wayne Morse rose in the Senate to blast the $3.6 billion foreign-aid authorization bill and found himself shoulder to shoulder not only with those strapping Neanderthal Republicans, Indiana's Bill Jenner and Nevada's Molly Malone, but with Georgia Democrat Herman Talmadge too. And when the bill came to a vote after three days of debate, they stood together as part of a notable rear-view rear guard of 25 (see box), roundly beaten by a bipartisan majority of 57.

Actually, neither Morse nor Talmadge nor any of their crew had a wisp of a chance of defeating the bill, which came out of Theodore Francis Green's Foreign Relations Committee with heavy bipartisan backing. The committee refused to authorize only $227 million of the $3.8 billion appropriation sought by the Administration. Moreover, it even approved the President's request for an economic-development fund of indefinite duration, thus setting a new pattern for economic development funds (TIME, June 3). When the measure reached the Senate, both Minority Leader William Fife Knowland and Majority Leader Lyndon Baines Johnson quickly endorsed it. Said Texan Johnson: "This is the kind of philosophy that will get other nations off their backs--and off our taxpayers' backs."

Pikes & Pensions. But to erstwhile foreign-aid defender Wayne Morse, the carefully considered bill was no more than "a gigantic hoax on the Senate and the people." To a chamber dotted with only half a dozen members, Morse proclaimed in his best monotone: "This country does not need, and should not seek, perpetual dependents anywhere in the world . . . Aid in this pattern may help to prop up an irresponsible government which professes friendship for this country and natters the administrators of this program. Sooner or later, however, the people of this country will pay a terrible price for this unmitigated folly." Herman Talmadge settled for less erudition and more emotion. Warming up to the spellbinding oratory that used to send his Georgia wool hats whooping and stomping, the freshman Senator spelled out what he declared to be specific flaws. "While many of our farmers cannot get their crops to market over muddy roads," said Farmer Talmadge, "we build a huge six-lane turnpike in Portugal to a gambling resort. We have sent opera singers to Italy and ultraviolet-ray lamps to India. And we have set up a pension program for overage Chinese Nationalist soldiers."

Problems & Precedent. .Talmadge's stem-winding oratory was deflated by Minnesota's Hubert Humphrey, whose Middle Eastern trip last month made him a firmer advocate of Eisenhower foreign policy. "If one wishes to engage in finding very little blisters on the trunk of the great oak tree," said Democrat Humphrey, "it is possible to make it appear that the oak is almost ready to collapse, or that it never should have been a tree in the first place. But if one considers the totality of the program and does not concentrate on a little error here or a little mistake there, one finds a rather encouraging picture."

The Senate's endorsement of the authorization bill was an important Eisenhower victory because the bill was at the heart of the Administration's long overdue plan to give new sense and direction to foreign-aid spending. Still to come is an appropriations measure to provide the actual funds for fiscal 1958. Looking toward that, Democrat Johnson was cautious: "It may be that some downward adjustments can be made. This is a problem which we can solve when we consider the appropriations bill." But if Johnson foresaw a problem, he and his fellows also had created a precedent. By taking their stand against Morse and Talmadge during the public debate, and backing up a majority conviction with a strong vote for the authorization, the Senate had virtually pledged itself to resist meat-ax cuts when the appropriations come around.

Last week the Senate also:

P:Passed (78-0) a $3.6 billion Agricultural Department appropriation, which restored the $500 million soil-bank program slashed out by the House at the height of its economy mood. The bill goes to a Senate-House conference where the Senate version is expected to prevail.

P: Worked at a rate of more than $27 million a minute during a five-hour session to appropriate funds for 20 independent agencies, e.g., Veterans Administration, Federal Trade Commission, Federal Communications Commission. Approved also was a $2.8 billion appropriation for the Labor, and Health, Education and Welfare Departments that ran counter to economy. The bill provided $96 million less than President Eisenhower asked, $38 million more than the House approved, and contained an additional $32 million for medical research that was tacked on by Alabama's Lister Hill.

P:Approved, in the Foreign Relations Committee, U.S. membership in the Eisenhower-backed international atoms-for-peace agency, but added a single qualification despite State Department protests. If the international organization adopts any amendment of which the Senate disapproves, the U.S. must withdraw from membership.

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