Sugar-Coated Bill

Any well-ordered family has an obligation to take care of its poor relations. The U.S. Government, says the 1946 Employment Act, has a duty to do everything in its power to provide "useful employment opportunities for those who are able, willing, and seeking to work." Thus, when the problem of the depressed areas came before the House of Representatives last week, there was no question of the national obligation to help; the debate centered on how to help, and how much aid to give to the pockets of distress. Both the Republicans and the Democrats offered area-redevelopment bills, and the difference between them turned on $175 million worth of undiluted politics.

The $394-million Administration bill was similar in most respects to the G.O.P. substitute, offering money for job retraining and low-interest loans for plant rehabilitation and as inducements to new industries to move to the depressed areas. The big difference was in the sugar-coating on the Democratic pill: $100 million in loans for depressed rural areas to be used, at local option, either for industrialization or to promote tourism; and $75 million in grants for public improvements in rundown communities that cannot raise bond issues. Both items were as certain as hushpuppies to attract Southern votes, and in case anyone missed the point, a large map was set up in the Speaker's lobby, locating the nation's depressed rural areas. Almost all of them were concentrated in the South and the border states.

"Butcher." The Republican bill, sponsored by New Jersey's Bill Widnall, ignored the Southern farmers. Instead, Widnall went after the votes of Northern Democrats from industrial towns, proposed an extra $50 million in industrial loans and upped the Democrats' job-retraining ante by $5,500,000. His strategy failed completely. Speaking against the Republican substitute, Alabama's Albert Rains was bluntly candid: Without rural aid, he said, the Widnall substitute "seeks to butcher the bill completely . . . Anybody here knows that that would beat this bill." He was right. On the roll-call votes, the Southerners deserted their coalition with the Republicans, helped clobber the Widnall substitute, 291-125. The Northern Democrats stuck to the party. And when the Administration bill came up, it was passed easily, with the aid of a large Southern drawl, 250-167. Next week the few differences between the House bill and a Senate version (notably the method of financing area redevelopment) will be resolved in conference.

The depressed-areas bill was a major victory for John Kennedy--especially satisfying after the one-vote defeat that the G.O.P.-Southern coalition handed him a week earlier on his minimum wage bill. It also fulfilled a pledge that he had made a year ago, during the West Virginia primary, when he saw for the first time the distress of the miners of Appalachia. Whether or not the bill will bring more than temporary easement to the enclaves of distress is a question for the economists to debate and for time to decide.

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