Burning Issue

The outcome of the bill to make desecration of the flag a federal offense was as predictable as the summer solstice. No less predictable was the House debate on the measure, which consumed 5 hrs. 12 min. and was almost wholly devoted to the oratorical flights that Congressmen usually relegate to the file drawer marked Independence Day. Among the bill's few critics were those who considered its proposed penalties --one year in jail, $1,000 fine, or both --too mild by half for such offenders.

"Let's deal with these buzzards!" cried South Carolina's Mendel Rivers.

Seconded Florida's James Haley: "Load a boat full of them and take them 500 miles out into the ocean and handcuff them, chain the anchor around their necks and throw them overboard."

Only when the Congressmen had talked themselves out, and passed the bill by 385 votes to 16, did they realize that the specific intent of the measure had somehow been overlooked in the patriotic talkfest. Though it had originally been framed as a response to the burning of a U.S. flag in Manhattan's Central Park last May, the bill as passed covered "publicly mutilating, defacing, defiling or trampling upon" the banner but did not in fact mention the act of flag flammation. That form of desecration will doubtless be reproscribed, with appropriate oratory, in the Senate.

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