CONGRESS: The House Week Dec. 19, 1927

Work Done. The U.S. Representatives:

¶Met, took oath, elected officers, notified the President and Senate, changed some rules, named committees, read the President’s Message, the President’s Budget Message, filed bills.

¶Read, debated and passed the Deficiency bill; sent it to the Senate.

¶Read and debated the Revenue Act of 1928.

Acclaimed a bill conferring the Congressional medal on Colonel Charles Augustus Lindbergh; sent it to the Senate.

Speaker. “… I had rather be Speaker of the House of Representatives than hold any other office in the gift of the American people.” So said Nicholas Longworth, Ohio Republican, after being re-elected Speaker of the House, 225 to 187, over Finis J. Garrett, Tennessee Democrat.

Gallivanting. “I would like to philosophize a bit on various matters ‘touching on and appertaining to’ the foreign relations and activities of the State Department, to cabbages and kings, to ambassadors and Americanism, to legations and lickspittles, to snobs and secretaries, and to that mess of pottage of bunk and betrayal, treachery and toadyism, falsehood and flapdoodle, insincerity and insolence, embraced under the comprehensive name of American diplomacy, for which we pay so liberally. . . .

“Recently the Mayor of the greatest city in America visited Europe and was honorably received on his tour everywhere by all except the diplomatic representatives of his own country. Our Ambassador to France . . . was represented by one Sheldon Whitehouse, who promptly put detectives on his [the Mayor’s] trail to try and get something on this Mayor who was a member of Tammany Hall, a political body not in sympathy with the party in power here in our own America.

“Think of it, brethren! . . . Rather a base and contemptible piece of diplomacy, methinks. My old college friend,* the Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s fled to the highlands of Scotland to avoid meeting the distinguished tourist. . . .

“I hate to vote away good American money for bad American diplomatic service … I honor the White House here in Washington but I should like to see the Paris Whitehouse booted out. . . .

“The old-style dollar diplomat, who sported spinach and used tobacco as a diet, is in the museum; the 1927 ambassador goes in for cigarets, safety razors, safety first, and social eminence, and is visable to the naked eyes of only those wandering Americans bearing mandates from Republican magnates. For all others—the air, the landscape, the department of the exterior. . . .

So shouted James A. Gallivan, Massachusetts Democrat, after the reading of the Deficiency Bill. Later he was unabashed by a report from Charge d’Affaires Whitehouse in Paris, denying the alleged spying on Mayor Walker of New York City, whom Mr. Gallivan, a cunning clown, denied having named by name. The outburst served merely to notify the 70th Congress that jocose Mr. Gallivan, who little resembles most Harvard men of the ’80’s, was again on hand with his alliterative eloquence, his unquenchable Americanism.

The million dollars or so asked for the State Department were voted among the Deficiency Bill’s other items, totaling some $198,916,264.91 for which the last Congress failed to provide funds.

Gun Raising. A clause of the Deficiency Bill called for $5,635,000 to modernize the U. S. S. Oklahoma and Nevada but forbade using any of the money to increase the range of their guns. Up stood Fred Albert Britten, two-fisted Illinois Republican, member of the Naval Affairs Committee. He set forth that 13 of the 18 U. S. battleships cannot shoot as far as can 20 of Britain’s ships, ten of Japan’s; that to elevate the Oklahoma and Nevada guns to give them the same range as British and Japanese guns, would not contravene the spirit of the Washington Naval Disarmament Treaty (1923). Other members argued that it would contravene. The House voted 215 to 75 to raise the guns, voting $940,000 additional for the purpose, as the Navy Department had planned and hoped.

Tax Cutting. After weeks of work, the Ways & Means Committee reported a Revenue Act of 1928 designed to cut U. S. citizens’ taxes by $232,735,000 net. Secretary Mellon had recommended a cut of only 225 millions. Democrats and the U. S. Chamber of Commerce had agitated for a cut of 400 millions or more. The House settled itself to scrutinize the bill, to debate its features.

The chief features were:

1) Reducing the 13½% corporation income tax to 11½%.

2) Increasing the $2,000 credit on corporation incomes of $25,000 or less, to $3,000.

3) Extending the admissions exemption (at present, 75-cent tickets or cheaper are exempt) to $1 admissions.

4) Reducing the 10% club-dues tax to 5%.

5) Reducing the 3% factory-sales tax on automobiles to 1½%.

6) Repealing the tax on cereal beverages; reducing taxes on wines.

7) Repealing the tax on sales of produce; reducing the stamp tax on capital stock transactions from two to one cent per $100.

8) Withholding at source the tax on tax-free covenant bonds (an increase in revenue).

9) Levying a 25% tax on prize fight admissions of $5 or more.

10) Raising the tax on foreign-built boats.

Taxation with representation having been what the Fathers fought for, the tax debate took precedence over all others. The party leaders, William Raymond Green (Iowa) of the Republicans, John Nance Garner (Texas) of the Democrats, led off with set speeches.

Said Mr. Green: “Reduction in taxation is a much more pleasant task than increasing it. I sincerely hope we may never have to increase taxation. Yet, if we had yielded to the importunities of many who appeared before us . . .!”

Said Mr. Garner: “I want to predict right now that after this bill goes to the Senate and comes back to the House in conference, it will carry reductions of between $400,000,000 and $500,000,000. … We must have a little steel down the back of the House conferees and maintain the bill we finally pass. … I haven’t the slightest fear but that reductions can go between $300,000,000 and $350,000,000 and still have a surplus in 1929 of $200,000,000.”

Bills, Bills, Bills. The numbers on the bills filed in the House passed well beyond 6,700 before the first week of the 70th Congress was out. “Congressional Record” was flooded with entries like the following:

“Also, a bill (H. R. 3,589) granting an increase of pension to Sarah Bottle; to the Committee on Invalid Pensions.”

“By Mr. Tucker: A bill. (H. R. 5,340) granting permission to Lieut. Col. Harry N. Cootes, United States Army, to accept certain decorations tendered him; to the Committee on Foreign Affairs.”

“By Mr. Schafer: A bill (H. R. 6,098) to disclose interest of and to regulate lobbyists who attempt to procure the passage or defeat of any measure before the Congress of the United States; to the Committee on the Judiciary.”

Some bills are automatic, framed by the House Clerks in response to routine claims. Some bills are small duties performed by Representatives as a matter of course. A third class of bills embody ideas motivated by varying degrees of political self-interest or social philosophy. Examples of this third class of bills in the current batch before the House are bills:

By Mr. Celler of New York to re peal the prohibition of interstate shipment of prize fight films.

By Mr. Kindred of New York, “to promote temperance in the United States” by repealing the Volstead act.*

By Mr. Blanton of Texas, himself a booming and persistent orator, to punish persons who proclaim or “cry out” disturbingly in the District of Columbia.

The Budget. From President Coolidge to the House came the proposed Budget for fiscal 1929. The total cost of running the U. S. Government (including the costly Post Office Department) from June 30, 1928 to June 30, 1929, was estimated at $4,258,793,765 —an increase of $118,649,219 over the appropriations for fiscal 1928. The Appropriation Committee took this Budget home to. study it.

Flood Control. From President Coolidge to the House came the Army engineers’ report on how to control Mississippi floods, together with counsel from the President as to how the costs should be shared. The Army’s plan called for setting back some levees, heightening others; for flood-ways and spillways between Cairo, Ill., and New Orleans; for channel stabilization. It postponed treatment of the Mississippi’s tributaries. It would cost $296,400,000 over a period of ten years. Of this, $111,000,000 would be borne by the U. S. entirely. The other $185,400,000 would be strictly for flood control. President Coolidge recommended that the U. S. pay 80% of this latter sum, leaving the states affected $37,080,000 to raise among themselves. This local expense would amount to 30 cents per acre per annum for ten years on land valued at an average of $200 per acre. . . . The report went to the Flood Control Committee to be turned into a bill.

* The Ambassador attended Harvard. And so did the man who is talking.

* In the last Congress, 60 members of the so-called “wet block,” introduced similar bills and block” spoke this for session is them. J. Leader Charles of the “wet Linthicum, Baltimore, Democrat.