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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 21, 1970)
World/national news HEW money bill passed; Nixon veto threatened WASHINGTON UP) _ Defying President Nixon’s veto warning, the Senate overwhelmingly ap proved Tuesday a budget-rais ing appropriation for health and education spending. While the challenge was post ed, the bill itself remained in congressional custody, at least until Wednesday, while the Sen ate resolved a side issue. The appropriation itself, total ing more than $19.7 billion and including $1.26 billion Nixon does not want spent, was approved on a 74 to 17 rollcall vote. The White House insisted the additional funds would feed in flation, but 21 Senate Republicans broke with the administration and voted for the appropriation. All 17 votes against the meas ure, actually a compromise al - ready approved by the House, were cast by Republicans. The remaining issue: earmark ing of the nearly $2 billion the bill provides for the Office of Eco nomic Opportunity. The appropri ation itself is not involved. Must be spent The Senate wrote instructions as to how the funds are to be used; the House left it to the OEO to allocate its own funds. House-Senate negotiators never came to terms on the disagree ment. That opened the way for Sen. Gaylord Nelson (D-Wis.), to seek Senate insistence on the earmarking provision. If he wins, that item alone would be sent back to the House. If he loses, the bill will be ready for the White House. Either way, the appropriations which drew White House oppo sition have now been determined by Congress, and at the levels which drew the veto warning. Senate Democrats spent the de bate drawing the issue of home front spending for their expected confrontation with the President. Balance stressed Sen. Mike Mansfield, the Dem ocratic leader, said Congress will have to press the administration to “strike a better balance’’ in allocation of federal funds be Speaker McCormack's position threatened by influence scandal By RICHARD HARWOOD and LAURENCE STERN The Washington Post WASHINGTON—The aloof mandarin bureau cracy of the United States House of Representa tives is slowly absorbing the impact of the indict ments returned this week against Martin Sweig and Nathan Voloshen, respectively the protege and crony of speaker John McCormack. It is well known that the House is as firmly padded against the ravages of moral outrage and self-criticism as any institution in American so ciety. It is second to none in the high veneration it holds for its leaders, most particularly the 78 year-old speaker. Yet the New York indictments seem to have sent at least a tremor through the armor-plating of the House. There have been no speeches, no public shock. It has been a matter of almost sub liminal subtlety. This is how one student of the House described the process. INDIFFERENT—UPSET—FURIOUS “The people who were furious at the speaker are now more furious; those who were upset are now furious; those who were indifferent are now upset,” he explained. It is still, however, too early to discern the full brunt of the response. No one can relish the act of attacking the elderly speaker, who has spent more than half of his days in the House and who has given it his intense, if often undiscriminating, devotion through all those years. It is especially tragic that such a seedy scandal should befall McCormack in his twilight years. If the indictments are soundly based, the speak er’s office, his phones, his staff and his name had become manipulative tools in an influence-peddling apparatus that tainted government agencies and often did little more for clients than lighten their pocketbooks. THE WRONG IMAGERY . . Unfortunately the Sweig-Voloshen affair sup plies the wrong imagery for the tragic story of McCormack’s speakership. Under his tenure the arteries have hardened and a spiritual listlessness has settled over the House. The whole institution has been affected, veterans and freshmen, liberals and conservatives. Democrats and Republicans. In this atmosphere special legislative fiefdoms have flourished and it is not surprising that, to a greater degree than ever, the House should have become a happy hunting ground for special interest pleaders. Even a proper establishmentarian like Rep. George Mahon (D-Tex.), was moved in an execu tive session to describe the work habits of the chamber as sloppy, lazy and dismal. Mahon made those remarks shortly before the end of the year at a closed hearing of the legislative reorganiza tion subcommittee of House rules. No sounds of rebellion broke out until the fifth year of McCormack's speakership, when Rep. Rich ard Bolling (D-Mo.) on Oct. 27, 1967 called for his resignation. A Jerry-built, last-minute chal lenge was mounted a year later by Rep. Morris Udall (D-Ariz.). But commitments had already been made and the challenger was swamped, pick ing up only 58 votes from fellow dissenters. It was hardly a contest, and when McCormack sailed into another term as speaker in the 91st Congress the expectation, both tacit and wide spread, was that this would be the last. McCORMACK TO RUN AGAIN Not until after the Sweig-Voloshen affair erupt ed last fall did McCormack announce that he would run again to succeed himself as speaker. “I don’t think he’d have run again if it hadn’t been for this case,” his nephew, Edward McCor mack, said at the time. Now the Democratic majority in the House is divided into three parts: the Dixiecrats, the machine Democrats from the North and finally the “issue-oriented” liberals, both of the knee jerk and pragmatic variety. McCormack’s support is rooted in the alliance of the first two elements. The disgruntlement and active opposition comes from the third. It was the liberals, many of them in the Demo cratic Study Group camp, who felt betrayed by McCormack’s support of the resolution affirming bipartisan backing for President Nixon’s Vietnam policies. They were also keenly annoyed by the vows of House Democratic leaders at the White House to support Mr. Nixon’s call for extension of the 10 per cent surtax. ‘FORGOTTEN HOW TO OPPOSE . . “Our leadership seems to have forgotten how to oppose,” complained one spokesman for the dis sident House Democrats. “We’ve become too con ditioned to agreeing with the White House after eight years of a Democratic presidency.” Frustration has become, over the years, the permanent life style of the Democratic liberals in the House. In part it’s the result of the iron bound procedural restraints that tradition has bequeathed in the lower chamber. But it’s also due to the historic inability of the liberals to agree among themselves on a strategy or a candi date. Los Angeles Times/Washington Post News Service 1 Something 1 for 1 everyone in the EMERALD classifieds tween American needs at home and in the defense and foreign affairs fields. “It is unfortunate that the ef forts made by the Congress to give further emphasis to the health, education and environ mental needs of this nation—to start the shift of government re sources to these vital areas — are met with the threat of a veto,” said Mansfield. Funds ‘inflationary’ Sen. Robert Griffin of Michi gan, the Republican whip, argued the administration case, calling the additional spending exces sive, misdirected and inflation ary. But a senior Republican, Sen. Norris Cotton of New Hamp shire, warned that even if a Nix on veto is sustained, the appro priations to which the adminis tration objects would undoubted ly be written into a new appro priation bill. One major administration tar get: a $600-million item for aid to schools where attendance ros ters are affected by children from nearby federal installations. NAACP challenges Carswell nomination TULSA, Okla., (AP)—A leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People said Tuesday the organization will fight President Nixon’s nomination of George Harrold Carswell to the U.S. Supreme Court. SEGREGATIONIST DECISIONS’ Bishop Stephen Gill Spottswood of Washington D.C., chairman of the NAACP board of directors, said its opposition was based on the judge’s “several decisions indicating his segregationist stance.” The bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, made his comments in appealing to the National Council of Churches to take a similar position opposing the nomination. He claimed that Judge Carswell, as a Tallahassee, Fla., District Court judge, handed down two decisions favoring delays in public school desegregation, another decision upholding public swimming segregation and another against integration of Florida refromi tories. RULINGS OVERTURNED “All these decisions were subsequently overruled by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals,” he said. He urged the council, representing 33 denominations with about 44 million members, to take a formal position against the nomina tion in view of the council’s firm position opposing segregation. The matter was to be acted on later this week at a meeting here of the council’s policy-making general board. Ripon Society blasts Mitchell's political role By WILLIAM CHAPMAN The Washington Post WASHINGTON — A Republi can organization has accused Atty. Gen. John Mitchell of allowing political considerations to shape his law enforcement policies. The Ripon Society, in an edi torial in its monthly magazine, suggests that if Mitchell “is not prepared to keep politics out of law enforcement, he can, of course, resign as attorney general or assume the more traditional political position of postmaster general.” The editorial and an accompany ing article is critical of Mitchell and Jerris Leonard, assistant at torney general in charge of the Civil Rights Division, for deci sions in the fields of civil rights and criminal law enforcement. Civil rights slowdown 'Too often last year was the justice department cast in the role of delaying and even revers T ing the great strides for equal ity by Southern Blacks,” the edi torial said. The article criticized the de partment specifically for urging a delay in the desegregation of schools in Mississippi last year. It commended the Nixon admin istration for supporting the “Phil adelphia plan,” an attempt to open up construction jobs for Blacks in Northern cities. Tighten up on wiretraps The editorial calls on Mitchell to abandon the department’s plans for preventive detention in criminal courts and to place tight er restrictions on wiretapping. It also urges him to name some one other than Leonard to in vestigate the slaying of two Black Panther Party members by Chicago police, and to prom ise investigations of any further incidents of violence involving the Panthers. Los Angeles Times/Washington Post News Service -1 i—jr .1 ..-—-w fe »■* •» » tv—rf. ■ a t “Yes, this IS Speaker M’Cormack! ... No, this is NOT someone speaking FOR the speaker! ... I AM speaking for myself!”
