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
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»■* •» » tv—rf. ■ a t
“Yes, this IS Speaker M’Cormack! ... No, this is NOT someone
speaking FOR the speaker! ... I AM speaking for myself!”