Deadlock Broken

The 16-months-old Tariff Bill went back into the Senate again last week, where regular Republicans gambled on its life and won.

Last autumn the Democratic-Progressive coalition voted into the measure the Export Debenture Plan and a provision taking from the President his power to flex rates 50%. Later the Senate, passing the Bill, sent it to conference with the House with instructions to its conferees not to compromise. The House conferees returned to their body and received a mandate to reject the Debenture and non-flexibility (TIME, May 12). Because--their hands were tied, the Senate conferees were stalemated.

Last week they returned to the Senate where Generalissimo Reed Smoot asked that they be released from their instructions, that the Senate recede from its demand for these two controverted items. He warned that the House and the White House would not relax their opposition and that, unless the Senate changed front, the Tariff Bill was as "dead as Julius Caesar."

For the vote Senators were summoned from the stump and the sick bed. Democrats flayed the House for trying to dictate to the Senate, while Speaker Longworth and other potent Representatives stood along the chamber wall sombrely listening. First to a vote was the Debenture. Result: 43-10-41 in favor of recession. A dozen insurgent Republicans and six pro-tariff Democrats left their parties on this issue.

Next came the vote on flexibility. Result: 42-to-42. Amid an awful hush Vice President Curtis broke the tie, cast his vote against non-flexibility. The Tariff Bill went back to conference with the House where a quick agreement was anticipated.

The threat of a Democrat filibuster against the Senate's final acceptance of a patchwork measure loomed when Mississippi's Senator Pat Harrison exclaimed: "It'll be a long time before you get this Bill. I'd want nothing better than the responsibility for killing this legislation."

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