Work Done

"Without objection the amendment is agreed. . . . Without objection the amendment is agreed to. . . ."

Chanting this refrain as he has been doing almost incessantly for the past fortnight in the effort to hurry the U. S. Senate to the end of its year's business Vice President Garner was suddenly interrupted late one afternoon last week. On the point of putting through, without debate, a bill to plug income-tax loopholes, the Vice President found himself obliged by Senate rules to give the floor to Lewis Schwellenbach of Washington, who said:

"Mr. President, I do not feel that this body, out of fairness to itself, can permit the passage of this important piece of legislation without some consideration. . . . Personally, I should like to have an opportunity to take this bill home tonight and study it. . . . Probably there is not one chance in a hundred that I will have any objection to the bill tomorrow but . . . unless there is a willingness . . . to permit it to go over . . . I feel it will be necessary for me to talk for a considerable length of time upon other subjects. . . ."

If a rabbit had suddenly run across the Senate floor, Vice President Garner, whose white eyebrows make him look perpetually astonished anyway, could not have looked more surprised. Senator Schwellenbach is one of the New Deal's stanchest upholders. For him to threaten a filibuster against an Administration bill was almost beyond understanding. A stickler for the rules, the Vice President let the bill go over till the next day.

As Senator Schwellenbach--whose objection to the manner of the bill's passage was applauded by most of his confreres--had predicted, he found nothing wrong with the bill itself. Next day it passed without objection. The incident nonetheless remained noteworthy. It was the only serious interruption in a week which Congress spent in going over formidable legislative jumps with almost alarming ease. Major bills which were finally enacted:

Tax Loopholes. That Senator Schwellenbach felt he needed time to study the Tax Loophole Bill last week was by no means unnatural. It is designed to keep the shrewdest tax lawyers in the U. ,S. up long after bedtime, and to make paying taxes, if only on the ground of the effort involved in dodging them, an economical procedure. Major provisions of the bill:

Sixty-five to 75% levies on undistributed adjusted net income of personal holding companies (including yachts, racing stables, estates and foreign corporations) ; outlawing "wash sales," for income-tax deductions, between corporations 50%-owned by the same, individual or between any corporations and a personal holding corporation; eliminating $1,000 income-tax exemption for trusts; .normal taxes, instead of a flat 10% on nonresident aliens' incomes over $21,600.

Third Deficiency. In 1937, Congress appropriated a total of $9,400,000,000. Not counting last year's $2,237,000,000 for paying the veterans' bonus, this was $1,290,000,000 more than in 1936. Final item of the 1937 total was last week's Third Deficiency Bill of $87,622,634. Passage of the bill included a victory for the House Liberal bloc headed by Texas' noisy Maury Maverick, who wanted $20,000,000 for an experimental Government farm tenancy program, $1,800,000 for the National Labor Relations Board, got both.

Housing. Crucial point of the Wagner-Steagall Bill--for slum clearance in U. S. cities, a low-cost housing program to be run by the Department of the Interior, paid for by a Federal bond issue--was the price of the houses. Last week's compromise: $5,000 per four-room unit in cities over 500,000. $4,000 per four-room unit elsewhere. -

Sugar. Passed by Senate & House last fortnight, the Jones Sugar Bill, indefinitely restricting imports of refined sugar from Puerto Rico and Hawaii, faced a sure veto. Last week's compromise, which made the veto problematical: territorial quotas on refined sugar to expire in 1940. unless Congress decides otherwise in the meantime.

Also ready for the President's signature after last week's final rush of legislation were bills to:

P: Permit peacetime exports of helium.

P: Provide for an unemployment census by voluntary registration.

P: Alter methods of collecting Panama Canal tolls.

P: Make larceny or burglary of national banks a Federal offense.

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