Daily Double

Prosperity, especially if it really exists, is a splendid theme for an incumbent President to stress in his campaign for reelection. But how much nicer if he can also run against poverty, even if it's found only in pockets.

That prosperity cum poverty parlay is, of course, the election-year daily double that President Johnson hopes to have pay off, and last week he took a substantive stride in the direction of the cashier's window. After two days of stormy debate, the Senate cut Johnson's anti-poverty program by only $15 million, to $947.5 million, and passed it by a resounding roll-call vote of 62 to 33. Fifty-two Democrats and ten liberal Republicans voted for the measure, while eleven Democrats, mostly Southern, and 22 Republicans, led by Barry Goldwater, cried no.

As approved by the Senate, the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, under the proposed aegis of Peace Corps Director Sargent Shriver, provides for a work-training program aimed at stemming the growing school-dropout population, a work-study program to help needy college students, a $340 million fund to aid localities in their own anti-poverty schemes, and money for rural-poverty loans and small-business loans. The only major Senate amendment was one introduced by Florida's Democratic Senator George Smathers. It was a sort of concession to states' rights forces, and gave Governors the power to veto youth-camp programs within their borders. Next action will come from the House, which is scheduled to report the Administration bill out of the Rules Committee this week. The prognosis was for much tougher going there than in the Senate.

In a spurt of uncommon activity, the Congress last week also:

>Passed, in the Senate, a $207 million pay increase for military personnel. Most servicemen will get 2.5% pay hikes, but officers with less than two years of service will get an 8.5% raise. House passage is virtually certain.

> Passed, in the House, the most far-reaching land-and water-conservation bill devised since the establishment of the National Park Service in 1916. The program provides the states with $180 million annually for ten years. Most of the money would be used for matching grants to encourage development of outdoor recreational facilities. The bill now goes to the Senate, which may not get around to it before adjournment.

> Passed, in the House, a $287.6 million program to remedy the shortage of trained nurses, of which the nation has only 550,000. The money will go to training schools and nursing students in need of scholarships or loans, in the hope that the number of nurses will thereby be increased to 680,000 by 1970. The Senate will probably approve the bill.

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