PROPOSED AMENDMENTS The undersigned members of the committee therefore recommend the following amendments designed to remove the objections which we have stated. If they are adopted we hope there can be a united support for the bill and its machinery. It will then provide for an economic program which may embrace every possible policy to secure prosperity and full employment. It will provide for the submission of such a program by the President, and its consideration and analysis by a joint committee of Congress. It will do everything that can be humanly done to prevent another serious depression. We realize, like the majority, that we must do everything possible to avoid a recurrence of the conditions which existed in the thirties. With relation to the compensatory spending provisions, we recommend the two following amendments. The first eliminates the theory that all deficiencies, no matter how large, shall be made up by Federal investment and expenditure. It substitutes the idea that Federal spending shall only be a remedy to the extent that it is consistent with the needs and obligations of the Federal Government and other essential considerations of national policy. The other amendment proposes that there be no planned program which contemplates a deficit over a period of 6 years, although it may contemplate a substantial deficit in any one or more years. It suggests that deficit spending be limited by the requirement that over a sustaining period it be met by a system of taxation which, of course, must not be so heavy that it would itself reduce employment. A Amendment to S. 380 proposed by Senators Radcliffe and Taft: On page 14 strike out lines 20 to 24, inclusive, and line 25 through the word "such", and insert: (3) in furtherance of the objective of full employment and to supplement investment and expenditure by private enterprises, States, and local governments, the Federal Government shall, consistent with its needs, obligations, and other essential considerations of national policy, proceed with a comprehensive program of public works and other expenditures so planned that they can be speeded up and enlarged when other employment decreases and retarded when full employment is otherwise provided. B Amendment to S. 380 proposed by Messrs. Radcliffe and Taft: Provided, That any program of Federal investment and expenditure for the fiscal year 1948 or any subsequent fiscal year when the Nation is at peace shall be accompanied by a program of taxation designed and calculated to prevent any net increase in the national debt (other than debt incurred for self-liquidating projects and other reimbursable expenditures) over a period comprising the year in question and the ensuing 9 years, without interfering with the goal of full employment. We have had some doubt regarding the statement in section 2 (c) that "the Federal Government has the responsibility to assure continuing full employment." The word "assure" is an ambiguous word which might be interpreted to mean that a legal obligation is assumed to every man to give him a job. However, the authors of this bill have made various statements to the effect that this is not the meaning of the word and that, in effect, it is only a statement of policy. Mr. Vinson refers to it as creating a moral obligation on the Federal Government to provide jobs. Senator Murray says that it does not create a right in any individual to demand a job for himself from the Government. We have accepted these interpretations of the authorities of the bill as clarifying its interpretation, but we still feel that it may gravely mislead the public at large. Those who are not lawyers, or familiar with the technicalities of the law, are likely to feel when the bill is passed that if they cannot get jobs which they consider suitable, they can legally demand such jobs from the Federal Government. Such, of course, is not the case. Some amendment should be considered. The bill entirely neglects the situation of the farmer or the individual businessman and deals solely with those seeking employment. Adequate prices are the wages of the farmer, but no declaration is contained in the bill to protect them. We note that the American Farm Bureau Federation is definitely opposed to the bill in its present form. As the very least that might be done, we recommend that the following amendment be adopted with reference to this omission. C Amendment to S. 380 proposed by Messrs. Radcliffe and Taft: On page 12 line 26 strike out the period, insert a comma, and add: or to earn a remunerative living as an independent operator in agriculture, comcomerce, industry, or the professions. GEORGE L. RADCLIFFE. ROBERT A. TAFT. JOHN THOMAS (of Idaho). HUGH BUTLER. ARTHUR CAPPER. DOUGLAS BUCK. BOURKE B. HICKENLOOPER. [From "Congress Makes a Law"] CONFERENCE AND COMPROMISE (BY STEPHEN K. BAILEY) *** the conference committee strikes a deficient com- The institution of the conference committee is one of long standing. By the middle of the 19th century, according to Ada McCown, the custom of presenting identical reports from the committees of conference in both Houses, of granting high privilege to these conference reports, of voting upon the conference report as a whole and permitting no amendment of it, of keeping secret the discussions carried on in the meetings of the conference committee, had become established in American parliamentary practice.1 After the House of Representatives had passed its verision of H.R. 2202 on December 14, 1945, the next step in the policymaking process was the appointment, in both Houses, of conference managers to whom was given the task of attempting to work out some compromise between the Senate-passed bill and the House substitute. Technically, the task of naming managers is the responsibility of the presiding officer in each House. Actually, the respective standing committee chairman usually make recommendations which are automatically followed. As we have noted, the Senate managers were Barkley, Murdock, Taylor, and Radcliffe, Democrats; and Tobey, Taft, and Buck, Republicans. The House managers were Manasco, Cochran, and Whittington, Democrats; and Bender and Hoffman, Republicans. Senator Wagner was initially appointed to chair the conference, but he was taken sick early in January, and Senator Barkley was prevailed upon to take the New York Senator's place. PRECONFERENCE MANEUVERS The joint conference committee meetings began on January 22, 1946, just a year after the introduction of the Senate bill. Between December 14, 1945, and the conference sessions, however, the issue of the fate of S. 380 was by no means dormant. Immediately after the House vote, the liberal House sponsors went to Robert Hannegan with a passionate plea for the Democratic Party chairman to put pressure on President Truman. The feeling of the sponsors was that Truman had let them down in the House struggle, that the party had lost popular prestige among its liberal supporters as a result, and that the only way the President could recoup his lost prestige would be for him to 1 Ada C. McCown, "The Congressional Conference Committee (1927), pp. 254 and 255, quoted in George Galloway, "Congress at the Crossroads" (New York, 1946), p. 98. 2 See J. P. Chamberlain, "Legislative Processes" (New York, 1936), pp. 244 and 245. insist that the conference committee report out a strong and progressive full employment bill. Simultaneously, the continuations group of the Lib-Lab lobby submitted to Truman a statement signed by all its members, memorializing the President to veto any conference bill which did not measure up to liberal standards.3 As a result of these pressures, Truman on December 20, 1945, sent identical letters to Wagner and Manasco stating, “* * * no bill which provides substantially less than the Senate version can efficiently accomplish the purposes intended." 4 On January 3, 1946, Truman followed this up with a radio speech in which he made a "blunt request for real full employment legislation *** urging voters to let their Representatives know their sentiments." 5 Finally in his message to Congress of January 21, 1946, Truman restated his desire that "a satisfactory full employment bill such as the Senate bill now in conference between the Senate and the House" be passed." The message to Congress, which had been prepared in part by the Budget Bureau, had a number of references to the need for strong full employment legislation, and altogether represented the strongest Presidential pressure for a liberal bill which came from the White House during the entire course of the struggle over S. 380. These general pressures, however, were not supported by any concrete proposals to the conferees from the executive branch-and thereby hangs a tale. It was the intention of Secretary of the Treasury Fred Vinson to work out a compromise version of the full employment bill which might, with the weight of the President behind it, be accepted in part or as a whole by the congressional conferees. Vinson and his assistants produced such a draft which provided, among other things, for a Cabinet committee under the directorship of the Secretary of the Treasury to replace the House-proposed Council of Economic Advisers. Vinson submitted his draft to Truman, who, in turn, referred it to John Snyder for comment. Snyder, for reasons best known to himself, pigeonholed the Vinson draft, with the result that the conference committee had to proceed without the benefit of an administration-endorsed substitute. It is impossible to say whether or not an administration draft would have had much influence on the conferees, but the friction between Snyder and Vinson was certainly no help to the liberal cause. For a solid month, unified administration pressures were precluded by an internecine feud between two of the President's most powerful subordinates. In the meantime, the key congressional sponsors of the original full employment bill were not idle. They recognized the fight ahead in the conference, and they attempted to develop a flexible strategy. Roughly speaking, they were bent on preserving as much of the language and substance of the Senate bill as possible, but in line with their decision about the Hatch amendment back in September, they were also concerned with establishing a series of positions to which 3 Union for Democratic Action, "News Flash on Full Employment," No. 7 (Washington, Jan. 8, 1946). Congressional Record, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., Feb. 6, 1946, p. 1000. U.D.A., "News Flash." Message of the President on the state of the Union and transmitting the budget for 1947 (Washington, 1946), p. xxii. Ibid., see pp. vi, x, xxíî, xxiv, xxvii, xxxvii, and lvi. they might retreat without losing the major battle. What these positions were will become apparent when we proceed to the story of the conference committee in action. THE CONFERENCE COMMITTEE IN ACTION The conference action began on January 22 and ended on February 2. The sessions were held in Senator Barkley's office in the Capitol, and were fairly well attended. Barkley, Taft, Murdock, Tobey, Cochran, Whittington, and Manasco were the most faithful members, although Buck and Hoffman appeared often enough to let their colleagues know that, in the words of an early Marx brothers song, "Whatever it is, we're against it." The struggle in the conference was between Barkley and Cochran on the one hand, and Congressman Will Whittington, author of the House bill, on the other. Bertram Gross, as Wagner's special representative, was present at every meeting, as were Middleton Beaman of the House Office of Legislative Counsel and Charles Boots of the Senate Office of Legislative Counsel. A few minutes before each conference session, Gross buttonholed Barkley or Cochran or both, discussed with them the strategy of the day, gave them draft proposalssome purely for bargaining purposes and in the case of Barkley, filled in the gaps in the busy majority leader's knowledge about the history and meaning of the various sections of the bill. Beaman and Boots tried to keep track of the various agreements and disagreements in order that they might be of maximum assistance in preparing, with the aid of the respective managers, working drafts for each new conference session. Stalemate.-During the first two conference sessions, the possibility of any agreement between the House managers and the Senate managers seemed remote. Whittington outlined in detail the House objections to the Senate version of S. 380, and made it quite clear that the House managers would not accept any compromise bill which contained the words "full employment" or "the right to work," or which suggested any Government guarantee of employment, or which placed the ultimate emphasis upon Federal spending. Barkley, for the Senate managers, on the other hand, issued a blast against the House substitute and reminded the conferees of the President's warning that only something close to the Senate version would be acceptable to him. Basing his remarks on an analysis of the House substitute prepared by Gross, Barkley outlined both the omissions and the "weaknesses" of each section of the House bill. Granted the adamant attitude of both sides, it was obvious that someone would have to retreat if the conference was to proceed. The struggle over the declaration of policy. The deadlock was broken on the third and fourth days of the conference when Gross worked out for Barkley a series of alternative policy declarations, none of which contained the term "full employment," but all of which contained the phrase "conditions under which there will be afforded useful and remunerative employment opportunities, including selfemployment, for all Americans who are willing to work and are seeking work." The nature of the first concession on the part of the Senate sponsors is important, for it illustrates the technique used by Gross all |