Pond Sings

Like frogs in spring, last week, no sooner had Representative Emanuel Celler been given a chance to croak for his Government Broadcasting Bill (TIME, May 16) than the whole Congressional swamp sang out for radio legislation. As soon as Chairman Carl Vinson of the House Naval Affairs Committee announced War, Navy and Interior Department endorsement for the Celler Bill, indicated that plans for a Government station to combat Fascist propaganda in South America had White House backing, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Key Pittman and Senator William E. Borah added their endorsements.

But with hearings on the Celler Bill scheduled for this week, Senator Bone's Interstate Commerce subcommittee beat the lower house to the punch by opening rival hearings on the Chavez-McAdoo Government Station Bill. The proposal is similar to the Celler Bill, except that it places the station in San Diego, Calif.; jumps Representative Celler's $700,000 construction and $50,000 maintenance ante to $3,000,000 and $100,000; omits specific provisions for domestic broadcasting; gives the Secretary of State responsibility for programs.

Interest in the Senate hearings was so slight, however, that Senator Bone was the only member of his subcommittee present. Undaunted, Dennis Chavez, whom Co-Sponsor William Gibbs McAdoo credits with originating the bill, emphasized the importance of San Diego as the station site. He explained that San Diego would click with Latin-American audiences on account of its Spanish name, that a station at the San Diego Naval Base would be useful to the Navy.

Naval Lieutenant Commander Jennings Bryan Dow scored heavily for the Celler Bill's proposed Washington location when he testified that transmission of Washing ton programs to San Diego for Pan-American broadcasting would add $600,000 annual line charges to operating costs.

Aloof from the geographical battle, Representative Maury Maverick threw into the House hopper a brand-new bill to establish in the State Department an Institute of Friendly American Relations with part of its job the operation of a Government station for broadcasting to the U. S. and other American republics. The Maverick Bill specifies neither location nor cost.

Investigations of the radio industry and the FCC took a forward step during the week when the Senate Audit & Control Committee lifted Senator Wallace Humphrey White Jr.'s all-inclusive broadcasting investigation demand out of storage by earmarking $25,000 for the probe. And Texas' Representative William Doddridge McFarlane renewed in the House his ten-month-old demand for a radio monopoly investigation. He freshened up his act by charging that two unnamed former U. S. Senators had taken bribes. Mr. McFarlane wants to reopen an old antitrust suit against the Bell System and RCA and its subsidiaries. The suit was settled by 1932 amendment of the companies' wire service and radio manufacturing agreements.

Representative of a sparsely populated northwest Texas district, Congressman McFarlane has a great bitterness against power companies, the radio chains and the press. He has charged repeatedly in speeches that a broadcasting company has subjected him to censorship, charges further that NBC, CBS and MBS have monopolistic control of all clear broadcasting channels.

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