On Second Thought

As the House was debating the 1954 appropriations bill for the State, Commerce and Justice Departments last week, Brooklyn's fiery Representative John Rooney came forward with a surprise proposal. Said Democrat Rooney: the House should deny the heads of the three departments the right to fire civil servants without hearing.

The firing power was given to the Secretary of State seven years ago (chiefly to permit him to oust security risks) in an appropriations-bill rider. Three years ago it was extended to the Secretary of Commerce; the new bill proposed to include the Attorney General for the first time. Rooney and other Democrats argued that in 1953 the riders are unnecessary and dangerous because 1) all agency heads will have the power to fire security risks anyway, under the new Eisenhower loyalty and security program, and 2) the general power might be used to oust employees for patronage reasons. With Republicans lined up almost solidly for the "housecleaning" riders, Rooney & Co. were shouted down, 124-69, in a teller (non-recorded) vote.

But John Rooney was not licked. He bided his time while the powerful veterans' organization lobbyists, who feared that the firing power would upset the veterans' preference features of the civil-service law, went to work. Seventy-two minutes after the first vote, Rooney maneuvered another vote, this time by roll call. Result: the House reversed itself, took the firing power out of the bill, 181-168, and sent it along to the Senate, where Republican leaders will try to get the power back.

Last week the House (grinding out a total of 47 bills) also: P: Passed the bill continuing for three years the Federal Government's authority to prevent shipment of strategic materials to Communist-controlled countries. P: Passed a bill to authorize the entry into the United States of up to 500 children adopted overseas by U.S. service personnel or government employes, eliminating the necessity of passing an individual bill for each child.

The Senate (which acted on 79 bills): P: Passed (56-35), after five weeks and 1,250,000 words of debate, the tidelands bill to grant seaboard states title to their marginal seas to the limit of their historic boundaries, sent it back to the House. P: Passed, over strong objections by Majority Leader Robert A. Taft, a bill authorizing the Export-Import Bank to write insurance against war damage and seizure on cotton and other American products shipped to friendly countries, sent it to the House. Taft called it "a very unfortunate extension of government in business . . . out of line with everything which the Republican Party has said it was going to do."

P: Passed a bill to apply the Constitution's "full faith and credit" clause to divorces, so that decrees granted by one state will be recognized by all states. The bill's sponsor: the Senator from the divorce-mill state, Pat McCarran of Nevada. P: Repealed an old but forgotten 1890 law permitting servicemen to buy their way out of the Army for $120.

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