CONGRESS: F. O. B. Washington

Frail old Warren Hatcher heaved a sigh of relief one evening last week, put away a heavy bundle of 13 black rods surmounted by a silver eagle, and went home to dinner. And the sigh heaved by quiet Mr. Hatcher, Deputy Sergeant at Arms of the House of Representatives in charge of the Mace,* echoed the sentiments of many a U. S. citizen.

For at last, after 44 days and 1,000,000-plus words of high-and low-grade oratory, the second session of the 76th Congress was dispersing. Its achievements: 1) an historic change in the foreign policy of the U. S.; 2) a $222,000 appropriation to pay its own mileage expenses.

The Goods. To the White House last week went the leaders of the Congress to deliver the goods—the Neutrality Act that Franklin Roosevelt wanted—and see him scrawl his bold signature on it.

It had been excellent advice that ailing Pat Harrison had phoned to the White House in mid-September—to lie low, avoid dramatic moves, cajole the South. For once more the South's balance of power had been clearly demonstrated. Lacking Southern support, Franklin Roosevelt was beaten on every Congressional front in July and August (TIME, August 14); with it he won clearly in the Senate last fortnight, in the House last week—where 95 Southern votes were cast for repeal of the arms embargo, two against.

Delivery-Boys. For this victory Franklin Roosevelt could thank many a man, but particularly two—Jimmy Byrnes of South Carolina in the Senate, Lindsay Carter Warren of North Carolina in the House. Powerful Mr. Warren, a bull-built, blunt, 49-year-old country lawyer with a fine stand of black hair, may one day be Speaker of the House, notwithstanding the hankering of the White House Janizariat for John W. McCormack, of Boston's famous Ward 8. Last week Lindsay Warren, working glove-smooth with Leader Sam Rayburn of Texas, Whip Paddy Boland of Scranton, Pa., delivered the South bound-and-gagged to the New Deal. John McCormack broke a long and agonized silence on the embargo-repeal issue to deliver only a speech. In it he demanded that the U. S. recall its Ambassador from Moscow (see p. 15). Score at week's end: Warren I, McCormack 0.

Messrs. Warren & Co. followed the scheme laid down by agile-minded Jimmy Byrnes in the Senate: let the opposition talk its head off, then vote the bill through as is. The House version of the Great Debate sounded hotter than the Senate's —chiefly because of the necessary brevity of the speeches—but actually meant no more. That the vote was in the bag was conclusively demonstrated when wily old Speaker William Brockman Bankhead, Hamlet of the House, took the floor for a passionate defense of the measure: near the finish-post, he always cheers the winner.