THE CONGRESS: Congress' Week, Mar. 31, 1947

From his back-row seat on the Democratic side of the chamber, Rhode Island's freshman Senator J. Howard McGrath came to a sardonic conclusion. "It must be a very great body," he said, "it moves so slowly." Last week the great body was practically motionless.

Senators strolled wearily out to the cloakrooms, strolled back in again at the double clang of the quorum bell, while Missouri's tireless Republican Forrest Donnell droned through his exhaustive "introduction" to the bill to outlaw portal-to-portal pay suits, kept the floor for the better part of three days. Grumbled one Senator: "We ought to meet on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and let Donnell meet on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday."

By the time Senator Donnell's energy began to run down, Republican Whip Ken Wherry was pleading with Democrats not to encourage a new flood of oratory by undue questioning. But when Donnell finally subsided, with the unchallenged comment that it must be a "great relief to members of the Senate," the parliamentary dillydallying began. It was not until week's end that the Senate came to a vote.

In a last convulsive protest, the Democratic minority warningly predicted a presidential veto of the bill. But the G.O.P. was unmoved. With 18 Democrats joining 46 Republicans, the Senate approved the measure. It summarily outlaws the nearly $6 billion pending suits for back travel and makeready time, and makes illegal for the future all such claims not covered by "custom" or contract. It also relieves employers of any liability for back damages as long as they were acting in "good faith" at the time.

Holidays for Shut-Ins. The House seemed as muscle-bound as the Senate. In its major spurt of activity it passed and sent to the Senate a bill to continue sugar controls until next November. Then it slumped back to await consideration of the long overdue tax bill, modified in committee by the G.O.P. leadership. The 20% across-the-board reduction was flattened out; the proposed cuts now range from 30% for net incomes less than $1,000 to 10½% for those over $302,000.

Meanwhile committee chairmen, worried by the press of work to be done, wrestled inconclusively with a welter of major & minor legislation, from service merger and rent control to a list of 25 proposed new holidays (among them: Grandmother's Day, Freedom Day, Shut-ins Day, American Indian Day). A new addition to Congress' agenda: the President's request to extend for a year export controls over 500 scarce commodities.

But before adjourning for the week Congress settled one extracurricular issue when Representative Fred Bradley, from Michigan's smelt-fishing eleventh district, revived the prewar fish-gulping contest. The winner: Ohio's 250-lb. Representative Clarence Brown, who unseated Former Champion Jesse Wolcott of Michigan. His performance: a claimed total of 51 fried smelts (20-odd by newsmen's count).