National Affairs: Seat Occupied

While other Senators debated whether or not to oust him and declare vacant the seat he had held for 19 years, New Mexico's Democratic Senator Dennis Chavez slumped in his chair like a weary gnome. The Senate had spent some $225,000 to investigate irregularities in the 1952 New Mexico senatorial election, in which Chavez edged out Republican Patrick Hurley. When the vote came, every Democratic Senator was present, and they stood with Chavez to the last man—along with five Republicans and Wayne Morse. By a vote of 53 to 36, the U.S. Senate decided to keep Dennis Chavez as a member.

Last week the Congress also: ¶ Decided, among House Republicans, to call pending wiretapping legislation the "Anti-Traitor bill." ¶ Voted, in the House Appropriations Committee, to spend a record $1,060,968,000 for atomic and thermonuclear weapons development in fiscal 1955, but cut some $152 million from other budget requests made by the Atomic Energy Commission.

¶ Delayed, in the Senate Labor Committee, any action on changes in the Taft-Hartley law until the Administration makes known its position on federal-state relationships in labor legislation.

¶ Prepared, in the Senate Banking & Currency Committee, to hold hearings this week on bills calling for a U.S. return to the gold standard.

¶ Passed, in both the House and the Senate, a resolution naming a $4,000,000 water pollution laboratory, to be dedicated at Cincinnati this week, the "Robert A. Taft Sanitary Engineering Center."