The Congress: A Woman Is Only a Woman, But Is This Bill Better Than Nothing?

Last May, when wheat growers in a national referendum voted down a subsidy plan with compulsory controls, Kennedy Administration officials vowed that farmers could go hang before they would get a substitute program.

But things change in an election year —and the Johnson Administration, with Agriculture Secretary Orville Freeman's support, put immense pressure upon Senate Democrats to pass the new farm bill, particularly the wheat part. And so the Senate last week wheezed its approval of a two-year $1 billion wheatand-cotton subsidy bill. It was, of course, just another of those legislative thingamajigs that have for decades contributed so much to the continuing U.S. farm scandal.

As passed by the Senate, the measure guaranteed wheat farmers who agree to limit their acreage a support price of $2 per bu. for wheat sold for domestic human consumption, and $1.55 per bu. for export wheat. Textile mills would receive a subsidy of about 60 to allow them to buy U.S. grown cotton at the world price of 240 per lb. Cotton growers, while receiving a 300-per-lb. support price, would be paid a bonus for reducing plantings.

Of Smoke & Beef. With the exception of a successful amendment by Louisiana's Democratic Senator Allen J. Ellender, chairman of the Agriculture Committee, to limit the program to two years, all attempts at weakening the bill were defeated. Delaware Republican John J. Williams introduced an amend ment that could end subsidies on to bacco, which for 30 years has received supports as one of the U.S.'s six "basic" agricultural commodities. Nonsmoker Williams wondered "whether the tax payers should subsidize the production of this commodity, which the Surgeon General and other responsible physicians have said is harmful to the American people." Tobacco-state Senators rose in righteous wrath. Chief among them was North Carolina Democrat Sam Ervin, who borrowed a line from Rudyard Kipling: "And a woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke." Williams' amendment was voted down, 63 to 26.

Another key amendment was offered by Nebraska's Republican Senator Roman Hruska. Seeking a nonsubsidy way to ease the economic troubles of the U.S. livestock industry (TIME, Feb. 28), Hruska wanted to limit imports of foreign beef and veal to 540 million lbs. annually, instead of the 920 million lbs. called for in recent agreements between the U.S. and Australia, New Zealand and Ireland. While Hruska's amendment appealed to some lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, South Dakota Democrat George McGovern noted that it "would cut the ground from under U.S. representatives" at forthcoming international tariff and trade talks, and the Administration was alarmed at its international consequences. Secretary of State Dean Rusk spent hours on the phone to Senate friends, and White House Legislative Aide Larry O'Brien's persuasion troops went into action. The amendment was beaten by a squeaking 46 to 44.