Nation: Aid to Appalachia

Without changing a comma, the House of Representatives last week passed the Administration's aid-to-Appalachia bill and sent it to President Johnson to be signed into the Great Society. The bill provides for $1.1 billion, mostly for highway construction, in the eleven Appalachian states.

The final House vote was 257 to 165. but not even that lopsided tally was the true measure of the Democratic victory—or the Republican defeat. The new G.O.P. floor leader, Michigan's Gerald Ford, seeking to create a more positive party image, has announced a policy of "constructive alternatives" to all major Administration programs.

In last week's instance, the Republican alternative...