THE CONGRESS: Five Weeks

When Franklin Roosevelt called Congress into extraordinary session three months ago, he outlined a five-point legislative program which provided for: 1) Crop control 2) Wage, hour regulation 3) Executive reorganization 4) Regional planning 5) Anti-trust law revision Last week when Congress adjourned, it had passed a five-point program which provided for: 1) $225,000 to pay members' traveling expenses to and from the extra session. 2) $12,000 for salaries of pages. 3) Lending four of the Capitol's gallery of portraits of signers of the Declaration of Independence to the Corcoran Art Gallery for a belated sesquicentennial exhibition. 4) A minor amendment to the Credit Union Act. 5) An extension of the time-limit in which a bridge may be built over the Tennessee River at Sheffield, Ala.

The Republican floor leader of the House, New York's Bertrand H. Snell, has the duty of taking cracks at the majority, but he was in better form last week than usual when he came to summarize the highlights of the session. He listed: 1) the President's fishing trip, 2) Vice President Garner's hunting trip in Pennsylvania and 3) a Congressional eating contest, to decide the relative merits of Maine and Idaho potatoes.

Nonetheless, if in five weeks Senate and House had passed little, they had done enough spadework to insure the passage of at least one item on the President's list (a farm bill, now being rewritten in conference) several weeks earlier than otherwise. Furthermore, two items not on the original program but added later because of Recession were got under way.

One of these was an amendment to the 1934 Housing Act intended to encourage building by making it easier for prospective home builders to borrow private funds guaranteed by the Government. This was proposed by the President (TIME, Dec. 6). The other, started by Congress on its own initiative, was revising the undistributed profits tax—for which the President said he was ready whenever Congress was. By last week, the House Ways & Means Committee's sub-Committee on Taxation had put in a month's work on a new tax bill drafting of which should be completed soon after Congress reconvenes.