THE CONGRESS: Close Shave

• Share

"I've heard from the bicycle people, the candy, the textiles, the woolen industries, and the fishing companies," groaned Massachusetts' Democratic Representative Thomas P. O'Neill last week. He was not alone. As the U.S. House of Representatives moved toward consideration of President Eisenhower's liberalized foreign trade bill, protests against it rolled in from the Twisted Jute Packing & Oakum Institute, the Amalgamated Lace Operatives of America, the Cherry Growers & Industries Foundation and hundreds of other interests seeking to hang on to tariff protection.

Because the leadership of both parties went all-out for it, the House finally passed Ike's bill, but only after disclosing deep and bitter resistance to freer foreign trade inside both parties. The bill itself was moderate. As sent to the Senate, it extends the basic reciprocal trade laws until June 30, 1958, and grants the President power to reduce most tariffs by 5% in each of the next three years. For the most part, its opponents acted not on broad general principles but, rather, on each Congressman's political estimate of specific situations in his home district.

The battle revealed two important new aspects of the old issue of tariff policy: the South, historic home of free-trade philosophy, is moving toward industrial protectionism, and one wing of the historically protectionist Republican Party is now committed to freer trade. Protectionism today is seldom defended as it was 50 years ago, as a general philosophy. Today it is an expression of localities, of every Congressman's sensitivity to the pressure groups back home. That is why freer-trade slogans sweep the field of public debate; but when Congress comes face to face with tariff-policy discussion, many a Representative is willing to compromise U.S. world economic leadership for the sake of "just one exception" in favor of an industry in his district.

Bareheaded. Trouble broke into the open when members of the Ways & Means Committee appeared before the House traffic cop, the Rules Committee. Tennessee's Democratic Representative Jere Cooper, chairman of the Ways & Means Committee and longtime advocate of reciprocal trade, briefly explained the bill, emphasized its moderation, promised that "there will be no drastic tariff reducing." Cooper asked for the "usual and customary" closed rule, i.e., one that would bar amendments on the House floor but would permit a motion to send the bill back to committee for rewriting.