THE CONGRESS: Symptom on the Cheek

With half a dozen major legislative items, e.g., the highway construction and public-housing programs, still hanging fire, the leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives gave up in their efforts to adjourn by the end of July, last week began aiming for Aug. 6. But among the rank and file there was a sure sign that virulent adjournment fever, symptomized by extreme irritability, had set in; two of the members came to blows.

Seated side by side in the House Education and Labor Committee room were New York's Democratic Representative Adam Clayton Powell Jr., pastor of Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church in his spare time, and West Virginia's Democratic Representative Cleveland Bailey, who preaches the gospel pretty much according to John L, Lewis. Under discussion was the $1.6 billion school-construction program and Powell's attempt to amend it so as to bar funds to any school district that practices segregation.

In the past, Cleve Bailey has supported some of Powell's civil-rights efforts, but he feared that this one, by incurring the hostility of certain Southern Congressmen, would result in the death of the whole school-construction bill. Powell's amendment would be fatal, snapped Bailey, and Powell knew it. Retorted Powell: "You are a liar." Thereupon, the scramble started.

Powell, a onetime Colgate javelin hurler, seemingly had all the assets. He is 46, while Bailey is 69. Powell is an arrow-straight 6 ft. 4 in., and Bailey, who stoops slightly, is at least half a foot shorter. Powell is a heavyweight (190 Ibs.); Bailey could probably make the welterweight limit (147 Ibs.).

But Bailey had the advantage of surprise. He turned in his chair and launched a looping right that landed on Powell's right cheekbone. Possibly as much from astonishment as anything, Powell went over backward. Bailey leaped after him, reached down to grab Powell by the collar, and was drawing back his right fist for another haymaker when other committee members grabbed him and pulled him away.

Powell lost more than the tussle: his amendment was defeated in the committee, which went on to approve the school-construction bill. After the scrap, both men tut-tutted the whole affair. Said Powell: "Cleve Bailey and I smoke cigars together." Said Bailey: "The whole thing never happened." As Bailey made the denial, he showed reporters a half-inch cut on his right wrist, his only wound in the fight.

Last week the House also:

¶Passed, after a long and lackluster debate, a bill raising the U.S. minimum wage from 75¢ to $1. The 362-54 vote came over Administration objections that a minimum wage of more than 90¢ would work a hardship on some small businessmen with narrow profit margins. If signed by the President, the bill (already approved in much the same form by the Senate) may give pay raises to some 2,000,000 workers.

¶Approved, by a 372-10-31 vote, a liberalized social security bill that would reduce from 65 to 62 the age at which women are eligible for benefits, give aid to disabled insured persons at 50, and continue benefits for disabled youths beyond the present 18-year-old cutoff. Still before the Senate Finance Committee for hearings, the legislation may not be completed until next year.