The Congress: The Beginning & the End

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The second session of the 88th Congress convenes this week—just eight days after the first session, one of the longest, most tedious and least effective in U.S. history, adjourned.

For the first session, the end came at last when a quorum of Senators straggled back to Washington to vote on the $3 billion foreign aid appropriation bill already passed by the House. They made it plain that they were unhappy at President Johnson's demand that they interrupt their holidays and tend to their unfinished business. "I respectfully suggest," said Nebraska Republican Roman Hruska, "that perhaps we had better operate this end of Pennsylvania Avenue."

After an hour of such complaints, the Senate took another hour to approve the aid bill, 56 to 14. It included a compromise agreement that authorized the President, when he deems it "in the national interest," to waive a restriction against Export-Import Bank guarantees on loans for commercial deals with Communist countries.

When the vote to adjourn finally came, the tired chorus of ayes from the nine remaining Senators sounded like a sigh of relief.