National Affairs: Touch System

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After seven dilatory months of hemming, hawing and worse words, the British Loan last week was finally passed by Congress. And it did not just squeak through; it passed the House 219-to-155) with surprising room to spare.

Champions of the loan were skeptical enough to extend themselves to unusual last-minute efforts. President Truman dashed off a special letter of appeal; Secretary of State Byrnes cabled anxiously from Paris; from retirement old Cordell Hull added more arguments to the weight of pressure.

The top-drawer messages were heavy with the economic lore behind the $3,750,000,000 credit and its wedded trade agreements. During the final five-day debate the House focused more attention on political expediency. Commented the New York Herald Tribune: "The honorable gentlemen no longer have their minds on the arguments; they have their fingers on the popular pulse."

Democratic Congressmen from cities with large populations of Jewish voters wavered before a flurry of indignation stirred up by recent British policy in Palestine. New York City's Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, a Zionist leader, set the minds of some at ease with a courageous statement supporting the loan on its own merits. Republicans from isolationist midwestern districts, however, felt no pro-loan pressure from Stassenite successes in Minnesota's primary (see Political Notes).

U.S. pulses had spurted noticeably faster with each unbending Soviet demand at the Paris Conference. Voters who perhaps were not coming to love Britain more liked less the prospect of possible Russian autarchy in Europe. When Speaker Sam Rayburn left the rostrum to make his own personal plea for the loan, he spoke the thought which finally brought around many election-conscious Congressmen:

"It's in my heart and I'm going to say it. I do not want Western Europe—England and all the rest—pushed further into and toward an ideology that I despise."

Michigan's round Jesse Wolcott, leader of the Republican pro-loan bloc, corralled an unexpected 61 G.O.P. votes for the bill in the final tally, which showed a split in the ranks of both major parties.

At a White House ceremony this week it took Harry Truman, using 26 souvenir pens, a quarter of an hour to affix his signature to the measure. "No one should think that this agreement ... is directed against any other country," said the President.