THE CONGRESS: Seventieth Sits

Six months silent, the Capitol on Monday again rumbled and bumbled with the confusion of many voices that tells the country Congress is in session. Like reluctant school boys, Senators and Representatives came trooping back to open the second session of the 70th Congress.

A bare breeze riffled the three flags atop the nation's law factory. The air was mild and misty. Many people, spectators, workers, newsmen, scurried around the wide plazas. Big autos zipped back and forth importantly.

It took the House 60 minutes to plow through the hoary formalities of getting down to legislative business, the Senate 15. Then, exhausted, they both adjourned, to receive the President's message (see p 9).

Ahead of them stretches a flexible program. Nine apropriations bills must be passed before March 4 to finance the governmental machine after July 1. Boulder dam, 15 new cruisers for the Navy, the Kellogg anti-war treaty—these are the Senate's immediate job. In the House is gossip of a rivers and harbors bill, of reapportionment. Farm relief casts a streaky shadow of uncertainty across all plans and farther in the background lurks tariff revision.

Long before the noon hour of meeting, members congregated on the House floor to talk, to listen, to laugh, to mill around, to exude cordiality, to slap backs, to wring friendly hands, to encircle familiar shoulders. Two prime conversational topics predominated:

1) The election and how it went, precinct by precinct, in each Congressional district.

2) The unwelcome possibility of an extraordinary session of the 71st Congress after March 4.

Little reception knots formed about the House floor. Veterans, committee chairmen, held court. The four women members, all in black, greeted their many admirers. New York's Snell (Rules Committee) stood behind his aisle table, frowning, sharpening a pencil with a blunt watch chain knife. Leader Tilson beamed at his flock and rearranged neatly typed resolutions on blue paper. The galleries, splotched with color, were long ago overflowing. Mrs. Alice Longworth, the Speaker's wife, was there, incognito, because she failed to remove her brown hat and reveal her gleaming hair.

Suddenly lights flashed on in the glass-paneled ceiling, with theatre footlight effect. Instead of a rising curtain, Speaker Longworth, with jaunty step, mounted the rostrum, struck his gavel twice upon the block and called above the din: "The House will be in order." Opposite him the hands of the big gilt clock exactly met at the top of the dial.

Chaplain Montgomery prayed for three minutes. From gallery corners cameras clicked and movie men cranked, grateful for the brief immobility of the house. Its membership was caught by the prayer in disordered patterns.

"Alabama—John McDuffie—Here."