Evening star., 1939-03-09
Merger Bill Goes
To Senate After
House Passage
Measure Narrowly
Misses Further Cuts
In Lower Chamber
By ]. A, O'LEARY.


The modified 1899 version of the
Government reorganization bill is
on its way to the Senate today
after narrowly escaping further cur.
tailment before it passed the House
last night.
In the Senate the bill will be
handled by the special Reorganiza-
ton Committee headed by Senator
Byrnes. Democrat, of South Caro-.
lima, who led the fight last year fol
the administrators more drastic
bill.
Senator Byrnes predicted Senate
passage would be by majority cor.
responding to that given by the
House.
The House vote on passage was
246 to 153, but on an earlier roll
call Democratic leaders were hard
pressed to keep out of the bill pro-
posal by Representative Summers
Democrat, of Texas, which woulc
nave allowed one branch of Con-
gress, acting alone. to stop a presi-
dental reorganization order.
In its present form the Presidents S
regrouping plans would take effect
automatically at the end of so days
after submission unless both
branches of Congress pass a reso-
luton of disapproval within that
time. The bill limits debate in both
houses on such a resolution to
avoid fllibusters that might prevent
congressional disapproval
In committee of the whole Mr..
Summers. veteran chairman of the
House Judiciary Committee, actu-
ally succeeded in getting his amend
ment temporarily in the bill by a
teller vote of 176 to 156. Two hours
later, when the amended bill was
reported to the House, administra-
ton forces had rallied their men,
bership and demanded a separate
roll call on the amendment, and
1T was stricken out, 209 to 1913.
Byrd Plan Moves Fail.
The House also rejected two at
tempts to substitute the essence of
the Byrd plan, under which the
Presidents orders would not take
effect unless approved by both
branches of Congress through pas
sage of a joint resolution, on which
each house would be allowed 20
days of debate. A joint resolution
would have to 60 to the President
for signature.
Further efforts in behalf of this
plan are expected to face the meas
ure in the Senate. This substitute
proposal already has been reported
favorably to the Senate by spe-
cial committee headed by Senator
Byrd, Democrat, Of Virginia.
Senator Byrnes, however, an
nounced recently he is for the modi-
fed House measure, so while the
Byrd bill is on the Senate calendar,
the Byrnes committee will give con-
sideration to the House bill before
the battle is resumed on the Sen
ate floor.
Amendments Fought.
For nearly six hours yesterday
House leaders fought against long
string of amendments to exempt
additional agencies from reorgan-
ization or to add others to the ex-
empt list and succeeded in defeat
ing most of these moves. The fol-
lowing changes were made:
The Bituminous Coal Commission
was removed from the exempt list,
which means the President could
consolidate it with some other
agency.
On motion of Representative
Crosser. Democrat, of Ohio the Rail-
road Retirement Board, the Media
ton Board and the Railroad Ad-
justment Board were added to the
exempt list.
An effort was made by Represen-
tative Nichols, Democrat, of Okla
homa to bring the Civil Service
Commission within the scope of
the Presidents reorganization au-
thority, but the motion was shouted
down, which kept the commission on
the exempt list.
A move by Representative Wads-
worth, Republican, Of New York to
divorce the Botanic Gardens from
congressional supervision by CIV
ing the President authority to rec
ommend its transfer also was re-
jected
Taber Proposal Rejected.
After administration leaders had
overcome the Summers amendment,
which was the major threat to
their bill, Representative Taber,
Republican, of New York moved
without success to recommit the
bill with instructions to the COM
mittee to write in the substance of
the Byrd method of passing on
presidential orders. This was de-
feated by the safe margin of 236
to 1853, after which the roll was
called for final passage.
Motions to exempt the following
agencies from presidential regroup-
ing were defeated: The Rural Elec-
trification Administration, the Civil
Aeronautics Authority, the United
States Employment Service and the
Forestry Service.
Administration forces also reject
ed Republican moves to remove
the National Labor Relations Board
and the Coast Guard from the ex-
empt list in the bill.
In addition to setting up pro-
cedure for consolidation of Gov
ernment bureaus, the bill carries
last years provision giving the
President six additional secretaries
or assistants at $4,000 a year each.
A BRAND D