The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-11-27

session, but on
 EdsOn the day after this great concession was announced, there were two roll calls in the low CT chamber. The first, on a quorum call, revealed that 125 members of the House were absent from duty. The second, vote on the question of killing the enacting clause of a bill to regulate deportation of aliens, revealed that 120 Solons did not vote.
 That gives you the inconsistency of the picture: A third of the mem bers can be absent from the House junketing to South America, or Europe, at home ma.nng a speech, working in the office, in bed with the flu, or holding hands with the state political boss. That's all right. But let congressman be called upon to do his duty as a citizen and tell what he knows to a grand jury then the affairs of state become most pressing indeed.
 Committee meetings must be held, heads must be put together and brows corrugated, and the sacred privileges of this greaat states- man-harumphl kaf! deliber- ated upon as though someone had proposed saving out his tonsils with a kitchen spoon.
 FISTS ACROSS THE SEA
 The men who will have to do the fighting - the soldiers, sailors and marines -are getting along with their British brothers in arms just about as well as they did in the last war, which is not at all. Death of an Icelander in brawl with U. s. forces is typical of what always has happened and always will happen when peoples of two countries are thrown together.
 U. s. ports where British ships are under repair report constant clashes between Yankee gobS and British tars. From Norfolk recently, came news of a repeat performance of g. gag that dates back to the last war certainly, and perhaps to the Revolution.
 Said British gob: ''Hey, Yank, what's the colors of your flag?"
 Said the Yank: Red, white and blue, same as yours!"
 Said the Britisher: '"Yes, but what's that streak of yellow in it?"
 That's where the fight started. CALL OF THE CITY
 A new angle to the perennial scrap between the little town and the big city has been uncovered by the Tolan committee Investigating defense migration. Small business men in the little towns are com- blaming that the state employment agencies, given the job of recruiting skilled labor for defense plants, move in to sign up all the good garage mechanics, carpenters, metal work CTS or what have they. The small towns then have to replace these migrants by recruiting semi-skilled jacks of all trades from the farms, and the farmers yell.
 U. s. Employment Service has clearance system which attempts to coordinate the activities of the 1900 local employment services of the state systems, but since there is no federal control, which the Tolan committee is now recommending, the state organizations set the policy, and these state programs differ widely. Raids by one state employ ment service on the working forces of neighboring state start all kinds of rows. Oregon, fearful that she will lose too much of her labor, is doing everything possible to per- suade workers to stay in the home state.
 At Hastings, Neb., Q Tolan com- mittee investigator heard one resi- dent declare that the drain of young women from the town to take de- fense jobs in larger cities was a worse loss than the departure of the men. Experience had shown that while the men workers tended to return to the small towns eventu- ally, the percentage of young women coming back was negligible. Why girls leave home, the committee could get no light on. It just found out that they didn't come back.
 %A
 INITIATION BRAKE
 Privately, the high minds of the Social Security Board are none too about Secretary Nor genthau's proposal to raise social security payroll taxes to absorb ex- tra income and put a curb on in- flation. Point that the SSB people make Is that social security is c long range program that should go on after the defense effort is over. To tie social security up with the defense economy, 1t is felt, would be pad planning.
 Old age benefits could not be in- creased, and the only place the ex- tra collections could be used would DC as additional payments for un- employment compensation. That would have to be readjuSted after the defense effort ended, at consid- srable inconvenience and financial embarrassment. Once a benefit is 'aised, 1t would be next to impos- sible to get it reduced,