Evening star., 1947-01-01

A4lSAiCct O1ACC.
Take, first, the matter of the
terminal pay bill. cited some months
ago in this place. Here was bill
distributing somewhere between
$2,500, ,000, 900 and $4,000, 900 900
among some 100000 to 10000, 900
GIs of the recent war. From the
moment it was introduced its pas
sage was conceded. A similar pay
ment had previously been made to
officers. Clearly nobody in politics
and who wanted to stay in
could afford to vote against it. And
In the House none did. Nor did
anv one there raise his voice to
point out the blow this bill would
be to the hopes of restoring health
to the Federal finances.
Only Opposition Vote.
It went through by an all but
unanimous vote Exactly one man
refrained from voting-Representa-
tive James w. Wadsworth-who felt
that after what had been done for
the officers he could not as matter
of justice vote against the enlisted
men. Refusing to dodge the vote,
he answered present" when his
name was called. Then it went to
the Senate. where the certainty of
passage was even greater.
Just before the final vote, Senator
Taft arose and opposed the bill
He said 1t had been wrong in the
first place to give this terminal
leave pay to the officers, but it is
not possible to correct one mistake
by committing another; that the
state Of the Nations finances made
1t dangerous to do this, and that he
would vote against 1t.
This he did-thus casting the only
opposition vote in the entire Con-
gress, though nine-tenths of the
members in both branches pri-
vately agreed with what he said.
To appreciate the courage of this,
one not only must grasp the over
whelming sentiment of millions of
veterans for the bill, plus the presi-
dental aspirations of Mr.. Taft, but
also the fact that there was not
the least necessity for him to speak
or vote against the bill; that there
was not the slightest chance of his
changing the result, that he easily
might have lodged the vote with
no criticism at all.
Now, Mr.. Taft has just performed
another courageous act. With Re-
publicans in control of the Senate,
his seniority entitled him to the
chairmanship of the powerful
Finance Committee, normally re-
garded as the most important OF
all Senate committees. But MIR.
Taft has relinquished his claim in
order to take the Craftsmanship of
the Labor Committee. If he had not
done so, this post would go to the
extremely pro-CIO Senator George
Aiken of Vermont and the prospects
of speedy and sound labor legisia-
ton would be greatly diminished.
Makes Self Responsible.
BY taking on this job, Mr.. Taft
has made himself responsible for
whatever changes in existing labor
laws are made at this session. He
has grasped personally the most
prickly and politically dangerous
problem with which the new Con-
gress will have to deal. The eX-
tremists on neither side are going
to be satisfied with the final result.
Both are sure to blame Mr.. Taft.
Already, the radical labor leaders
have begun to denounce him.
Thus, Senator Taft, without any
compulsion whatever, has assumed
positions on two highly important
matters, one Of which involves the
risk of alternating the veteran vote"
and the other involves the risk of
alternating the labor vote" He
very easily could have avoided doing
beth without compromising his con-
science. For example, he could have
voted against the terminal pay bill
without making speech. And he
could vote his convictions on labor
changes without taking over the
labor craftsmanship and full respon-
sibility.
However. that isn't the way Mr.
Taft operates What he thinks. he
says; what he is for, he supports
with all he has. He may be right
or he may be wrong, but certainly
in politics he does practice the
"lovely virtue" to an unusual extent.
The practitioners of the true lib
eralism" hiss "Old Guardsman,"
"reactionary" and other epithetical
names at him but none challenges
his courage. What is the explana-
ton? Is it that Senator Taft thinks