The Nome nugget., 1947-08-11
Congress Should Catch Up With People
(The Denver POSt)

THE EICHTIETH CONGRESS coming home to the people-to the farmlands, to the great industrial ters the maritime cities which front out upon the world The concentrated tensions and presSureS ot Washington will be behind The who make the laws will be face to face with the basic force of American political fe the people who produce her wealth. pay the taxes and give their in
 In Washington, the people remote and formless force, represented occasionally by bizzards of mail when their interests touched At home they are in divduals who the nation and the world in terms of themselves and their neghbOrs and who judge their Congressmen in that personal relation. It is good that Congress must come home and again to hear what the people saying. Otherwise Congress would-as this eighteth Congress has seemed tending-mstake the loud voices of the Hobbies for popui.
 The first Republican Congress in seventeen years set about it's tasks under two handcaps The first of the necessity of recognizing both Houses, not only to shift powers to the Republican majority but also conform to the gnment of committee func
 ons under the Congressional reorganization act passed by the previous Congress. Weeks lost before the leadership got into the swing of things The second and major handicap the atmosphere of information al crisis in which this Congress has found itself Repub
 can promises of rerenchment in government had to be reappraised in terms of a world situation which de- manded billions for military strength and aid to foreign peoples But these handcaps cannot excuse the Con- gressona leadership for the inadequacy or absence of legislation in several critical areas.
 The session left monumental achievement the Taft-Hartley labor act which passed over violent opposition of Democratic minority and PreS- denal It is much too early tell what the results of this law will be- first experience indicates 1t is going to contribute to healthier stability in labor relations
 Beyond the labor act the important new legislation enacted by this Congress may be counted less than the fingers of hand It includes unificaton of the armed forces program of emergency relief for foreign countries and establishment of national science foun daon the latter highly significant extension of gov ernment activity.
 In contrast the matters left untouched Housing which continues to be the most urgent domestic prOb lem received attention whatever (eXcept negatively through serious weakening of rent controls). Mea- Of haps equally urgent, not considered (excep for last-minute provision of committee inveStigation) Bills provide federal aid to health and education, o extend the coverage of social security and to raise mini mum wages were left pigeon-hoed. No progress was made toward development of postwar national farm policy Universal military training, in spite of the most pressing arguments for its enactment barely got out of House committee before the session ended The Strat ton bill to permit thousands of Europes homeless to to this country met with Congressional ndiffer ence The Mundt bill to establish permanent U S. In formation program sidetracked in the Senate.
 Even more disturbing the attempts to lay the the great problems of national development Only after the most vigorous protests by the west ade