Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1949-01-03
The New CONGRESS

AS it begins its work today, the Demo-
cratic-controlled Eighty-first Congress
faces difficult and historic issues. To say
own and the worlds future is to labor the
obvious. Yet the significance of that role,
no matter how self-evident it may be- calls
for special emphasis. In its own way, it
constitutes the most important of all the
mandates of the new Senate and House
namely, mandate to act reSponsibly and
exercise as much non-partiSan wisdom and
foresight as possible in dealing with the
multitude of grave problems ahead.
In the International sphere, the prob
lens revolve around the cold war between
Russia and the West To handle them
adequately, the new Congress, in addition
to being called upon to appropriate addi-
tional billions of dollars for the European
Recovery Program and for continuing aid
to Greece and Turkey, will have to hammer
out important decisions regarding the Red
tide in China and throughout Asia
Further. before its two-year tenurD comes
to an end, it will in all probability be
obliged to act on the projected North
Atlantic security pact under which the
United States, along with Canada, is ex-
pected to associate itself with Luxembourg
Belgium The Netherlands, France and
Britain in mutual defensive arrangement
designed to promote the safety of our own
country and sthe rest of the free world
an arrangement likely to require rather
large-scale revival of American military
lease-lend
The cold war. moreover. mpinges
directly on the domestic scene. 1t is
related, for example. to the huge funds
the Eighty-first Congress will have to
appropriate for our armed forces over and
above the heavy OUTLAWS for military and
economic help to our friends abroad If
there were no serious tension in the world
II Russia were less threatening than it
seems, the new Senate and House would
be able to concentrate on the home-front
situation without having to worry a great
deal about complicating international fac
tors Things being as they are, however,
the legislative task goes far beyond that of
simply dealing with internal matters like
civil rights and the writing of a new labor
law; 1t embraces the hard problem of how
to keep our economy steady in carrying out
such domestic measures as expanded social
security, new health program and
Federal aid in the fields of housing and
education, while at the same time under
taking essential but costly foreign pro-
grams. Clearly enough, besides requiring
sound leadership from the President. the
problem demands the most intelligent kind
of congressional action.
Whenever a new Congress opens some
thing of this sort is nearly always said,
with the hope expressed that narrow
partisan politics will not be allowed to
dominate it's proceedings In the case of
the Eighty-first, there is reason to restate
that hope with a degree of urgency. For
the next two years will call for legislative
decisions of vast Importance to the Nation
and the world-a fact that should sober
all the members of both houses. What
they do, or fail to do will have farreach-
ing consequences in the future. Nothing
could be more important, therefore. than
that they act accordingly with a full
awareness of how grave their response
bilitv is