Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1955-03-16
First Fund Bills Pass
House, for Treasury
And Postal Service
BY Robert K. Welsh

House passage Of a $3.2 billion
appropriation bill for the Treas
ury and Post Office Departments
set fast pace today for sched-
uled action on another supply
measure Friday and two more
next week.
With only about so members
on the floor, and with unusually
small quotas and time and talk.
the House late yesterday ap-
proved and sent to the Senate
this first appropriation bill for
the fiscal year beginning July /.
The measure, adopted without
change as recommended by the
Appropriations Committee. would
give the Post Office Department
$685.. zoo. 900 and the Treasury
$595.818,000 for regular operating
expenses.
That was $50, lit 900 less than
the Eisenhower administration
requested for the Post Office
Department and $8,580,000 less
than was sought for the Treas
ury. It was about $50 million
more than the Treasury has for
the current fiscal year. but $685.
million less than the fiscal 1855
appropriations for the Post
Office Department.
Patronage Complaint.
One of the few fiurries in
House debate occurred when Rep
resentative Wilson, Republican,
Of Indiana, complained that too
many Democratic postmasters
and various other department
employees manage to cling to their
jobs. He said he wondered If
there was any sort of white
wash" in Investigations of quail
f1cationS.. Democrats retorted
that members of Congress should
be thankful they no longer are
plagued as greatly as they once
were by patronage headaches in
selection of postmasters.
Representative Gary, Demo-
crat, of Virginia, repeating his
recent charge that Postmaster
General Summerfield is too
enamored" of decentralization
moves. told the House that $50
new Jobs already have been
created in regional and district
offices and that the Washington
headquarters personnel total has
been reduced by $50. But only
lis of the $50 decentralized posi-
tons were filled by transfers
from Washington, he said.
Salaries Cited
The greater part of the de-
crease here in 1854, he added,
affected employees earning $4,000
or less. whereas some I54 were
added at salaries between $4,000
and $4,000 and 10 at salaries
above $4,000.
But kind words for Mr.. Sum-
merfield came from Representa-
tive Passman, Democrat, of Lou
isiana. He declared that the
present heads of the department.
put in more improvements in
two years than were provided
during the previous 20 years.
He said the department now is
run by officials who are 'sbusi-
nessmen."
Mr.. Passman, however, at
tackled the lease-purchase meth
cd OF obtaining buildings for
post Offices and other govern
mental purposes: He predicted
that time would show that the
Government is spending at least
twice as much under this plan as
1T ultimately would if it con-
structed the buildings.
AS the House met to act on the
bill, it received from its Appro-
priations Committee another
measure calling for allotment of
1855 .212,429 in supplementary
funds COR score of agencies
during the remainder of the ifs
Cal year which ends next June
81. The committee trimmed the
original requests by $65,31l,025.
This bill is scheduled for House
action Friday.