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Show This Week In Washington With the Congress in such a legislative jam that it likely will be November before an adjournment adjourn-ment can be taken, one of the bitterest bit-terest batles has been waged behind be-hind closed doors where the conference con-ference committee on the army civil functions bill has been considering con-sidering "home town" projects which amount to approximately $762 millions of dollars. This bill is the so-called "pork-barrel" "pork-barrel" bill and consists of rivers and harbors projects such as navigation navi-gation and flood control. For three months now a conference committee commit-tee has been deadlocked, and at the present time the embattled conferees threaten to burst out onto the house and senate floors. The House "O. K'd" 307 such projects pro-jects to the tune of $593,000,000. The senate however after hearing 271 witnesses, including 70 senators, sena-tors, upped the total to $762,000,-000. $762,000,-000. The House made the first offer to compromise when Chairman Clarence Cannon of Missouri, of the house appropriations committee, commit-tee, said he would split the difference dif-ference on many items. His offer, however, left out of consideration some pet projects of five of the Senate conferees Hayden of Arizona, Ari-zona, Russell, of Georgia; Thomas, of Oklahoma; Chavez of New Mexico and Gurney of South Dakota. Da-kota. So the fur began to fly. With the atmosphere tense, Congressmen John Rankin of Mississippi Mis-sissippi and Francis Case of South Dakota moved in with another compromise. Rankin is willing to take the Cannon compromise if the conferees will add a million dollars for the Tombigbee waterway water-way in his home state of Mississippi Mississ-ippi and Tennessee in the Tennessee Tennes-see valley. Case, a vice-president of the National Rivers and Harbors Har-bors Congress, wants to add a dozen projects which the senators say they must have, including a big reservoir project in Case's home state. According to observers the "pork barrel" legislation is one of those where local businessmen and local interests, ordinarily in favor of economy, are putting pressure on their senators and congressmen con-gressmen for their own pet pro- jects. In other words, they want I economy on the other fellow's projects, but they want big appropriations ap-propriations for their own projects. pro-jects. Tottering Sen. Kenneth McKel-lar McKel-lar of Tenessee, chairman of the senate appropriations committee, dean in the senate in point of service ser-vice and an old hand on conference confer-ence committee reports on the army civil functions bill, is spearheading spear-heading those who want to retain the senate projects upping the appropriations. ap-propriations. A check of the senate appropriations approp-riations committee indicates that this conference is already one of the longest drawn out in the history his-tory of the U. S. congress. 'Neither 'Neith-er side wants to show any sign of cracking under the pressure of the 48-state delegations to get tact the amounts of $211,370,000 for Greece and Turkey and $27, - 640,000 for Iran, Korea and the Philippines. So total for the bill was $869,505,000 as passed by the house. Bill now goes to the Senate. their projects rolling. Representative Rankin said: "These projects are necessary to relieve growing unemployment. Surely if congress can give billions and billions of dollars to foreign countries we can improve our own natural resources for the benefit of the American people." Sen. Paul Douglas of Illinois, who has one project in the pot, a $100,000 appropriation for the Calumet-Sag project in Illinois, said: "When I was appearing before be-fore the committee I was trying to represent a local interest. Am I thereby stopped from critizing the bill as a whole? If that principle prin-ciple is to be followed it means these is no one here to defend the general interests, as we are always al-ways torn between the need for representing local interests and the need for representing the general interest." The administration lost another fight ostensibly on its military aid program when the house, by a vote of 209 to 151, slashed in half the amount requested by President Truman for U.S. aid for associates in the North Atlantic treaty. The blow was softened, however, when the house fixed the sum at $580,-495,000 $580,-495,000 for only one year to July, 1950. The president had asked $1,-160,990,000 $1,-160,990,000 for a two year period to July 1, 1951. The house also left in- |