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Show Vets Get Snubbed CHARLIE HALLECK, who used to be one of the best-liked members of congress when he was an ordinary ordi-nary young representative from Indiana, In-diana, has now risen to the esteemed job of house Republican majority leader and can give lessons on how to "win enemies and alienate people." peo-ple." Halleck recently kept three representatives repre-sentatives of veterans' organizations cooling their heels two hours In his outer office, then gave them the here's-your-hat-what's - your -hurry treatment. His callers John Williamson of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Francis Sullivan of the Disabled American Vets and Robert McLaughlin Mc-Laughlin of AMVETS wanted to find out why the house leadership was blocking various vet measures, and brought with them a pamphlet, written by Gen. Bonner Fellers, former for-mer publicity adviser to General MacArthur and now veterans' adviser ad-viser to the Republican national committee. The pamphlet boasted J what the G. O. P. congress had done i for ex-servicemen. I "Yon could drive a 10-mule team through some of the loopholes in this document," asserted Williamson. William-son. "Actually, this congress so far has been noted for what it hasn't done for veterans. General Fellers apparently had such a tough time making up a list of accomplishments that he included the army-navy merger bill. That didn't help war vets, and there's a question that the merger has done the army and navy any good. "In fact when you get down to cases," continued the VFW spokesman, spokes-man, "this congress has done absolutely abso-lutely nothing about even the most 1 urgent kind of veterans' legislation, such as bills for the relief of widows, i orphans and disabled vets." j Halleck grunted impatiently as he ! looked through the Fellers booklet I "We can't do everything. It's 500 million dollars for this, and more : millions for something else, and 1300 million dollars for federal aid to education " He stopped suddenly and lookei at Williamson, inquiring: "I understand under-stand the vets want that, also." "Yes, sir," replied the VFW spokesman. "My organization is for , the education bilL" The G. O. P. leader promised to "take up" the widows-orphans-disabled vets question with the Republican Repub-lican steering committee, jumped up, opened his office door and "invited" bis callers out. Intra-Commitiee Politics G. O. P. FRIENDS of the real-estate real-estate lobby tried a smart last-minute last-minute maneuver to try to block the housing bill. Noticing that only four or five Democratic members of the house banking and currency committee were present G. O. P. Congressman Clarence Kilburn of Malone, N. Y., quickly moved to report out the Wolcott bill minus public housing, slum clearance and other humanitarian humani-tarian features of the original Taft-Ellender-Wagner bill Representative Boggs of Louisiana Louisi-ana and Mike Monroney of Oklahoma Okla-homa jumped into action, rounded up Democratic colleagues and all were on hand to help defeat the Kilburn motion, 14 to 13, with the support of three Republicans Hull of Wisconsin, Stratton of Illinois Illi-nois and Scott of Pennsylvania, G. O. P. Congressman Frank Sund -strom of East Orange, N. J., the moved that loans to farm housing be deleted. This put Scott, a city man from Philadelphia, on the spot. But Scott fooled his G. O. P. colleagues col-leagues by voting "present," thus defeating the motion by a 13-to-13 tie vote. Again, Republicans Hull and Stratton, both with many farm voters, voted with the Democrats. However the desperate Republicans didn't give up. Representative John Kunkel of Harrisburg, Pa., demanded demand-ed a reconsideration of the vote, Rank Has Its Privileges NOW THAT THE DRAFT and a big army are on the way back, the Doolittle report and the caste system sys-tem should be taken out and dusted off. What officers don't always realize re-alize is that enlisted men resent the special privilege system sometimes bitterly. Most officers In the Pentagon, for instance, don't realize that GJ.'s are griped over the $65,000 underground officers' club which is open to officers for play during duty hours. What was once under- ground storage space has been converted into a sports palace, lavishly equipped with modern facilities for bowling, basketball, badminton, volley ball, handball and ping-pong. Devices for exercising exer-cising flagging muscles and a heat room for sweat baths also have been Installed. Those who prefer less strenuous sport can sip cocktails in the "pink room" in a setting of soft lights and pastel hues. Like any up-to-date cocktail lounge, it is furnished 'ith a television set, streamlined bar ind adjoining kitchen. |