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Show Economic Highlights Industrial News Review Happenings that Affect the Dinner Pails, Dividend Checks and Tax Bills of Every Individual. National Nation-al and International Problems Inseparable In-separable from Local Welfare. oOo Seven major pieces of legislation have, at this writing, passed both houses of congress yet none of them have gone to the White House for executive veto or approval. Reason: All the b'lls are in conference. These conferences are something that the general public hears little about but they probably have more influence on the actual .fate of disputed legislation legisla-tion than all the dramatic and fiery speeches made on the floors of house or senate. Necessity for conferences is obvious. One branch of congress will pass a bill. It then goes to the other branch. If, as often happens when really important laws are involved, in-volved, amendments or changes are made in bills by this second branch, some way must be found to reconcile the differences. Conference committees, commit-tees, each one customarily made up of five senators and five representatives, representa-tives, are appointed. These men then get together, tight, argue and. sweat. They are not supposed to add any additional ad-ditional provisions not passed by cither branch of congress they deal only with the points of difference. One important bill in conference involves the TVA act. As passed by the senate, this bill gave . the TVA power to issue bonds to the extent of $100,000,000. The . house version of the bill permitted only $50,000,000. Similar differences, mostly of minor importance, are keeping the AAA amendment bill, the social security act, the rivers and harbors act, and the $300,000,000 deficiency appropri-i appropri-i ation act in conference. In some ! cases, conferees must attempt to iron e out basic differences. That is true, for example, of the public utilities act of 1935 and the banking act of 1935. - In the senate version of the public utilities act, holding companies were given a "death sentence" under which all' of them, with a few possible exceptions, ex-ceptions, would have to liquidate and go out ( f business by 1940. The house dissented substituted strict regulation regula-tion for execution. Conference members mem-bers are getting nowhere in reconciling recon-ciling this vast difference of opinion and some believe that the result will be no act at all this year. A similar simi-lar situation is holding up the banking bank-ing act. The administration wants an' act providing fqr centralized banking, under which a 'politically-appointed board would rule the country's banks in major particulars. This kind of act passed the house, reached the senate, and faced the ire of Carter Glass, fa- ther of the federal reserve act. Mr. Glass wants a modernized federal reserve re-serve system continued, hates and scorns the idea of political dominance of banking. The issue at stake seems almost insoluble, unless presidential influence can be brought to bear with unusually potent force. As a matter of fact, presidents often have better luck with their pet projects in conference con-ference than on the floor of a branch of congress. Reason: Committees are (Continued on last page) Economic Highlights (Continued from pasre 1) smaller, more responsive to pressure. If a president has all the conferees ' of one branch with him, he can often cause one or two members from the other branch to come over to his side. I At any rate, the conference has as-I as-I sumed unurual importance during this sess'on of congress it has eventually even-tually become the arbiter of almost every bill of first importance passed by either house. And conference committees com-mittees are likely to have to sweat some more over bills not yet passed, such as the "share-the-wealth" tax measure. oOo Is the president's prestige slip-p'ng? slip-p'ng? Answer, according to the view of most political experts, is yes. Will he be re-elected in 1936? The answer is probably but not by anywhere near the margin of his 1932 victory. Have the Republicans a chance in 1936? A fair one 'f Mr. Roosevelt keeps on slipping. A real test of New Deal power recently occurred in a Rhode Island congressional by-election. The district was carried by the Democrats last time by a 30,000 majority. ma-jority. This t'me the Republican candidate can-didate took the plume by a 20,000 majority. Issues were clear-cut pro and con New Deal measures, with especial stress on federal spending. It is true that Republican leaders are more optimistic now than they were even a few months ago and their at-t'tude at-t'tude has changed entirely from the bitter defeated feeling they had after the. congressional rout of 1934, in which Republican congressional representation rep-resentation dropped to one of the lowest low-est points in history. Many Republicans, Repub-licans, along with some unb'ased publicists, pub-licists, feel that they' can win next year if they get the' right candidate. No outstanding candidate has appeared, ap-peared, in spite of talk about a dozen different men. Chances are that the candidate will be a middle-of-ths-road man, with liberal tendencies. Under any circumstances, the ether will burn when Mr. Roosevelt and his opponent step before the microphones unless all are wrong, it will be the bitterest and hardest fought campaign cam-paign in generations. |