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Show Ho HOME TOWN REPORTER In Washington lty VAUT.U A. Slll'.AD " AC Stuff Correspondi-nt Those Absentee Lnwinakovs I t.'l I'tmul 7'iu.vr inrMing I K YOU had boon with me on u recent visit at the Capitol building, build-ing, you would have noted several Binillcaut circumstances which would have given you cause to wonder. won-der. As a matter of fact this particular day was n routine day at the capl-tol. capl-tol. Most legislative f '.4it'"? days nro routine, ' I nothing spectacular, !;f Vs but when visitors Ife 5 from over the rm-Ipftl- ' " l tion become iis-t1b-t turbed over on un-lll un-lll ' ii spectacular day in 1 the national Icgisla- vl in the country and Hsis Jk-iiaal the small towns of Walter Shead Ulis land ol ours may well shake a speculative head. On this day you would have watched from the galleries in the house of representatives ns the members voted themselves a $2,500-a-year-tax-free salary increase under un-der the guise of an expense allowance. allow-ance. Over on the senate side of the beautiful old building, you would have noted tier upon tier of empty emp-ty seats and watched a half-dozen half-dozen members of "the most august body in the world" fiddle around for more than an hour attempting to get a quorum of Its membership into their scats so business could go on. And if you had stepped with me Into a senate subcommittee hearing you would have blushed with shame at the spectacle. For there you would have watched a witness before be-fore this subcommittee heckled, taunted and derided . . . assailed with sarcasm, his motives impugned, bullied, even as a trial lawyer seeks to confuse and befuddle a defendant defend-ant in a court of law. You would have wondered, "with what crime is this man charged?" . . "can things like this happen here in the capital of the world's greatest democracy?" de-mocracy?" For that witness was not there of his own accord ... he was subpenaed ... he was a business busi-ness man from a small town and he came to his capital at the instance of the senate subcommittee to give of his knowledge of the matter. Not all senate or house committees commit-tees are like that, of course. But many are, even though they are supposed sup-posed to be fact-finding hearings pertaining to some measure up for consideration ... to ratification of some presidential nomination. Many committee hearings, say a full-press hearing of the senate agricultural committee, are conducted in a dignified dig-nified atmosphere of democracy. Then you would have remembered that the government is doing everything every-thing in its power to "hold-the-line" against inflation and to prevent wage increases and higher prices for all our citizens and yet these congressmen, congress-men, our lawmakers, voted to increase in-crease their own pay, tax free. And you would have heard one congressman congress-man say that his taxes and expenses ex-penses took all but 53,000 of his salary . . . and another one say that "we voted those taxes ourselves, didn't we, and we oughtn't be granting grant-ing ourselves any allowance or special spe-cial privilege to take care of our taxes." And you would have left the house chamber with wonderment on your face at this example. And in the senate your expectations expecta-tions were dashed, too. All those empty seats. You expected something some-thing different here, but you were disheartened as the monotonous roll call went on and only a few answered an-swered and finally as time passed ... 53 senators answered roll call, 4 more than the legal quorum of the 96 members. Of course some senators are necessarily absent for committee hearings and other legitimate legiti-mate reasons, but the majority arq in the cloak rooms, their offices, or elsewhere. Some come running when the signal bells announce lack of a quorum, and remain long enough to vote, then dash out again. Others pay little attention to the signals ex cept upon repeated rings. This signal sig-nal system is so arranged that upon pressing a button the bells ring ir the corridors and cloak rooms, committee com-mittee rooms, the senate dining room and in each senator's office ir the senate office building a long block away. They could be in their seats with in a few minutes if they answered the bells promptly but day-in anc day-out hours are wasted merelj getting enough senators in theii seats to do business. Some newspaper men have figurec out that time wasted in the senate alone in obtaining a quorum in oni year, at the senate rate of pay, woulc almost pay the salary of two sena tors. These are routine and unspec tacular things you admit, the vot ing of salary increases totaling $1,640,000 annually in the house un der present-day circumstances, th lolling attitude of the senate and tin undemocratic procedure in the sim committee hearings, but still, yoi wonder if they are not misuses power . . . unrepresentative oftheii constituents. |
