Word: bill
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Virginia's self-appointed treasury-guard, Democrat Harry F. Byrd, nagged Taft with quotes from Taft's own statements opposing a similar bill in 1943. Taft frankly said that he had been converted, that he had come to realize that some states could not afford adequate educational standards. Said he: "I do not think we should . . . refuse to give one cent for this purpose, merely because perhaps some day we shall be asked to give more...
Behind Taft's leadership, the Senate beat back an attempt, by Massachusetts' Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., to tack on an anti-segregation provision, which would have smothered the bill in Southern votes. An effort of Missouri's Republican Forrest Donnell to bar Roman Catholic schools from even indirect help collapsed, and so did one by Connecticut's Democrat Brien McMahon to require such indirect help. Such questions were left, as Taft had insisted they should be, to the states. In the end, the Senate passed the bill...
...sliding scale for the poorer states, e.g., Mississippi would get the highest allotment, $29.18 for each child. The states could use the funds for any grade-or high-school purpose, including building improvements or teachers' salaries. Last year Republican leadership in the House killed a similar Senate bill. But if the House Republicans were listening to Taft, the measure would have a lot less trouble this time...
...debate rolled into its second week, Speaker Sam Rayburn made one last effort to break the impasse. Knowing that the Administration's bill was a lost cause, he and his aides had cooked up five compromises which they hoped would attract votes. The provisions, with a few minor changes, were lifted from the Taft-Hartley Act itself. The most important of them was the one giving the President authority to use the weapon of injunction in national-emergency strikes...
Speaker Rayburn had relinquished the chair and was prowling around the House, perching here & there, nervous and anxious. Minority Leader Joe Martin took the floor to defend the softened version of the Taft-Hartley Act (the Wood bill), which was backed by the Republican-Southern coalition. Then Rayburn's compromise package was introduced. Sam himself stepped out on the floor. Eloquently, somewhat defensively, he appealed for votes for his measure: "Let us not have one sector of Americans known as labor . . . believe that we would press down upon their brow a crown of thorns...