Reading Eagle (February 13, 1941)
AID MEASURE APPROVED BY SENATE COMMITTEE
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Foreign relations group votes, 15 to 8, in favor of bill after rejecting proposed amendment
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Washington, Feb. 13 (AP) –
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved today, 15 to 8, the administration’s aid-to-Britain bill.
The legislation was approved in substantially the form voted by the House. It now goes to the Senate floor for debate, which will start Monday and which leaders hope to restrict in two weeks.
The committee acted finally after rejecting a proposal by Sens. Johnson (R-CA) and Ellender (D-LA) to restrict the President’s authority to send American armed forces out of the Western Hemisphere.
Ellender told reporters when he came out of the closed committee session that the group had voted 13 to 9 against a proposed amendment which would have stated that nothing in the act would give the President any authority, beyond what he already had, tro send men of the Army and Navy to points outside this hemisphere or American possessions.
Previously, committee members said two administration amendments to the bill had been adopted as a final vote was approached on the revised legislation.
One would require the President to obtain authorization from Congress before he could contract for future delivery of war materials to be turned over to other nations.
The other would provide that money received in payment of transferred materials should go into the Treasury’s general fund after July 1, 1946.
Passage predicted
Supporters of the measure, already looking ahead to the start of full-dress debate next week, talked confidently of following up this anticipated committee victory by sweeping three-fourths of the Senate’s votes in the final roll call on the legislation.
The Foreign Relations Committee, moving along at a pace unusual for a bill of such magnitude, was summoned into an early session to complete deliberations. On Capitol Hill, there was little dispute ss to the draft that would be approved. Legislators believed it would follow in the main the version passed by the House last week, with some few additional alterations.
Administration leaders, still striving to win over as many opponents as possible, made a fresh – but apparently futile – effort yesterday when they offered to write into the bill a clause which they said would ensure Congressional control of the purse strings on lend-lease spending.
This amendment – a surprise concession – would make it necessary for the President to obtain both authorizations and appropriations from Congress before he could place any future contracts for war materials under the program.
Inasmuch as the bill’s language already authorizes the President to direct the manufacture and transfer of supplies, the amendment apparently would have the effect of making that general overall authorization subject to specific authorizations and appropriations on contracts to be placed in the future.
Purpose explained
The purpose of the provision was to meet objections that the bill gave the President a “blank check” for unlimited spending. It failed, however, to budge the stand-pat opponents.
The amendment, offered by Senator Byrnes (D-SC), won approval of a sub-committee yesterday and its adoption by the full committee was taken for granted.
It would not disturb the House limitation of $1,300,000,000 on the amount of existing military equipment the President could transfer to any other nation. But, as Byrnes explained it, if the President desired to have new equipment manufactured, for such transfers, he either would have to ask Congress for a direct appropriation or specific terms, or he could ask for authority to contract for future deliveries. In the latter case, Congress
Senator Gillette (D-IA) commented that he didn’t think it affected the “main purpose” of the bill.
Senator Clark (D-MO), who has contended that bill would give the President almost unlimited spending authority, reserved judgment, remarking however:
The only amendment that would improve the bill, to my way of thinking would be to strike out the enacting clause.
Criticized by Gillette
In the same vein, Gillette said he thought most of the amendments made by the House and those before the Senate committee today were “window-dressing.”
Gillette said he could conceive of no amendment which he could support, that at the same time would not destroy the announced purpose of the bill.
The Senate committee approved yesterday a series of House amendments, including a limitation of two years on the life of the bill, and a provision that the bill carried no authorization for convoys.