The Pittsburgh Press (September 14, 1940)
Passage Due Today —
CONSCRIPTION ROW SETTLED
…
By Ronald G. Van Tine, United Press Staff Writer
Washington, Sept. 14 –
Senate and House meet in special Saturday sessions today to give final Congressional approval to the conscription bill.
It will go at once to President Roosevelt for his signature.
A majority of the Senate didn’t like the compromise which House and Senate conferees had arrived at on the bill’s industrial cooperation section, and, after five hours of debate, the Senate sent it back to conference for revision last night.
The vote was 37–33, the majority complaining that the conferees had extracted “the teeth” from the section to compel recalcitrant industry to cooperate with the defense program.
The conferees met at once and in 10 minutes, put the original House version of the industrial cooperation section of the bill, as the Senate majority had instructed. But by that time, both Senate and House had adjourned until today.
Administration leaders called both the House and Senate to meet at 11 a.m. (EDT). They were confident that the bill requiring all men from 21 to 35 to register for military training would be approved at once. Original plans had been to pass the bill yesterday so President Roosevelt could sign it today, but the dispute in the Senate prevented it.
Senator M. M. Neely (D-WV), backed by a big bloc of Democrats, including some of the Administration’s strongest supporters, contended that the bill as it had come from conference indicated that Congress was thinking more “of the dollar than the man” to be drafted for training.
The House version of the industrial section, known as the Smith Amendment – which is now incorporated in the bill, authorizes the President, through the Secretaries of War or Navy, to commandeer any private plant whose owner declines to furnish national defense materials ordered by the government “at reasonable prices.” The government may operate such a plant, but it must pay the owner a “just rental.” Any person who violates the provision could be imprisoned for three years and fined $50,000.
Democrats Complain
The rejected section, sponsored originally by Assistant Senate Republican Leader Warren R. Austin, would have permitted commandeering only if the Secretary of War or Navy certified that “the public necessity is immediate and the emergency in the public service is imperative and such as will not admit of a resort to any other source of supply.” There was no penalty clause.
One by one, Democrats attacked the conferees’ language, terming it a retreat from the original intent of both houses. House members crowded into the Senate chamber to listen to the debate. They heard charges that the conferees had “usurped their powers” by writing new language into the bill.
“It burns me to a cinder,” shouted Senator Josh Lee (D-OK), adding that while the conferees’ provision still constituted a “club over the head of industry, it’s a rubber club, and soft rubber at that.”
Senator Bennett C. Clark (D-MO) charged that the conferees had “yielded to the outcries of Mr. Willkie.” Mr. Willkie, the Republican presidential nominee, came out for a modified “draft” of recalcitrant industry after first denouncing as a step toward “socialization and sovietization” the original Senate draft under which the government could have taken over plants by condemnation proceedings.
Senator Clark, after reading reports of the special munitions investigating committee, which showed that executives of the Bethlehem Steel Corp. were paid huge bonuses during the World War years, said that:
…to conscript the blood and brawn of the country without compelling industry to make some contribution is a little short of treason.
Senator Francis T. Maloney (D-CT) declared – and brought vigorous denials from draft proponents – that under the terms of the original Senate commandeering amendment, the government might have used its powers to suppress newspapers and radio companies. He was told that such authority could be exercised only in wartime.
The Senate was expected to agree quickly to the remainder of the conference report. In the House, the greatest opposition probably will result from its conferees’ decision to drop the House provision calling for a 60-day delay in conscription pending trial by the Army of a voluntary enlistment program.
How Senators Voted On Draft Conference
Washington, Sept. 14 –The Senate roll call vote on sending the conscription bill back to conference follows:
For Recommittal (37)
Democrat Republican Progressive Independent Bilbo Capper LaFollette Norris Brown Johnson (CA) Bulow Wiley Byrnes Caraway Clark (MO) Ellender Green Guffey Harrison Hayden Herring Hill Holt Johnson (CO) Lee Maloney McCarran McKellar Mead Murray Neely O’Mahoney Pittman Russell Schwartz Schwellenbach Truman Van Nuys Wagner Walsh Wheeler Against Recommittal (33)
Democrat Republican Progressive Independent Adams Bridges Andrews Danaher Barkley Gibson Burke Gurney Byrd Hale Chandler McNary Clark (ID) Reed Connally Thomas (ID) Downey Townsend George Vandenberg Gerry Gillette Hatch Hughes King Miller Minton Overton Radcliffe Reynolds Sheppard Thomas (OK) Thomas (UT)