Senator George Smathers Radio Broadcast 92

Ladies and gentlemen, After 8.5 long and agonizing months, the United States Congress has finally shut down. Let's start over your life day. How do you do, Ladies and gentlemen, after 8.5 months of laboring the Congress the first Session 81st Congress, I don't The first session of the 86 Congress began its labors way back January 7.

It finally concluded those labors early morning, September the 15th. I don't know when that we members of the Senate, have spent such long and agonizing hours at our work. Now that it's over with, it's been the signal for all the kindness to the newspapers and everybody interested in politics and government to make their judgment as to what kind of the Congress this has been.

Well, my own part. I'm satisfied. It's been a very useful in a very fruitful Congress. I think it has done good for the nation for the country. I particularly was pleased that one of our leading Florida papers, the Miami Herald, has described as Congress as an economy minded in statesman, like Congress, one of the best Congresses since World War Number two, then that well known and highly respected columnist Roscoe Drummond, who used to write for the Christian Science Monitor but who now writes for some 160 papers around the country.

I thought he hit it right on the head when he said that he thought Senator Lyndon Johnson and Sam Rayburn created a fine legislative atmosphere and they were responsible and that they did not make this a partisan Congress, but instead went about handling the business of the country in a business like way.

Then there's the nationally syndicated columnist William White, who writes for The New York Times in The Herald Tribune and other papers around the country. And he described this Congress as a responsible and effective Congress, one that cooperated with the administration on all matters of high principle.

I think those are fair and the judicious estimates of our labors here in this first session of the 86 Congress, very briefly some of the significant legislative accomplishments that were carved out this year. I think possibly the most significant, certainly the most meaningful law that was passed was the labor bill, which we, after some two years of trying, finally got through in the president signed.

As I've explained to you in previous programs, that was a meaningful bill. It'll go far to wipe out the racketeering in labor unions. It will go a long ways eliminating the Crips that now and here before have existed in some of the union. It will give the union members democracy and the protection of their funds, which they invest in the unions, which they have heretofore not had.

At the same time, it goes further and provides certain protections for the general public against the excesses of some labor leaders. We were an economy minded Congress. Once again, we reduce the president's request by a billion 880 millions of dollars. Actually, if we had voted for all the economy measures, which I, as an individual had voted for, there would have been a much larger savings than this.

One billion, 880 million. I still think the foreign aid program was too high. We passed a housing bill after some three attempts. The president vetoed two of those bills. We came back and finally passed, one that met with his approval and of course, we in Florida.

No, how terribly important the housing legislation is to the economy of our particular state. We passed an airport bill which allowed the continuation the development of our airport programs. This again is an enormous importance to the people of Florida because we integrate measure, live on the transportation, in particular transportation and air.

We passed a health education, builds a research bill into the causes and cures of cancer and arthritis and things of that character that will be very helpful. Jewish, the Latin American field. We actually didn't do very much, but we did one significant thing. We created the Inter American Bank, which I personally had been recommending for some 15 years.

Finally, it has become now a reality, and I think it would go a long ways towards curing some of the misunderstandings which now exists between the United States and our Latin American neighbors. We passed a Veterans Bill of pension Bill which gave to the Korean veterans the same opportunities in the same privileges that had been given to veterans of World War One and World War Two.

It was also a bill which put the emphasis on need rather than on just the mere fact of service. We passed the rivers and harbors. Bill, Uh, we had $15 million in that bill for Florida. We also passed a road bill and many others. Now, ladies and gentlemen, there's very briefly what we've done because this is my officially last program.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have been looking in and listening in. And I particularly want to thank the stations. However, there will be a special program which I hope you'll look at next week. Thank you very much. And God bless all of you.