With the immediate result Administration Spokesman Tom Connally was well enough satisfied: the Senate, 40 votes to 29, passed a joint resolution validating an agreement with Panama on U.S. property and war bases.*
But a larger significance attached to the argument over the way the pact had been presented to Congress. It was before the Senate not as a treaty, requiring a two-thirds majority in the Senate, but as a joint resolution needing only a majority. The Administration was taking this means to avoid almost certain defeat by isolationists, plus the risk of upsetting good neighborliness in a bruising give-&-take...
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