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In the House a maddened Texas delegation composed a resolution praising Garner to the skies, then hastily recalled it from the House press gallery, clipped out one sentence ("He has been a friend of labor for 30 years") and sent it back retyped. A two-minute standing ovation, with applause rent with rebel yells, came when the resolution was read in the House. Only a few New Dealers kept their seats. In the Senate word came around from Boss Garner that he wanted no speeches, demonstration or even mention of the incident.
But unavoidably Senator Pat McCarran of Nevada had to bring it up the next day. Author of an amendment to the Spend-Lend Bill, to restore prevailing wage-rates on WPA projects, he admitted his cause had been "greatly impaired." The Senate quickly slapped down his amendment.
Repercussions continued. Unpurged Millard Tydings of Maryland tried to add to the Spend-Lend Bill a rider prohibiting any organization from contributing to a political campaign-fund any money not specifically assessed for that purpose. (This was aimed at the famed $470,000 loan by Lewis' United Mine Workers to the Democratic party in 1936.)
President Roosevelt had no comment. But the House Rules committee acted swiftly, reported on equal terms four wage-hour bills: Barden's, Mrs. Norton's, another Norton bill containing only non-controversial amendments, and one by Georgia's Ramspeck without exemptions for farm workers.
In all the verbal slugging, scrambling and hell-raising, most people forgot that the entire House situation was only shadowboxing, since the Senate could not and would not even begin action on wage-hour legislation at this session. But the intensity of the fight revealed more clearly than ever the New Deal's slipping grip on Capitol Hill.
*It is 30 years since Lewis was a miner. *In his heyday, in an abandoned committee room known as "The Boar's Nest," Garner regularly nicked Nick Longworth, Ogden Mills, Joe Cannon—all since dead. His biggest winnings in any one session: $15,000. Biggest loss in any one night: $6,800. Average over the years: unknown but believed very good.