Record of the Seventy-Fourth Congress, First Session

Report Outline
Major Legislation: the Congress and the President
The Budget, Taxation, Appropriations, Borrowing
Failure of Bonus and Inflationary Legislation
Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935
Expansion and Liberalization of Federal Lending
Federal Court Decisions and New Deal Legislation
Social Security and Labor Legislation
Banking, Transporation, Regulatory Legislation
National Defense, Anti-War Bills, Treaties
Record Votes in the 74th Congress, First Session
Outstanding Roll Calls in the House
Special Focus

Major Legislation: the Congress and the President

The first session of the 74th Congress, which met on January 3, 1935, came to a sine die adjournment at midnight on August 26. In the Senate the session ended with a filibuster by Huey Long (D., La.) which prevented final action on the third deficiency bill—the last “must” measure on the program. The bill carried appropriations to make effective the Social Security Act, the Labor Relations Act, the Railroad Retirement Act and various other pieces of New Deal legislation enacted earlier in the session. Whether the $4,880,000,000 appropriation of the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act can be used for these purposes is doubtful. Much of the social legislation of the first session of the Congress is likely, therefore, to remain ineffective until the second session meets in January, 1936.

The Roosevelt administration sought at the 1935 session to obtain final action on all controversial measures remaining on its reform and recovery programs in order that the next session, leading up to the presidential election of 1936, might be brief and harmonious. This purpose succeeded in the main, although the President was compelled in the closing days of the session to accept compromises on leading features of such administration measures as the Eccles banking bill and the utilities holding company bill. He was compelled also to raise the amount of the loan offered by the government on cotton of the 1935–36 crop from 9 to 10 cents a pound, in a vain effort to save the third deficiency bill. A combination of southern and western senators had attached to that bill an amendment requiring a 12 cent loan on cotton and a loan of 1½ cents a pound on wheat. Southern senators withdrew their support of the amendment after the cotton loan had been raised to 10 cents. The Long filibuster was conducted “on behalf of the wheat farmer” whose interests had not been taken care of in the compromise.

The President, on his part, was able in the closing days to force a compromise on mandatory arms embargo legislation desired by Congress, when limited its life to a period of six months, and thus left the way open to a new effort to obtain the discretionary authority he desires when Congress reconvenes. Aside from the third deficiency bill, the only measure on the President's “must” list that failed of enactment was a bill to require compliance with N. R. A. labor standards in the performance of government contracts.