Expense Account Congressnei

from a Washington correspondent Representative Adam Clayton Powell of New York, stripped of his chairmanship of the Education and Labour Committee of the United States Congress, has accused his Democrat colleagues of "racial prejudice". Without in any wey condoning the Herlem Representative's self-admitted freeloading, one must admit that there is a certain logic in his charge, to the extent that his accusers are displaying double standards in their attitude to him. Powell, whose boast is that he can do anything a white man can do - and better, has probably unset some of his colleagues, not so much because of his actions, but because of the very open manner in which they were carried out - a manner which forced a public examination in areas which many would have preferred left unexnlored. The disclosures of rewards forpublic service are likely to prove embarrassing to say the least. A congressman is paid $30,000 a year, plus several expense accounts — parts of which he can keep for himself if he does not spend them. Ile is also entitled to charge rent for an office in his home district. One Democrat from Indiana rented himself the front porch of his om home as an office in 1959. Records for the following year showed that six Congressmen stop ed at Hawaii on their way home from the Antarctic. Their hotel bill at the Royal Ieawaiian showed £190 in charges under "bar". In each case the word "food" had been inked in. On other trips to Hawaii and New York, the word "Iirs" was marked out on hotel bills so that the full cost could be recovered as official personal expenses. Nost intriguing are the 1959 records relating to Representative Wayne L. Hayes, a Democrat from Ohio, who was the chief investigator of Powell. Hayes was then the chairman of a House delegation to a NATO Conference, @uring which period he charged no fewer than 47 plane trips between his home and Washington. The staff he selected to accompany him to Surope on the SS United States included two of his office employees and the managing editor of a newspaper in his home tow. i. Democrat Representative from Texas, Omar Burleson, chairman of the Administrative Comnittee which supervises House spending (!) drew $12 per day for 84 out of 88 days during the 1955 recess, investigating election and other matters in his home district. His charged workdays included Thanksgiving and Christmas.