U.S. Move To Ease Tension

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31657, 18 April 1968, Page 9

U.S. Move To Ease Tension

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

WASHINGTON, April 17.

The United States Senate, returning today after the Easter recess, will immediately focus its attention on legislation aimed at solving the problems of America’s riot-torn cities.

The Senate Majority Leader (Mr Mike Mansfield, Democrat, Montana), commenting on Dr Martin Luther King’s assassination and its aftermath of violence said: “The fact is that we have weeks, months, even years of relentless and painful work.”

tration's omnibus Crimes Control and Safe Streets Act. The measure would provide SUSIOOm over the next 15 months and SUS3OOm by June, 1970, for grants to local law enforcement agencies for recruiting, training and teaching of riot control techniques, and for financing studies of organised crime.

Before the Easter recess, the Senate quickly reacted to the riot violence by rejecting legislation passed by the House eliminating all funds sought by President Johnson for summer-task programmes in the nation's slums. The Senate sent the legislation back to a joint Congressional conference committee with Instructions to add SUS7Sm for slum jobs for young people from impoverished families, and SUS2Sm to provide pre-school training for poor children. Food In Schools The Senate Agriculture Committee has sent to the full Senate a bill to extend to the end of 1970 a programme providing school breakfasts for youth in slums. The measure, already passed by the House, would authorise SUS6Jm for the pilot project. Congress is also expected to take action on legislation to expand programmes for juvenile delinquency control, equal employment, and the distribution of food stamps whereby the poor can purchase food at substantial discounts. The House Minority Leader (Mr Gerald Ford, Republican, Michigan) has called on Congress to extend tax credits to industry as an Incentive to providing training and jobs for the hard-core unemployed.

Both the Senate and the House of Representatives, which will return from recess on Monday, will focus their attention on measures designed to prevent future riots, to ease racial tensions, and to help the poor. The Senate and House Judiciary Committees are attempting to introduce bills to control Inter-State firearms traffic. Supporters of the legislation want to prohibit all mail-order sales of firearms, other than rifles and shotguns, and to ban all such sales to persons aged 20 and under. The Senate judiciary group's gun-control legislation is embodied in the Adminis-