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I was horrified.

Actually, the 50 million dollars suggestion was a compromise because the original bill asked for 250 million. The Congress passed the bill with 100 million dollars in it, and after the Presidential veto of the bill, the amount was cut to 50 million as part of the compromise, which the President finally signed.

Thomas, who is the chairman of the Deficiencies Appropriations--I'm not sure whether housing came under that but, at any rate, the matter came to him--only put five million dollars in the bill.

I was terribly annoyed because we had put a lot of effort in this thing and I thought it was very annoying, especially since I received a letter from John Sparkman, which I have here, saying that 50 million dollars, he believed, was an amount that would not be difficult to get. Albert Thomas had said that he would take care of the matter and he believed that he would.

Well, I called up Kenny Birkhead, who was still working for us part time, and I said to him, “Kenny, what are you going to do about the money for the aged? I think it's terrible that we've got only five million dollars in the House Bill.”

Well, Kenny agreed with me but he didn't know quite what he was going to do. He left the phone and went to the corridors of the Senate and came upon Senator Harrison Williams. He told Harrison about this--the bill was up, I think, that day or the next day on the floor--and Williams, without being a member of the committee, as far as I can remember, went on the floor with