In previous years, legislation providing federal support for the arts had failed in the House, but on July 14, 1965, the House Education and Labor Committee reported H.R. 9460 which was similar to the bill the Senate had approved. Supporters of the…
Two days after the resolution passed, for the first time the House passed by a voice vote legislation providing federal support for the arts and humanities. The clearest indication of the level of support for H.R. 9460, however, came prior to the…
On January 6, 1965, Senator Edmund S. Muskie (D-ME) introduced S. 4, an administration-backed bill, and in this press release on the same day, declared that the purpose of the bill “is to encourage prevention of pollution as well as to attack the…
In his State of the Union address, President Lyndon B. Johnson called for an expanded conservation program as part of his vision of the Great Society, and on February 8, 1965, he delivered this Natural Beauty Message declaring that “Every major river…
S. 4 was referred to the House Committee on Public Works, which reported an amended bill on March 31, 1965. The most important amendment dropped the Senate provision authorizing the Department of Health, Education and Welfare to set water quality…
On May 3, 1965, Senator Howard W. Cannon (D-NV) wrote Muskie about the serious threat to the Las Vegas Valley water supply if the House version of S. 4 became law and hoped “that you and other Senate conferees will insist that the Senate position on…
On January 4, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson called on Congress to eliminate the nation’s forty-year-old national origins quota system as the basis for immigration and pass an immigration law “based on the work a man can do and not where he was…
On January 13, 1965, Representative Emanuel Celler (D-NY) introduced in the House of Representatives an administration-backed immigration bill, H.R. 2580. On March 3, the Subcommittee on Immigration and Nationality, chaired by Representative Michael…
Representative Feighan did not initially endorse H.R.2580 and was close to organizations such as the American Legion and the American Coalition of Patriotic Societies that resisted immigration reform. Feighan opposed several provisions of H.R. 2580…
Celler, the dean of the House in the 89th Congress, was the only member who was in Congress in 1924 when the Immigration Quota Act passed. He voted against it and had been an ardent foe of national immigration quotas for forty years. On April 28,…