474 HISTORY OF THE COMMITTEE ON SCIEN< 1 AND TECHNOLOGY 



of Electrical Workers. On May 3, Representative John Y. McCollister 

 (Republican of Nebraska) circulated a letter which concluded: 



In the interest of small business, I urge you to vote against the measure. 



McCollister also brought up the issue of a subsidy for tools, thereby 

 winning the sympathy of labor opponents of the bill. 



LABOR AND SMALL BUSINESS GANG UP 



In the floor debate on May 7, Mosher vainly attempted to head 

 off the opposition by labor and small business by pointing out, on the 

 basis of information supplied by the Administrator of SBA, that small 

 firms were eligible for economic disaster loans from the SBA. The bill 

 received unexpected support from Representative John B. Anderson 

 (Republican of Illinois), who had been against the original metric 

 study act in 1968. Among committee members who spoke out for the 

 bill in the floor debate, in addition to Teague and Mosher, were Bell 

 Davis, Goldwater, Symington, and Hechler. 



Teague displayed to the House a huge map prepared by the 

 Bureau of Standards which showed how lonely the United States was 

 as a nearly isolated island in a metric sea, joined only by a few obscure 

 nations like Trinidad, Tobago, and Tonga. He stressed the voluntary 

 nature of the bill, but gave the back of his hand to the subsidy issue: 



We asked tor an open rule, but we certainly did not expect the committee to give 

 us a rule making in order amendments the committee had considered thoroughly and 

 had voted down. The Rules Committee not only wanted to give us a rule but they 

 also wanted to write a bill. 



While Davis was speaking in support of the bill, Gross suddenly 

 demanded that he convert two inches into metric terms "quick-like." 

 Davis hesitated a little, answered "fifty millimeters", then backed up 

 to explain: "Well, that is not precise, but is almost exact." Actually, 

 Davis answered correctly, although his hesitation brought laughter 

 from both sides, prompting the subcommittee chairman to say: 



Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to proceed for such time as was consumed 

 by laughter during the time the House was not in order. 



DEFEAT IN 1974 



The House roundly defeated the 1974 legislation, many Members 

 voting against it because they objected to the procedure of bringing 

 it up under suspension of the rules, allowing only 40 minutes of debate 

 and barring any amendments. Requiring a two-thirds majority, the 

 bill did not even get a simple majority as it lost by 240 to 153- Teague 

 remarked after the vote that there had been abuses in tool-buying 

 benefits for World War II veterans, and he did not want them repeated 



