[senator LENNON ft | Washington The Senate passed last Thursday with amendments the Defense appropriations bill for fiscal 1955. Amendment I was glad to see the Williams amendment passed. It requires de fense contracts to be awarded in ac cordance with competitive bids. There have been attempts made to change this procedure which would result in serious trouble to employment in in dustry—particularly textile—in North Carolina and the South. We have had to be on our legislative toes to keep competitive bidding mandatory in these contracts. The Bill The Defense appropriations bill— approximately thirty billions of dol lars of new money—-provides about eleven billion for the Air Force, ten billion for the Navy, thirteen billion for the Army, thirteen and one-quar ter billion for the Department of De fense and three-quarter billion for in ter-servioe activities. The new money will be supplement ed by about fourteen and one-half billion dollars in obligated money car ried over from appropriations in prev ious years. Unexpended Balance I voted against the Kennedy amend ment to boost the appropriations by approximately $250 million. Why? There is a carry-over of about forty four billion dollars of unexpended funds in all the armed services. Add the new money—the approximately thirty billion—and we have unexpend ed funds of about seventy-five billion to be available for expenditure by our armed services beginning on July 1, of which approximately forty-four bil lion dollars are unobligated. In the case of the Army, it was shown that there is an unexpended balance of $5,- 798,939,000. My position is that we should have adequate national defense and not skimp one dollar, but we must not continue to keep taxes high and the budget unbalanced when we have unexpended funds in the armed forces. I also believe that we should rely on supplemental appropriations for de •se, geared to meet a changing •Id situation, keeping our research and preparedness at peak efficiency. On final passage, I voted for the bill. Progress Passage of the defense bill— the ' largest single money bill of the Con ijjgV >gjjggjpr Gas-saving Ovardrivs optional at Fordomatic Dr tv# pays off in faster New Ford giant! C-900 Cab Forward low extra cost in this new F-lOtT handling of bigger stop-go routes. New Bkj Job, GVW 27 000 lbs. Full-width seat. Pickup. 130-h.p. V-8 or 115-h.p. Six. Ford P-350 Parcel Delivery chassis shown. Low-Friction 170-h.p. Cargo King V-8. BIG SAVI NGS start the day you buy a now Ford