A Young Man Asks

A young sailor home from two years of active service sat listening in the gallery. All day long, like steam from a kettle, coils of debate had risen endlessly from the floor of the House of Representatives. The House was now preparing to vote on the same anti-poll tax bill that had been filibustered to death by a group of Southern Senators at the close of the 77th Congress (TIME, Nov. 30).

Once again all the old weary arguments, the passionate pros and cantankerous cons, were being voiced. The young sailor squirmed and fidgeted.

> Said Georgia's labor-hating, liberal-hating, New Deal-hating Eugene ("Goober") Cox: "A sorry bid for the Negro vote. . . . Remembering what the Negro cost you [Republicans] following the Civil War, I am surprised you want him back."

> Said Mississippi's drawling, red-haired William M. Colmer: "The sad and sorry spectacle of the House. . . bringing up an issue calculated more than anything else to bring about disunity. I know that you have gotten your orders from John L. Lewis, from Earl Browder, from the Association for the Advancement of Colored People . . . and from the First Lady of the Land."

> Said Mississippi's poodle-haired John Rankin: "While Communism is being driven from Russia under the scorpion lash of an outraged public opinion . . . it has been powerful enough in this country to force this measure to a vote."

Consent of the Governed. All the discussion had not been pitched on so hysterical a level. Ohio's grey, motherly, plain-spoken Republican Frances P. Bolton had warned: "If we cannot change our attitude about race we are going to bring upon the heads of our children . . . a cataclysm." Chicago's William L. Dawson, the only Negro member of Congress, had best stated the issue: "A democracy is that government that exists by the consent of the governed, and that is the thing we are trying to do here today--to give certain citizens the right to say who shall govern them."

But such notes of sanity were lost in the echoing cacophony of prejudice. The young sailor sitting near the clock suddenly had enough. He leaped to the railing around the gallery, clung precariously to one of the steel uprights that support the roof and yelled: "Mr. Speaker, I demand the right to be heard."

Several Congressmen sitting just below the sailor scuttled for safety, apparently afraid he was going to jump. The voice of the sailor cut across the hum: "I am a man from the service. Do I have the floor?" Then, before he was pulled from his perch, he shouted: "I speak for the thousands who cannot be here. Why does a man have to pay tribute for the right to vote? Why should a man be taxed to vote when he can fight without paying?"

The Part of Congress. Taken to the Capitol police room, the questioning sailor identified himself as Signalman, Second Class, Evan Owen Jones of Los Angeles. Slim, blue-eyed, 21, Signalman Jones had in 1939 been valedictorian of his class at Los Angeles' Fremont High School, had entitled his address "A Young Man Asks Questions." Before House Sergeant-At-Arms Kenneth Romney and Capitol Physician Dr. George W. Calver, who quickly exonerated him of all charges of drunkenness or neurosis, he said: "Those people in there are fighting the Civil War all over again. They've got to work together more to help this country. I believe we have the best government anywhere. We are fighting to keep it the best government and Congress should do its part."

Signalman Jones had made the best speech in favor of the bill. It finally passed, 265-to-110. But the bill's chances of becoming law are poor. It may never be reported out of the Senate's Judiciary Committee. And the same Senate poll-taxers still stand ready to talk it to death as they did last year. The stellar role will probably fall to Mississippi's bantam, big-eared, bombast-loving Theodore ("The Man") Bilbo. Last week he promised to filibuster the bill for 18 months.

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