Weapon of the Minority

"A body which cannot govern itself will not long hold the respect of the people who have chosen it to govern the country."

So spoke an outraged Senator Henry Cabot Lodge in 1893, after the nation's business had been stalled in the 53rd Congress by a filibuster which had lasted two months. Last week, watching the Senate of the 81st Congress go into the second week of an undistinguished filibuster, many a citizen would agree with the late Senator Lodge.

Shabby Battle. The latest filibuster was a shabby debate in which the real subject was almost never mentioned. The battle, as everyone knew, was actually over Harry Truman's program to guarantee civil rights to Negroes in the South. That kind of federal assault on historic Southern prejudices was an issue which the South was always ready to fight tooth & nail.

This time an adroit and determined Southern minority had contrived the battle so that it became merely an argument over rules, and not over civil rights. After 160 years of parliamentary practice, the Senate found itself hopelessly entangled in its own procedures, unable to agree on the rules under which it conducted its disagreements.

Critical legislation such as rent control (due to expire March 31) and ECA appropriations were tied up. Something had to give. At week's end, in an atmosphere of dull obstinacy, members came to a bitter showdown.

Chasing Fleas. Opposing factions had moved up to the showdown with the customary elephantine senatorial ceremony. Moodily watched by their Northern colleagues, the Southerners had continued to plod through their filibuster. Any good Southern orator, standing on his head, could have done all the talking that was required.

They saved their strength by yielding the floor to a pair of helpful Republicans who wanted to sound off on pressing irrelevancies. New Hampshire's Styles Bridges wanted to deplore the wastefulness of such Government publications as Eliminating Bats from Buildings, Fleas of North America, etc. Senator Bridges talked almost three hours.

Harry Cain wanted to attack the appointment of a fellow Washingtonian, Truman Crony Mon C. Wallgren, as chairman of the vital National Security Resources Board. Cain talked for more than six hours, scratching under his arms, hitching at his trousers, sipping milk and raising one foot after the other so that his male secretary could change his shoes. Mrs. Cain, who has filed a suit for divorce, sat in the gallery the whole time, watching her husband admiringly.

The Man on the Rail. At last, Majority Leader Scott Lucas decided to put a stop to all the talk. He presented a petition to end the debate by invoking cloture. It became Vice President Barkley's duty to rule on whether cloture could indeed be applied and the filibuster shut off at this point.

Ensconced in the high-backed chair on the dais, blinking down on excited Senators, Barkley remarked: "I feel like the man who was being ridden out of town on a rail. Someone asked him how he felt. He said if it weren't for the honor of the thing, he'd just as soon walk." He applied himself then to the South's ingenious entanglement, which was hard going even for sea lawyers.

The Senate's anti-filibustering Rule XXII provided that two-thirds of the members present could limit further debate on a measure to a one-hour spiel by each member. It did not state specifically that debate could be so limited on a motion as well. As soon as the Administration brought up a motion to strengthen Rule XXII itself, the Southerners went into their talking act. And they argued that they were merely discussing the motion, not the proposed amendment.

When Barkley made his decision on this tactic, the galleries were packed, the atmosphere tense. He had been working late night after night, boning up on the history of past debates. Now he upheld Lucas: debate could indeed be shut off on motions as well as measures. If cloture could not be used at any time during the legislative process, Vice President Barkley said in effect, then the whole idea of cloture was meaningless, and filibusters could only stop when the orators won or went blue in the face.

That was not the end of it: the Senate must still vote on the correctness of the Barkley ruling. Late that night leaders marshaled their forces. Some three score members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and their sympathizers buttonholed Senators in their offices. They pleaded with the Senators to uphold Barkley, thus choke off the filibuster.

Tyranny of the Majority. There was a case to be made for filibustering, even if not for this specific filibuster. The case was based on the right of men in a democracy to protect themselves from what has been called "the tyranny of the majority." But the filibuster also gave stubborn men a weapon with which to immobilize a nation's vital business. In 1884, Woodrow Wilson, in a thesis for a Ph.D. at Johns Hopkins, rejoiced in the "Senate's opportunities for open and unrestricted discussion." But in 1917, when eleven Senators, including the great liberal, Robert La Follette Sr., tried to hold up a bill to arm U.S. merchant ships, President Woodrow Wilson attacked them angrily as a "little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own [who] have rendered the great Government of the U.S. helpless and contemptible."

It was as a result of that fight that the Senate passed the anti-filibustering Rule XXII.

Aura of Respectability. In the Senate last week the Southerners who joined in the filibuster were not a mere willful handful; they were 23 earnest and currently desperate men. When debate began on Barkley's ruling, it was not a Southerner but Michigan's Republican Vandenberg who took the floor to lead the fight against the Vice President's ruling. A year ago, Vandenberg had been sitting in Barkley's seat as Senate president pro tem. Then his decision on Rule XXII was just the opposite to Barkley's. In the argument last week, he lengthily and narrowly defended his own interpretation. He was for what Barkley was trying to do, he said, but not Barkley's method, which he called "an affront to due legislative process." Whether this was sound or not, Vandenberg's speech was effective. N.A.A.C.P.'s Walter White heard Vandenberg with a sinking heart. White said afterwards: "He gave an aura of respectability to those who wanted an excuse . . ."

When the question was put to a vote, 23 Republicans joined the Southerners. Among them was Vandenberg. Sixteen other Republicans, including Ohio's Robert Taft and the party's progressives, voted with the Administration. The noes had it: by 46 to 41 the Senate overturned Barkley's ruling. By a clear majority the Senate upheld the minority's right to decide whether an unwelcome measure could even be brought up, let alone voted upon.

The Good Strong Horse. The Administration forces did not immediately give up. In a tired and mumbling voice, next day, Lucas told the Senate that he was going to hold the Senate to it; the filibuster would have to blow itself out. He suggested ordering cots, and warned everybody to prepare for a siege. If the South wanted to block the way to a civil rights bill, then it would have to go on filibustering until every one of its 23 knights had collapsed.

It was a last, losing gesture of Administration bellicosity. The leaders knew they were licked. Rule XXII had become a bent and blunted blade. They were willing to concede that Harry Truman's civil rights program was dead, at least for the time being. Democratic National Chairman J. Howard McGrath gloomily saw the President in more difficulty with the Democratic 81st Congress than he was with the Republican 80th.

The Southerners were not in a compromising mood. Warned their leader, Georgia's Richard Russell: "We're not ready to go into any horse and rabbit trade where we swap a good strong horse for a mangy little rabbit." From Key West, dejected Harry Truman told his Senate leaders to keep fighting. But on Monday night, acting on their own responsibility, his frazzled leaders offered to surrender. The Southerners were riding high on their good strong horse. While the strategists discussed compromise, Louisiana's Allen J. Ellender held the floor for what looked like a record for uninterrupted talking. What the Southerners hoped for was a clear-cut promise that the civil rights program was dead for this session.

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