Southern Supremacy

The filibuster ended with a spate of triumphant Southern drawls, followed by final bitter words from the losers. Then it subsided with both sides glaring at each other.

In the closing hours, Louisiana's 57-year-old Allen Ellender hung up a filibuster record by mumbling for twelve hours 20 minutes, the longest time any Senator had ever talked without relief. "I underwent a dehydration process for two days before I spoke," the Senator explained with the pride of a gabby flagpole-sitter. He refueled himself during his performance with nothing more than two glasses of water, one glass of orange juice, seven chocolate bars and a few tablets for his throat.

Inept Show. The whole filibuster fight was hard for most people to understand, and even harder to admire. It had been a shoddy performance all around. The Administration had promised to fight for civil rights for Negroes, but Harry Truman had gone fishing in Florida, and his Senate majority leader, Scott Lucas, had put on an inept show, bellicose when tact was required, weak and confused when strength was called for. The Republicans had nailed civil rights into their party platform, but a majority of Senate Republicans had used a quibble over rules to keep civil rights from coming to a vote. The filibustering Southern Democrats had hollered over the holy rights of a minority in the Senate while contriving to deny basic rights of citizenship to a minority of 9,530,000 Negroes in the South.

The battle went on with few outward signs of drama. Rumpled, red-eyed Senators shuffled on & off the Senate floor, but in offices and cloakrooms nerves snapped like old rubber bands. Democratic National Chairman J. Howard McGrath traded hot-tempered words with Negro Leader Walter White, who accused the Democrats of forgetting "the oldest law in politics: taking care of the people who took care of you on election day."

Time for the Undertaker. It was at this juncture that the Republicans took over. Minority Leader Kenneth Wherry, nicknamed by newsmen "The Merry Mortician," had been getting support for a "compromise," which was not a compromise at all but a hard peace imposed by the victors. He had rounded up 18 Southerners, 22 Republicans and twelve "non-confederate" Democrats, mostly from the border states. Thus reinforced, with full control of the Senate, Wherry went on the floor, whooped through his "compromise" resolution to end the filibuster by a 6340-23 vote.

The Wherry resolution drastically changed the rules on filibusters. Formerly they could be shut off during debate on a measure by a simple two-thirds majority (as few as 33 members) of a quorum. Under the Wherry rule, cloture could be applied at any stage of a debate, but only by a two-thirds majority (64) of the whole Senate. Cloture could not be invoked at all on a change in rules, which left the way open for an unstoppable filibuster if anyone tried again to change them. The new rule would be a weak weapon against any but a very small minority.

Harry Truman had chestily started the fight. All he had got out of it was a sound drubbing. Wherry crowed triumphantly: "The Administration hasn't any leadership . . ." With the entire Truman program yet to be acted upon, Administration forces in the Senate stood demoralized and on the defensive.

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