Slicing the Bread

It was opening day in Washington, and the home-town Senators were well on their way to their first defeat of the baseball season. At the end of the third inning, an announcement blared forth from the public-address system: "Attention, please, there has been a quorum call in the United States Senate. All U.S. Senators are requested to return to the chamber immediately."

With that, half a dozen Senators--including Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, Minority Leader Everett Dirksen and Democratic Whip Hubert Humphrey--scrambled from their seats and bolted toward waiting limousines for the one-mile dash to Capitol Hill. About the only Senator left was Georgia Democrat Richard Russell, who, in the words of an envious colleague, "never moved."

Light in the Cupola. Russell and his 18-man team of homily-grits Southerners were not in the least concerned about the slow progress of the civil rights bill. But others were, and against a lowering backdrop of powder-keg Negro restiveness and growing white alarm, a sense of urgency has begun to pervade even the drowsy chamber.

Accordingly, Majority Leader Mansfield has quickened the pace of the six-week-old debate by lengthening sessions, sometimes running them from 10 a.m. until midnight. He was not yet ready to order round-the-clock sessions, but night after soft spring night, a light burned in the cupola of the Capitol to tell the city that the Senate was at work.

And dreary work it often seemed. Technically, it could not yet be called a filibuster, for speeches were still germane to the bill. The Southerners, for example, had great fun resurrecting a speech that President Johnson made as a freshman Senator in 1949. Opposing a proposed Fair Employment Practices Commission, the young Senator Johnson had argued that "such a law would necessitate a system of federal police officers such as we have never before seen," and that he hoped "the Senate will never be called upon to entertain seriously any such proposal again." Texas Republican John Tower rose to laud L.B.J.'s ancient statement as "one of the most succinct and pointed arguments that I have ever heard."

Lyndon's Mystery Kit. Humphrey, who is floor-managing the bill for the Democrats, was growing impatient. "When we get around to the latter part of April," said he, "we'll start spelling 'filibuster' in capital letters." Before it goes on for too long, Senator Humphrey will probably appeal to Lyndon Johnson for help. "Knowing the President, I expect him to produce miracles," he said. "He has a Mystery Kit of Legislative Remedies."

Maybe. At this point, though, the man with the Mystery Kit is not Johnson but Everett McKinley Dirksen, and most of last week's offstage activity on the bill centered around his shambling figure. The reason for Dirksen's importance is that Humphrey now has only 59 or 60 of the 67 votes that he will need to shut off a Southern filibuster by invoking cloture. The rest must come from among a dozen fence sitters, half of them Republicans responsive to Dirksen and anxious to soften the bill, particularly its public-accommodations and equal-employment sections. "There will be amendments to this bill," said Dirksen, "just as sure as anything."

For openers, Dirksen mentioned offhandedly that he had 40 or so amendments in mind for Title VII, which provides for the establishment of a five-member Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. "This is a vulnerable section," said Ev. "I'd like to strike it altogether." When liberals from both parties howled, Dirksen sat down with his G.O.P. colleagues at a series of luncheon conferences to thresh out their differences. "Not being Houdini," said he, "I didn't find the right answer. When you start rassling with this kind of a can of worms, you do not know one day from another where you're going to come out." Dirksen came out with a group of ten amendments, will introduce more as the debate progresses.

Fixed Polestar. Dirksen's strategy prompted complaints that he was gutting the bill, but he was ready with a typical reply. "I have a fixed polestar to which I am pointed," said he, "and this is: first to get a bill, second to get an acceptable bill, third to get a workable bill, and finally to get an equitable bill." Added Dirksen, who is well aware that there might be no bill at all unless some changes are made: "If you don't get a whole loaf of bread, you get what bread you can."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.