Close to Kingship

Not since the floor days of Lyndon Johnson and, for a brief while, the fitful reign of Oklahoma's late Democratic Senator Robert Kerr, has the U.S. Senate had anything close to a king. But now moving toward that position is a most unlikely person: Illinois' Everett McKinley Dirksen, 68, a politician of many ups and downs and backs and forths, whose only present power lever is that of leader of an underwhelming minority of 33 Republicans.

The first secret of Dirksen's success is the fact that the lopsided Senate Democratic majority is split every which way, while Old Ev can influence, if he cannot command, almost all his Republicans. Because of this, Dirksen can often provide the votes that a Democratic Administration needs for its programs --particularly when a two-thirds Senate majority is required, as on treaties or for cloture. And that is the second reason for Dirksen's success: when such Republican votes are needed, he is always willing to cooperate with the Administration--but never without the Democrats paying a certain political price.

A prime example came last year in President Kennedy's nuclear test ban treaty. When it was first proposed, Dirksen expressed "grave doubts" about it and its effect on the U.S.'s atomic strength. But the Administration, wanting as nearly unanimous approval as possible, needed all the Republican votes it could get. One fine day, Dirksen went to the White House for a chat with Kennedy. He argued that with a few "assurances" from the President, he could still his own doubts and those of most of the Republican holdouts. Kennedy eagerly agreed, the assurances were given, Dirksen cooperated, and the treaty was ratified, without amendment, 80-19.

The Key That Opens the Lock. An even better case in point is this year's civil rights bill. Without a large number of Republican votes, the Democratic Party cannot even begin to hope to impose cloture and thereby shut off the filibuster by some of the Senate's most powerful and entrenched leaders. Dirksen is the key to those Republican votes. And he was willing to open the lock --on his own terms. He insisted on some 50 amendments (see box) in the civil rights bill already passed by the House.

For a while, the Johnson Administration insisted that it wanted its original bill to go through the Senate completely intact, proposal by proposal, comma by comma, and would brook no change. But Old Ev knew better --no changes, he said, and there would not be enough Republican votes to pass the salt. The Administration, being eminently realistic, eventually gave in, and in a series of meetings between Dirksen, the Democratic Senate leadership, Attorney General Kennedy and Justice Department lawyers accepted almost all of Dirksen's ideas for changing the bill.

It was then up to Dirksen to sell the package to his fellow Republicans. Last week, in three conferences, he came very close to doing just that; it might take until the early part of June before a handful of still-doubtful Republicans decide that the segregationist Democrats have used up their hallowed right of "unlimited debate," but the time will surely come.

A Little Sermon. Beyond that, Dirksen at long last wore his own civil rights heart on his sleeve. Never before had he talked about the moral basis for the bill. Now he did, calling in reporters for a news conference and delivering unto them a "little sermon." He said he was quoting the words Victor Hugo penned in his diary on the night he died: "Stronger than any army is an idea whose time has come."* Said Dirksen:

"Civil rights--here is an idea whose time has come. It is inescapable, and we've got to deal with it." Everything in his own perspective of the world, Dirksen continued, told him that a new role for the Negro in America was as obvious as the child labor law or women's suffrage had been in their time. Added he, gesturing toward the Senate chamber: "No one on that floor is going to stop this. It is going to happen." And with his help, it probably will.

* No diary of Hugo (1802-85) has been found; Dirksen quoted a popular version of Hugo's "On resists a I'invasion des armees; on ne resiste pas a I'invasion des idees," from his Historic d'un Crime.

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