St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1944-05-26
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UncOvering
Washington
By Harry S. McAlpin
(White House Correspondent


"What are you going to write on
this week." friend of mine asked
me the other day.
"The Poll Tax" replied.
"That's dead now," he said. "Why
don't you let it rest!"
Well-that's just the reason the
subject needs to be written on.
There are too many people, like my
friend, willing to forget the whole
subject because the Senate-with
another one of those farcical, in
sincere, tricky messages, similar to
the rub off" given the Federal Aid
to Education bill-has soothed the
troublesome giant.
That is exactly what the Sen
ators from outside of the deep
South and of the "lily-white or al
most-lily-white" states want US to
do.
And if we do, then we don't de-
serve any better legislators than we
get. Spectacles such as the one
staged in the Senate last week are
as much the responsibility of the
masses of the people as of the Sen
ators who participated in it. They
are there either because the masses
put them there-and keep on doing
it-or because the masses with the
privilege of voting failed to exer-
else their franchise intelligently or
at all.
Voters should not forget a man
who plays tn e m for suckers"
through the spoken word for the
Record. Such a man is not sincere.
Such a man is untrustworthy. Such
a man is Senator Bennett Champ
Clarke of Missouri.
AS 1 sat in the gallery of the
Senate-the visitors gallery, be-
cause the Correspondents Stand
ing Committee of the House and
Senate Press Galleries hasn't yet
stirred up enough courage to break
precedent and admit my darker face
Il was giving Senator Clark credit
for sincerity at least, though men,
tally, l was disagreeing with him.
But when 1 returned to my Of
flee, looked up the veterans" bill
he was sponsoring to displace the
poll tax bill because it was so ur-
gent, and learned that he must have
had to rummage around for sew
eral hours to find it because it had
passed the House of Representa-
tives on October 49,, 1913, 1 lost all
respect for Senator Clark's integ-
rity.
Then, when the Senate, by unani-
nous consent-which meant neither
Clark nor any other Senator raised
objection - promptly adjourned
after less than five minutes consid
Grafton of Clark's bill, and agreed
not to meet again until Wednesday
noon (all this happened on Mon
day., l lost my respect for every
man who argued that the Senate
had so much pressing business that
it didn't have time and couldn't af-
ford to risk a filibuster on poll
taxes.
And-when analysed the cloture
vote and found that the Republic
ans voting against adoption of the
cloture rule were all from States
with few or practically no Negroes
with one exception, Oklahoma), I
lost my respect for all but few of
the Republicans who voted for clo-
ture. They knew it couldn't win so
long as their colleague kept faith
with their Southern alliance-and
have been told such was their pre-
arranged strategy. Ut seems more
than mere coincidence tn at the
states of the Republicans who voted
against cloture were: Vermont,
Maine, New Hampshire, Delaware,
South Dakota, Colorado, North Da-
kota, Wyoming, Idaho and Okla
homa).
Perhaps the poll tax bill is dead!
But the issue is one which should
haunt many a Senator in November
IA, '46 and '48 whenever he comes
again to his electorate for contin-
uance in office.
If to write on it from time to
time will help arouse the spooks,
then 1 shall not let it rest!