St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1962-06-01

to introduce civil rights bill before it ready
to put up good fight for it.
Also we are convinced that until the civil rights
advocates in the Senate change their tactics they
will never be successful in enacting the very nee
essary federal legislation needed to clean up our
race discrimination mess in this country.
Senator Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota
perhaps, who despite his comparative young age is
the pioneer force in the Senate for meanngfu civil
rights legislation continues make the point that
unless unlimited debate be cut off by majority
vote of the Senate it will continue to be difficult
to get such necessary legislation past the Senate
filibuster.
The recent civil rights attempt has been critic
sed as "fumblng" by Robert Spivack our former
Washington correspondent in his weekly syndicated
column. which is distributed by the New York
Herald Tribune. So penetrating and pertinent was
article that we reproduce it here in its
entirety
spivack wrote and we agree with him almost
entirely:
In a democracy government by expedience
can go only far. Where matters of principle
and deep emotions involved there is danger
in playing everything by ear"
Yet, that is just what happened in the fight
over the administrations Iteracy test bill in the
recent civil rights contest. The opposition was
supposedly too dumb to understand that they were
being outmaneuvered. The traditional advocates of
civil rights could complain that they being
moved about like pawns on chessboard.
The result is, of course, we'll known. The Old
South won again and the Northern equal rights
advocates suffered their annual rout.
Reporters who covered this years civil rights
debate blame the singing setbacks a "seres
of miscaleulatons" Among the "miscaculations"
listed: delays in starting debate administration
hesitancy about alternating Southerners whose
votes will be needed on other bills the failure of
some senators to do their homework and the
language Of the nteracy bill.
All these elements were there and one more
The first and the most important was
the decision to shift tactics the whole civil
rights front. For two years the most devoted
fighters for civil rights told that the only
way to get anywhere was by executive order"
This argument rested on the assumption that
the Southerners were able obstructionists and
that it really impossible to beat the coalition
of conservatives who dominate Capitol Hill
When the civil rights advocates reluctantly
cided that aboshing discrimination by executive
order was fraught with political danger. They
suddenly changed position and decided to wage
legislative fight to end the Di1Iecrat custom of
giving Negroes lteracy test for voting that many
white voters could not pass.
This was to be the great gimmck. 1t would
dramatic the Negroes difficult position and in
election year the Congress would not dare buck
the administration.
There were at least two things wrong with
this approach. The civil rights advocates had to
begin "re-educating" their followers around the
country after getting them to go along with the
executive order" approach
This process of re-education takes time. While
civil rights advocates around the country were
wondering what the devil was going on, they had
little time to whip up a campaign to persuade
Congress to go along.
AS a result almost every congressman and
senator reported that the mail on civil rights was
small it could be ignored without political
danger in election year.
Furthermore, the President stayed above
the fight 1t is true he made some remarks "for
the record" as he has on the question of federal
aid to public schools. But that ended it. There
were no committees set up at the White House
as there have been with medical and the trade
bill There were no appeals for support tele-
vision by the President the Attorney General
Robert Kennedy worked hard on the Hill
Without any substantial backing from the folks
back home at the White House his efforts were
inevitably fruitless
Wait until next year" the administrations
friends say. I'VE won't make the same mistake
twice"
That sounds good if they understand what
the basic mistake was. They tried to take the heat
off the White House and put it on Capitol Hill
But congressman, even in election year, were
not the least bit embarrassed about killing the
literacy test bill. No seemed quite to under
stand it and the folks back home just did not seem
Interested
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