The Great Crusade

The party of Abraham Lincoln, as it often roguishly describes itself, has maintained its spotless record. The last thing it gave Negroes was liquor for their votes in the Reconstruction era. Two days ago the Republican Senators voted, 41 to 5, to table a motion to alter the filibuster rule.

This is one of the oldest--and dirtiest--tricks in the Republican bag. By steadfastly preserving Rule 22, which allows unlimited "debate" unless 64 Senators vote for cloture, the Republicans make it possible for the Southerners to kill by filibuster every piece of legislation designed to give Negroes a couple of civil rights.

Then, since the Southerners are all Democrats, the Republicans can go home to campaign and tell their Negro constituents: "You see what those Democrats do to you? Every time we try to get something through for you, they stop us with the filibuster. We are helpless!"

And it is true--they are helpless, but only so long as they keep Rule 22 as it is. The flagrant dishonesty of this policy has never lost it any support in the Grand Old Party.

It was only a few years ago, in fact, that the Republicans made Rule 22 even more vicious. When the late Arthur Vandenberg was president pro tem of the Senate, an occasion arose when it seemed possible that cloture could be invoked, according to the then prevalent interpretation that two-thirds of the Senators could invoke it. Vandenberg, who was enjoying quite a reputation as a liberal in those post-war days, decided that the rule required the votes of two-thirds of the whole Senate.

In 1949, one of Alben Barkley's first acts as vice-president was to reverse Vandenberg's ruling. The Michigan Republican marshalled the Republicans into coalition with the Southerners, and got the 64-vote rule reinstated.

Admitting that any civil rights plank was useless without a change in Rule 22, the Democratic Party last summer pledged itself to fight for a revision. The Southerners, as with the 1948 civil rights plank, quite frankly declared that they were not bound by the party vote. And when the issue came to the Senate Wednesday, every single Democrat from outside the South stuck by the platform.

But Senators Taft and Knowland and the rest of the Republican policy makers decided that "this was not the time" to revise the filibuster rule. Aside from independent Morse of Oregon, only five Republicans broke ranks: Ives of New York, Duff of Pennsylvania, Tobey of New Hampshire, Hendricksen of New Jersey, and Governor Warren's replacement for Nixon, Kuchel of California.

It is a bit sickening to read the list of Republicans who voted to table the motion and keep civil rights legislation a physical impossibility. Salton-stall, Aiken, Bush and Purtell of Connecticut, Smith of Maine, and Smith of New Jersey are the most shocking.

Even Eisenhower went along. As Senator Neely pointed out, the General appealed for "liberalized" Senate rules everywhere he went in his campaign "except in Texas, Florida, and South Carolina." In light of this fresh memory, the president elect's insistence that it was none of his business takes on a definite aura of hypocrisy.

Senator Knowland's assertion that Eisenhower merely feels that "Senate rules are for the Senate to devide" lacks the ring of truth. The issue is clearly not the rights of Senators, but the rights of Negroes. This is a political question in the highest sense: a question of social policy.

The Republicans chose to turn it into a political question in the lowest sense: what can we sell our votes for: They sold them for Southern votes for high tariffs, tax swindles (officially known as loopholes), and all these little plots so dear to the GOP's heart.

Yes, this is a familiar nick. It should occasion no surprise. But we feel justified in expressing our complete disgust.