CHAPTER 6 "VULTURES" IN THE GALLERIES; "MIRACLES" ON THE FLOOR Lyndon Johnson continued to take every conceivable opportunity to increase the public awareness of civil rights. The president repeatedly linked the bipartisan civil rights bill to Abraham Lincoln and the fact that the nation had recently celebrated, in July l963, the l00th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. In response to a reporter's question about the civil rights bill at a White House press conference, Johnson said: I hope it is acted upon in the House before the members leave to attend Lincoln Day birthday meetings throughout the nation, because it would be a great tribute to President Lincoln to have that bill finally acted upon in the House before we go out to celebrate his birthday."1 At that same press conference, again in response to a reporter's question, Johnson gave what looked like a "go ahead" for some sort of women's rights amendment to be added to the bipartisan civil rights bill. The transcript of the question and answer read like this: REPORTER: Mr. President, Thursday in the [House] Rules Committee an amendment was offered to include women in the ban on discrimination in the 103 TO END ALL SEGREGATION civil rights bill. That was defeated by one vote and will be brought up again on the floor of the House. In the Democratic platform it says -- and if I may read you just a few words -- "We support legislation which will guarantee to women equality of rights under the law." Would you support an amendment to include women in the civil rights bill? PRESIDENT JOHNSON: I supported that platform and embraced that platform, and stated that view in 43 states in the Union. I realize there has been discrimination in the employment of women, and I am doing my best to do something about it. I am hopeful that in the next month we will have made substantial advances in that field.2 Although the president did not say specifically that he wanted a women's rights amendment added to the civil rights bill, his answer clarified that he was a supporter of the principle of equal rights for women, particularly where equal employment opportunity was concerned. He thus left the option open for the civil rights bill to be amended to ban discrimination on the basis of sex. STRENGTHENING AMENDMENTS? The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights faced a tactical problem as the bipartisan civil rights bill moved to the House floor -- whether to seek strengthening amendments. Up to this point the Leadership Conference's guiding strategy had been that the best defense is a good offense, and there were plenty of strengthening amendments for which to press. The "Mrs. Murphy" loophole could be removed from the public accommodations section. Part III could be amended to permit the attorney general to initiate, not just 104 "VULTURES" IN THE GALLERIES intervene in, civil rights suits. The EEOC provision could be strengthened by permitting administrative rather than judicial enforcement of fair labor practices. At the time the Leadership Conference was considering strengthening amendments, however, there were increasing numbers of news reports and editorial speculations that the bill was going to be dramatically weakened on the House floor, and that EEOC might be amended out of the bill entirely. At a White House meeting on 21 January 1964 President Johnson personally informed Clarence Mitchell, Jr., and Joseph Rauh, Jr., that he opposed any change in the bill, either making it stronger or making it weaker. Rauh described the effect of this meeting with President Johnson on Leadership Conference strategy: Recognizing the unlikelihood of strengthening amendments and the danger in adopting a different strategy on the House floor from that of the administration, the Leadership Conference modified its position to one of opposition to all weakening amendments and reserving decision on strengthening amendments."3 THE HOUSE DEBATE General debate on the civil rights bill began on 31 January l964 and provided the customary opportunities for "flowery" opening remarks. Emanuel Celler offered the following opinion about the prospective enactment of the civil rights bill: [It] will shine in our history. It will bring happiness to 20 million of our people. Civil rights must no longer be merely a beautiful conversation of sweet phrases and pretty sentiments. Civil rights must be the woof and the warp of the life of the nation.4 105 TO END ALL SEGREGATION William McCulloch quickly joined Celler in giving his views on the need for the bill: Not force or fear, . but the belief in the inherent equality of man induces me to support this legis- lation. No one would suggest that the Negro receives equality of treatment and opportunity in many fields of activity today. Hundreds of thousands of citizens are denied the basic right to vote. Thousands of school districts remain segregated. Decent hotel and eating accommodations frequently lie hundreds of miles apart for the Negro traveler. These and many more such conditions point the way toward the need for additional legislation." McCulloch went on to answer what he believed would be the main Southern charge against the civil rights bill -- that it went too far in terms of interfering in the daily lives of the people. "This bill is comprehensive in scope," he pointed out, "yet moderate in application. It is hedged about with effective administrative and legal safeguards." Clarence Brown, the senior Republican on the House Rules Committee, called on his fellow representatives to avoid bitterness and acrimony as they debated the bill. He appealed to House members to "conduct this debate on so high a plane that we can at least say to our children and grandchildren, we participated in one of the great debates of modern American history and we did it as statesmen and not as quarreling individuals." Exactly as Cellar and McCulloch were doing, the Southerners used the same arguments that had been practiced and perfected during the hearings before the House Rules Committee. Rules Committee Chairman Howard Smith once again pointed out that the bill reported out by the House Judiciary Committee had been written at the Kennedy White House and was not the bill that had been debated and 106 "VULTURES" IN THE GALLERIES amended by Judiciary Subcommittee No. 5. He said: The only hearings that were ever held on this bill were held, over the protest of a great many people, before the Committee on Rules. Apparently, nobody who favored this bill wanted the people to know what was in it, . [or what it] proposed to do for 90 percent of the people of this country whose liberties are being infringed upon. What we are considering now is a . monstrosity of unknown origin and unknown parentage . Representative William Colmer of Mississippi attacked the great extent to which the funds cutoff provision of the bill would effect life in local communities throughout the nation. He urged House conservatives, "particularly some of my Republican brethren," to recognize this flaw in the bill: Power would be given not only to the president and the attorney general, but more than that, given to every bureaucrat in the executive department to cut off all federal aid from your hometown, from your county, and from your state. Later in the debate, Emanuel Celler responded to Colmer with a firm defense of the funds cutoff provision: As a matter of simple justice, federal funds, to which taxpayers contribute, ought not to be expended to support or foster discriminatory practices. The toll of the "separate but equal" principle begins at birth. In the segregated hospital, built with federal funds, the chances of survival of a Negro infant or of a Negro mother giving birth in the limited and 107 TO END ALL SEGREGATION inadequate facilities provided to their race, are significantly lower than for whites.5 When the Southern Democrats were not attacking the civil rights bill itself, they turned their attention to the bipartisan coalition supporting the bill. Representative Jamie L. Whitten of Mississippi noted: It is unfortunate that we see an agreement between the Republican leadership over here and the Democratic leadership over there to pass through this House every last bad provision that is in this bill, of which there are hundreds."6 Edwin Willis of Louisiana used almost unchanged the material he had presented before the House Rules Committee. Those who had been present at the Rules Committee hearings heard a second time that the bill was "the most drastic and far-reaching proposal and grab for power ever to be reported out of a committee of the Congress."7 THE COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE In accordance with normal practice in the House of Represen- tatives, the bipartisan civil rights bill was first considered in the Committee of the Whole. This meant that the entire membership of the House sat as a committee to debate the bill and to amend it. Only two visible changes occur when the House meets as the Committee of the Whole. The mace (the medieval club, topped by an ornamental metal head, used since the Middle Ages to symbolize parliaments, universities, and city governments) is taken down from its mounting, and the speaker of the house is replaced as presiding officer by a member of his choosing. In the early l960s approximately 90 percent of the business of 108 "VULTURES" IN THE GALLERIES the House of Representatives was conducted in the Committee of the Whole. One reason for this was that there was a very lenient quorum rule. Instead of a majority of the House (2l8 members) constituting a quorum, only l00 members needed to be present at the Committee of the Whole.