Rebellion in Denver

Ninety Colorado legislators proudly traveled back to the four corners of the Centennial State last week. They were solemnly proud of not having done something--they had stubbornly refused to vote what they had been called into special session to pass. Their do-nothing was the loudest kind of slap in the face of Colorado's Governor John Charles Vivian.

Governor Vivian, excited by the Denver Post's black gothic headlines and red-tempered editorials, had called the session to pass a constitutional amendment to keep Japanese nationals from buying even one foot of Colorado's fair soil. About 1300 Japanese, pushed off the Pacific Coast by the Army, have been resettled in Colorado since Pearl Harbor.

At first, the House seemed willing to go along with Vivian. Then three representatives banded together to fight the amendment: one who is blind, a second whose brother is a Jap prisoner, a third who is a Negro. Tall, gangly Dean Paul Roberts of Denver's St. John's Cathedral soberly warned a packed house and gallery: "Fascism starts in an innocent way, with public opinion mobilized against a small group unable to fight back."

But the show-stopper was boyish, bespectacled Representative Wayne Hill, 26, just honorably discharged from the Army as a sergeant. Still in uniform, he flew in from Will Rogers Field, Okla. to address his fellow legislators: "I am cautioned that I will be sorry [for my stand]. . . . I am just as willing to die a political death as I am to die in battle to preserve American freedom."

After that, Vivian's constitutional amendment was dead. The Senate killed it, then went home muttering about a week's wasted time. The House, 60-to-1, dismissed even a Vivian face-saving gesture to "appoint a committee to investigate the problem." Rebuffed, Governor Vivian in turn rebuffed reporters: "I don't care to say anything about it. What's the use?"

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