Ohio Fish Fry

Ohio's handsome, white-haired John Bricker, who is beloved by the real-estate lobby, did not join the Senate's private slumming expedition (see above). He had other fish to fry. As the Senate moved into its fifth day of debate on the bipartisan housing bill, Bricker cooked up a whopper.

His face aglow, he rose to offer a plausible-sounding amendment to the housing bill which would provide federal funds to help erect 810,000 low-rent housing units within the next six years. Bricker wanted a provision forbidding discrimination or segregation of races in any public housing project. Cried Bricker: "There has been a great deal of shadowboxing in the Congress in the attempt to place responsibility for the failure of the civil rights program. This is the one chance we will likely have to vote on this question during the present session."

The idea, of course, was to put Northern Democrats on the spot if they helped defeat the amendment, to stir up a Southern filibuster against the bill if the amendment passed. When Illinois' Douglas tried to head off the maneuver, Republican Minority Leader Kenneth Wherry moved in with a taunting counterattack: "Does the Senator mean that this small and gallant group of liberals is going to vote for the amendment or does he mean it is going to vote against it? Being liberals, of course they would vote to support an amendment which provides that there shall be no discrimination."

Alice In Wonderland. Freshman Douglas stood his ground. He was as solid as any man for civil rights. But, he cried, "What would happen if we adopted the Bricker amendment? The answer is very simple. It would inevitably defeat the whole housing bill itself . . . It is no idle mind reading when I say that the adoption of his amendment would not win over the junior Senator from Ohio to support of the bill which he so sincerely dislikes . . . Senators will probably remember the passage in Alice in Wonderland describing the smile of the Cheshire Cat, which continued after the cat itself had faded from sight. That smile was not very substantial. There cannot be a smile without a

Cheshire Cat. Let me say that nonsegregated housing without a housing bill does not amount to anything . . . We are declining to make political capital out of a situation readymade for getting votes . . ."

Ruefully, Douglas admitted that he had probably succeeded only in "getting everyone angry and cutting my own political throat from ear to ear." The vote proved otherwise. By a vote of 49 to 31, eight Republicans helped 41 Democrats slap down John Bricker's non-segregation amendment. Among the eight Republicans was Ohio's senior Senator Robert Taft. After that, there was only one more major hurdle to take.

Deal on the Floor. Charging in from opposite directions, Ohio's Taft wanted to cut out the $12.5 million "outhouse fund" for submarginal farms, and North Dakota's maverick Republican William Langer wanted to double it. Langer threatened to filibuster all night. As he talked, Democratic leaders huddled near him, occasionally whispering to him. In the end, he sat down assured that he would have his way. Senator Taft snapped angrily: "We all saw the deal made here on the Senate floor. There is no question that the committee bought off the filibuster by agreeing to increase the appropriation $12,500,000." Finally, in the twelfth hour of continuous debate, the Senate approved the full housing bill by a vote of 57 to 13.

Similar bills had twice before passed the Senate, only to be defeated in the House. This time it looked as if the House would pass it too.

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