Civil Fight on Civil Rights

In the South's unflagging battle against civil-rights legislation, House Rules Committee Chairman Howard Smith has been serving as a quietly effective Dixie doodler. Virginian Smith bottled civil rights in committee for two months until a majority forced it out. When the measure reached the House floor last week, "Judge" Smith took command of Southerners marshaling to defeat or disembowel it. The bill's backers steeled themselves for diatribe and delay, quorum calls and quixotic demands. But with gaunt, mild-looking Howard Smith calling the shots, they were never more wrong.

Before the House sat as a Committee of the Whole to debate civil rights, Smith issued a two-part order of the day. His 100 Southern Congressmen were to concentrate fire behind an amendment calling for jury trials in contempt cases--a device of North Carolina's Senator Sam Ervin Jr. that would effectively gut the bill while piously pretending to preserve venerable jury-trial rights (TIME, May 6). They were to fight the battle with calmness and consideration, said Smith.

On the Double. Acting on his orders, Southern orators zeroed in on the jury-trial gimmick, forced New York's Emanuel Celler and other advocates into an uncomfortable posture of constant defense. Between speeches they clapped friendly arms around Republican shoulders, added private pleas to public petitions in behalf of the amendment. When the Southerners hinted that they could sniff 240 votes in favor of their amendment, Administration forces were flabbergasted and alarmed.

To Capitol Hill on the double, to win back doubting Democrats, came skirmishers from the A.F.L-C.I.O., the American Civil Liberties Union, the Society of Friends, B'nai B'rith and the N.A.A.C.P. Doubting Republicans received telephone calls from aides of Attorney General Herbert Brownell. Presidential Administrative Assistant I. (for Isaac) Jack Martin hurried over from the White House, stationed himself on the Republican side of the House lobby to buttonhole members.

On the Wane. Toward week's end "Judge" Smith's balm began to wear off. Attempting to toss out the bill on a technicality, Smith was firmly overruled by House Speaker Sam Rayburn. Better still, unofficial nose counts by whips of both parties found all but about 40 of the 200 Republicans and more than half the 234 Democrats still prepared to vote down the jury-trial amendment. But as debate continued toward this week's crucial voting, a new wedge was driven in the pro-civil-rights ranks. The driver: no less an advocate than Harlem's Adam Clayton Powell. "Why send Pennsylvania and Ohio Democrats to Congress," he wrote fellow House members, "if they must take their orders from the middlemen who serve the White Citizens' Councils?"

Rising for an angry answer, Ohio's Wayne L. Hays drew applause by declaring that "there is no person in the United States . . . who is doing more to divide Negro citizens from other citizens than the gentleman from New York." Powell's letter, added Hays, almost persuaded him to support the jury-trial amendment. Dangling a foot over the side of his chair, Howard Smith smiled contentedly.

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