The Gauntlet

Attorney General Bobby Kennedy last week ran the civil rights gauntlet, got flogged from both sides, and emerged scarred--but still in better shape than anyone might have expected when he started. The occasion was Bobby's appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, where his unhappy mission was to urge members to water down a civil rights bill so that it might have a practical chance of passing the whole House.

The bill was an expanded version of the Administration's own civil rights package. The Administration measure had been taken in hand by Judiciary Committee Chairman Emanuel Celler, a vociferously civil righteous Brooklyn Democrat. Also sitting as chairman of a civil rights subcommittee, Celler made one personal addition after another to the Administration bill. His version expanded the public accommodations section to forbid discrimination by any business operating under state or local "authorization, permission or license." It authorized the Attorney General to intervene and bring suit on behalf of any individual to prevent the denial of any constitutional right. It extended new guarantees of the right to vote to state as well as federal elections, established an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission with enforcement teeth.

Language & Legalism. As sent to the full Judiciary Committee, the bill simply went too far. It antagonized not only Southerners but many Republicans and moderate Democrats who questioned its sweeping grants of federal authority. Celler also angered Ohio Republican William McCulloch, ranking minority member of the civil rights subcommittee, by ramming through the changes without any effort toward bipartisan consultation.

As the Administration's top civil rights troubleshooter, it fell to Bobby Kennedy to put the bill back on the track. Painfully aware that he would bring down the wrath of civil rights professionals, Bobby went to the Judiciary Committee to plead that the bill be diluted to passable proportions. He carefully avoided challenging Celler's bill on principle, skillfully confined himself to matters of language and legalisms. The new public accommodations section, he said, was "unclear," might extend federal regulation to "all businesses which a state does not affirmatively ban." He questioned the vast scope of powers granted the Attorney General, pointed out that Article I of the Constitution gives Congress power only over federal elections. As for fair employment practices legislation, Bobby said such a section had the Administration's wholehearted support--then warned, however, that its inclusion might "jeopardize ultimate passage of the omnibus bill."

The Inevitable Outbursts. Manny Celler got the message. Late in the week he promised to "put aside my own feelings" and "exert every effort" toward reporting a compromise version of the bill from his committee within two weeks. Inevitably, there were some angry outbursts. Clarence Mitchell, Washington director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, cried that "there is no reason for this kind of sellout." The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, an association of top civil rights leaders, sent a three-page letter to Celler urging him to ignore Bobby's advice. For all that, a civil rights bill now seemed to have a better chance of getting through the House.

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