Making Haste Slowly

After weeks of bickering and dickering, the House Judiciary Committee last week passed and prepared to send to the Rules Committee a civil rights bill that reasonable men should be able to support.

It was a compromise--a bipartisan "unity bill" drafted by Ohio Republican William McCulloch, ranking minority member of the committee, Burke Marshall, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, and Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach. Its salient features:

o VOTING RIGHTS. The Attorney General is empowered to request three-judge courts to hear Negro voting discrimination suits, thus speeding the usually lengthy process. Literacy tests must be given in writing, and a sixth-grade education is considered presumptive proof of literacy for registration.

o PUBLIC ACCOMMODATIONS. Discrimination is forbidden in hotels, motels, filling stations, movie houses, and establishments that serve food. Excluded are small, owner-occupied rooming houses, barbershops, shoeshine parlors, and retail stores not serving food.

o CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS. The Justice Department is allowed to intervene in civil rights suits, and can bring suits against segregated public facilities such as parks and libraries owned by state or local governments.

o FAIR EMPLOYMENT. A national equal employment opportunities commission is set up to outlaw discrimination in industry--establishments employing 25 or more and engaged in interstate commerce. The commission can sue for enforcement in federal court.

Fancy Footwork. Obviously, such a compromise could not be achieved without some fancy footwork. The night before the crucial committee vote, a fleet of black Government cars fanned out through Washington, suburban Maryland and Virginia to deliver copies of the compromise to each member of the committee--except Southerners. They were determined to vote for a militantly civil righteous subcommittee substitution for the original Administration proposal, reasoning that this was the surest way to kill the chances for passing any civil rights legislation this year.

The Administration was well aware that the compromise bill could not get through Judiciary without the support of Republicans. The Republicans had already evinced their willingness to go along--provided the Democrats would publicly share the credit with the G.O.P.--by helping draft the bill's new version. Their final show of cooperation came when House Republican Leader Charlie Halleck appeared at the White House the morning of the committee vote, told the President there would probably be amendments offered to the bill when it reached the House floor, but assured him: "I'm for a meaningful but reasonable bill." Said Kennedy: "Let's get this done." A little later, behind the closed doors of the Judiciary Committee room in the old House Office Building, it was.

Fast Reading. On the key vote to throw out the stiff subcommittee version, which did not have a prayer of getting past the House, much less the Senate, the vote was 19 to 15. Still to go was approval of the compromise--which Committee Chairman Emanuel Celler, Brooklyn Democrat, and the White House agreed had to come that very day or risk the collapse of the tremulous Northern Democratic-Republican coalition. Celler then moved that the compromise draft be substituted. A petulant Southern voice demanded that the 56-page document be read. But only 65 minutes remained until the House convened, at which time the committee, under House rules, must adjourn. Celler signaled Committee Counsel William Foley to start reading--fast.

By 11:30 Foley had whipped through 38 pages. Finally at 11:52 he finished. A dozen members shouted for recognition. Ignoring all, Celler by prearrangement recognized New Jersey Democrat Peter W. Rodino, who moved "the previous question," cutting off debate and requiring a vote on whether to take up the compromise. The motion passed.

With the clock racing toward noon, the final roll-call vote--to approve the compromise version--began. Just after Committee Staff Director Bess Dick called out the last member's name, the noon bell jangled. Some members complained that the vote was invalid, since the result had not been announced before the bell. Southerners were livid. Amid the din, Chairman Celler smashed down his gavel, ruled that the roll call, which was 20 to 14 in favor of the compromise, was indeed valid.

Certain Trouble. But for all that bipartisan action, the civil rights bill still has a long way to go. The House Rules Committee, presided over by Virginia Conservative Howard Smith, could stall the measure for weeks. Even if it gets through the whole House, the bill faces certain Southern filibuster in the Senate, which can be shut off only by cloture, again requiring a bipartisan coalition.

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