Teddy's Test

In his 21 years as a Democratic Senator from Massachusetts, Teddy Kennedy has established himself as a pleasant young man who listens respectfully to his elders. But last week Teddy talked back--and, though he narrowly lost his first major legislative test, he handled himself with a skill and a cool political opportunism that bodes well for his future.

Lost Sheep. Teddy was the leader of a band of Senate liberals attempting to tack onto the voting-rights bill an amendment to outlaw poll taxes in state and local elections. The move was strongly opposed by President Johnson. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, Senate Democratic Leader Mike Mansfield, and Senate Republican Leader Everett Dirksen, who questioned the constitutionality of Teddy's amendment.

Teddy helped mobilize labor and church groups behind the amendment, enlisted Harvard Law Professor Paul Freund to tutor him in the constitutional issues, spent hours on the telephone with such colleagues as New York's Jacob Javits, his chief Republican ally, and did personal lobbying in the corridors. Brother Bobby feigned indifference and pointedly did not join 38 co-sponsors of the amendment, but he worked actively behind the scenes for it. For the opposition, Dirksen set about swinging wavering Republicans back into line. His technique differs considerably from the arm-twisting tactics made famous by Lyndon Johnson. "Senator Dirksen doesn't work this way," explained New Jersey Republican Clifford Case, who supported the amendment. "He takes a little longer. He does it with oleaginous applications of one sort or another." On the eve of the vote, Dirksen felt certain that his applications had been effective. "I brought three lost sheep back into the fold," he confided, "and I'll get another one tomorrow morning."

Clan Within. When the showdown came, the Kennedy clan was on hand in force. Watching from the Senate gallery were Teddy's wife, Joan, in a pink frock; Sister Eunice Shriver; and Bobby's wife, Ethel. Temporarily presiding over the session was Bobby himself. Taking the floor against the amendment, Dirksen asked: "If Congress can tell the states by statute this afternoon that they cannot impose a poll tax, why not tell them they cannot impose a cigarette tax or any other tax?" Democratic Leader Mansfield worried that the amendment might endanger the entire voting-rights bill. "The choice," he said, "is between the course of risk and the course of sureness."

Teddy was neither awed nor swayed. Wearing a navy-blue suit with a PT-boat tie clasp, and leaning on a silver-headed cane, he arose at the front-row desk next to Mansfield's, which he had appropriated for the occasion, and speaking from notes, defended the first major item of legislation he had ever managed on the floor. "It is a settled constitutional doctrine," orated Teddy, by way of rationalizing a universal ban on poll taxes, "that where Congress finds an evil to exist, such as the economic burden in this case, it can apply a remedy which may affect people outside the evil."

Delays Ahead. In the tense roll-call vote, Teddy's amendment lost, 49 to 45. But the Administration owed its victory to the votes of Republicans and segregationist Democrats, and Teddy appeared to be everybody's civil rights champion. Even Dirksen congratulated him for his smooth handling of the amendment.

Still, the price of Teddy's performance had been a weeks-long delay of the voting-rights bill in the Senate, and the aftereffects would probably keep the measure tied up much longer. Some Republicans--bitterly realizing that they will probably be blamed by civil righters for defeating the amendment, though they would hardly have received credit for supporting it--were having second thoughts about bipartisanship in civil rights. Dirksen, fearing that he no longer could promise enough G.O.P. votes to shut off a Southern filibuster, warned, "We are in difficulties at the moment. I would not want to be associated with a cloture motion that failed."

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