One Word Too Many

No one questions the right of a legislative body to sit in judgment on its own members. Usually, a legislator is removed from office or refused a seat because of corruption or malfeasance. Last week the Georgia house of representatives refused to seat one of its newly elected members for quite a different and unusual reason: his opposition to U.S. involvement in the Viet Nam war. While seven other Negroes--the first to sit in the Georgia house since 1907--were sworn in and seated, Julian Bond, 26, a handsome and articulate Atlanta Negro, was denied his seat by a 184 to 12 vote of the house.

A graduate of the Quaker-run George School in Bucks Co., Pa., and onetime student at Atlanta's predominantly Negro Morehouse College, Bond is an $83-a-week publicity director for the Atlanta-based Student Nonviolent Co ordinating Committee, the most militant of all U.S. civil rights organizations. After he had decided to take a fling at politics, he won election over another Negro last summer in Atlanta's largely

Negro 136th legislative district, taking a remarkable 82% of the vote. He had been little heard from until last week, when he showed that election to office had not taught him one valuable political talent: knowing when to keep his mouth shut.

A few days before the legislature convened, S.N.C.C. Chairman John Lewis issued a typically intemperate statement. He condemned the U.S.'s "aggressive policy in violation of international law" and voiced his support of draft dodgers. Reporters sought out Bond, asked him if he concurred in the Snick statement. Replied Bond: "Fully." Later, Pacifist Bond added: "I admire the courage of anyone who burns his draft card"--even though he does not advocate draft-card burning and has not burned his own Selective Service classification I-Y card (exempt on physical, mental or moral grounds except in time of war or national emergency).

At that, nearly a dozen white legislators signed petitions to deny him his seat, some charging him with treason. Bond's lawyers promptly filed suit in federal court to force the house to reverse its decision and seat him. At week's end, 1,000 demonstrators marched on the state capitol in Atlanta to protest his ouster.

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