R.I.P.

Though he had a virus ailment, a touch of pneumonia and a 100.2DEG temperature, Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield left his bed at Bethesda Naval Hospital, bundled up against a chill wind, and was chauffeured to the Capitol. Mansfield had made sure in advance that other Administration stalwarts would also be on hand. As for the G.O.P., Minority Leader Everett Dirksen warned potential no-shows: "By God, you're going to be here." To a man, they were. Thus, after a Dirksen-led filibuster had tied up the Senate for a total of 13 days in an attempt to thwart the Administration's bill to repeal Section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act, the issue finally came to a vote.

Leading the attack on Mansfield's petition to impose cloture, Dirksen castigated the Administration's attempt to foist "compulsory unionism" on hundreds of thousands of U.S. workers. "The basic concept upon which the whole structure of Government rests," he said, "is the concept of freedom. God help us if we impair it, if we tarnish it, if we sully it, if we transmit it to the next generation in impaired form." Mansfield countered with harsh words. He decried "the resentments, the irritations, the vendettas and the whatevers against organized labor" that had prompted the talkathon. Noting the Senate's historic reluctance to restrict debate, Mansfield reasoned: "The Senate will not gag itself by voting to adopt cloture. On the contrary, if the Senate does adopt cloture, it will free itself from the passion and perversity which, since the end of the last session, have held this institution in a deadly strangle hold."

Then the Senate voted. With 99 Senators on hand-Michigan Democrat

Pat McNamara, hospitalized for a thyroid ailment, was the only absentee- the Administration needed 66 votes to close down Dirksen's filibuster. It remained for Hubert Humphrey, president of the Senate, to announce how far short of the mark the Administration had fallen. "On this vote," boomed Humphrey when the tally was completed, "there are 51 yeas and 48 nays. Two-thirds of the Senators present and voting not having voted in the affirmative, the cloture motion is rejected." Two days later Mansfield tried again; this time the vote was 50 to 49 for cloture. Thus repeal of 14(b) was dead for this session. The bill would remain on the Senate calendar, Mansfield said, "with the inscription: R.I.P."

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