Rule by Demagogues

Scrambling hurriedly to clear its decks for world charter discussion, the Senate was stopped in its tracks last week by an ancient mutineer: the filibustering Southerner. Mississippi's jug-eared, sawed-off Senator Theodore Gilmore Bilbo held the floor. His target: the Fair Employment Practices Commission. His weapons: racial and religious hatreds.

For most of three days and a night blustering Bilbo panted and ranted. Cried he:

"If you go through the Government departments there are so many niggers it's like a black cloud all around you. . . .

Some Catholics are linked with some rabbis trying to bring about racial equality for the niggers. Some of my best friends are Catholics. But you can't get away from the fact that some of them are rotten.

The niggers and Jews of New York are working hand in hand. . . . This is a damnable, Communist, poisonous piece of legislation." When "The Man" Bilbo finally tired, he was spelled by Mississippi's junior Senator, James Oliver Eastland, who can "coon-shout" with the best of them. He took another tack: "We are dealing with an inferior race.

. . . Negro soldiers have caused the U.S.A. to lose prestige all over Europe. . . . They will not fight. They will not work. . . . They are guilty of more than half the crimes in the Army. . . ."*

The Senate's only effective challenge was compromise: a deep cut in FEPC's appropriation. The demagogues had their way. FEPC, which endeavors to enforce non-discrimination against anyone because of race, creed or color, might continue a few months. But as a permanent agency it was dead.

*General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower was already on record with a refutation: "I do not differentiate among soldiers. I have seen Negro soldiers in this war and I have many reports on their work where they have rendered very valuable contributions. . . . [Negroes] have done the job given them."

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