Prejudice & Politics

In a mood of anger and fecklessness, the House last week took final action on the $1.6 billion bill to build 300,000 desperately needed schoolrooms in the next four years. At the heart of the trouble was 1) the deep split among Southern and Northern Democrats over the race issue, 2) the basic opposition of conservative Republicans to the principle of federal aid to schools. Result: a crushing defeat for the bill.

The Trigger. Trigger of defeat was the amendment by Manhattan Democrat Adam Clayton Powell Jr. to deny federal funds to school districts until they have complied with the Supreme Court's desegregation decision. The amendment brought roars of anger from Southern Democrats. Shouted Louisiana Democrat George Long: "Louisiana is not going to integrate. I do not care what kind of a law you pass here." It also brought some reasoned statesmanship. Chicago Democrat William L. Dawson, like Powell a Negro, took his own stand against the amendment. Said he sadly: "I would not deny to the children in all states the opportunities to obtain their education because the people of a few scattered states have not yet obeyed the mandate of the court . . ."

The Switch. After two days of near chaos, a whopping G.O.P. majority voted the Powell amendment into the bill. Then, having put themselves on record with the nation's 6,000,000 Negro voters to the patent disadvantage of the Democrats, many Republicans felt free to go on record as firmly opposed to federal aid to education. To support this politically motivated position, they pointed out that the bill did not require states to take the responsibility called for by the Administration's school building program (TIME, Jan. 23). Said Indiana's Representative Charles Halleck: "This bill never was the Administration program."

On the final vote, school aid was defeated 224 (119 Republicans, 105 Democrats) to 194 (119 Democrats, 75 Republicans). Each side promptly accused the other of wrecking the bill. The truth was that both sides, by acting on politics and prejudice, had killed school aid.

Last week the Congress also:

P: Approved, in the House, a $378 million bill to continue federal aid for school construction and operation for another two years in "impacted" areas, i.e., crowded by military installations and other federal institutions. It passed because the Powell amendment was not proposed and because it could be construed as a special, not general, application of the federal aid principle.

P: Agreed, in a Senate-House conference, to split the difference between the mutual-security bills and allow the Administration to spend or commit $4,014,000,000 (it had asked for $4.9 billion) on the foreign-aid programs this year.

P: Passed, in the House, by a 217-165 vote, an Administration bill--opposed by the Democratic leadership--to raise postal rates from 3-c- to 4-c- for first-class mail, 6-c- to 7-c- for domestic airmail, and by 30% to 120% for second-class mail. The bill, designed to wipe out the postal deficit by producing $430 million a year in new revenue, will probably be pigeonholed in the Senate.

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