The Filibuster Before the Filibuster

Now Georgia's filibustering Democratic Senator Richard Russell rose to take up the cause of Muhammad Ali, more commonly known as Cassius Clay. Scarcely troubling to conceal the twinkle in his eye, Russell inveighed against a World Boxing Association move to vacate Clay's world heavyweight championship title, cited it as a prime example of the intolerance that had inspired the civil rights bill.

"I have pointed out before that a wave of intolerance accompanied by a determination to enforce conformity of thought and action on all men was sweeping through the nation," Russell cried, overlooking the fact that Clay's religion is not at issue with the W.B.A.

"I do not know Clay, and hold no especial brief for him, but I insist that as a freeborn American citizen he has the right to associate himself with any group, even if they do not believe in the current craze to utilize the federal power to compel race mixing in every area of life. We have come to a pretty pass in this country, where a man who conscientiously believes in separation of the races is to be penalized and denied his rights on account of his beliefs."

Time Clocked. And so the talkfest continued -- but by no means all of the time wasting had been done by Southern Democrats. Oregon Democrat Maurine Neuberger gave a speech on "Cigarettes --Tried and Found Guilty." Minnesota's Democrat Hubert Humphrey lauded "20 consecutive years of membership growth" of the Retail Clerks International Association. Montana Democrat Lee Metcalf complained about the Montana Power Co.'s electric rates. South Dakota Republican Karl Mundt fretted about trade with Communist Poland, and Kansas Republican Frank Carlson worried about the cattle farmers' plight.

Exasperated beyond endurance, New Hampshire Republican Norris Cotton finally let fly at the fact that his fellow civil rights proponents were "contribut ing innocently or inadvertently to the so-called filibuster." He said he had been holding a watch as Virginia Democrat Willis Robertson, who makes no bones about being one of the filibusterers, spoke directly on the topic of civil rights. Said Cotton: "I discovered that when the Senator from Virginia was credited with having occupied the time from approximately 10:30 until approximately 1:30, nearly one of those three hours was taken up by other Senators on extraneous subjects having nothing to do with civil rights. Many of those Senators will soon be insisting that their colleagues rally round to invoke cloture."

War Declared. But all this, even at the expenditure of 15 days and more than half a million words, was merely a small filibuster before the real filibuster. Under consideration was the question of whether the Senate should take up the civil rights bill as its next order of business. Near week's end, it voted 67 to 17 to do just that, then turned down, 50 to 34, a motion by Morse to send the bill to the previously bypassed Judiciary Committee for a few days. Segregationist Leader Russell, although he knew he was fighting a last-ditch battle, seemed unfazed. Said he: "Unfortunately we have lost a skirmish. We shall now begin to fight the war."

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