Keeping the Faith

Lolling at the bar of Washington's Congressional Hotel last week, Adam Clayton Powell looked the very picture of cavalier confidence. Back from a two-month sojourn with his comely receptionist on the Bahamian isle of South Bimini, the Harlem Democrat bragged of his angling prowess. "Are you worried?" asked a reporter. Replied Powell: "Do I look it?" What would he say to the Democratic caucus? "I'm going to tell them," he purred, "to keep the faith, baby."

Congress did indeed keep the faith--with itself and the American people. In the next 48 hours, Powell's House colleagues coldly cashiered him from the chairmanship of the perquisite-rich Education and Labor Committee, and then barred him, at least for the nonce, from taking his seat in Congress.

Powell is a Congressman without a constituency, for the minute he goes back to his New York City district he risks being clapped in jail under contempt of court sentences, which total 16 months and spring from his failure to pay a libel judgment to a Negro widow. That and his alleged gross misuse of committee funds for his own enjoyment were the reasons for his disbarment. The action was as unexpected as it was unprecedented. Not in the 56-year history of the House's seniority system had a committee chairman been sacked for any sin other than party disloyalty.

Thunderclap of Ayes. The 90th Congress' crushing consensus was evident from the start of the session. The first move was up to the Democrats, and aging Speaker John McCormack declared himself opposed to any disciplinary action. But he quickly ran into a buzz saw of revolt. Liberals led by Morris Udall of Arizona, brother of Interior Secretary Stewart, angrily told the Speaker of constituent pressure to do something about Powell. Shouted Udall: "I've got to go back to my people!" Insisted McCormack: "We shouldn't bow to it."

But bow they did--in part perhaps because of a Lou Harris poll reporting that public confidence in Congress had plummeted from 71% a year ago to 54%. When the Democratic caucus convened, Udall offered a resolution to strip Powell of his chairmanship, stipulating that he would nonetheless battle on the House floor to seat Powell pending a probe of his conduct. Declared Udall: "The people have the right to pick the Representative they want, but they do not have the right to tell the House who shall be chairman of a powerful committee."

A "McCormack substitute" devised by the Speaker, which would have merely suspended Powell from his chairmanship pending investigation, went down in humiliating defeat, 122 to 88. Then, in a thunderclap of ayes, Udall's resolution was shouted through by voice vote. The action handed Powell's chairmanship to the committee's second-ranking Democrat, Carl Perkins, a quiet Kentuckian and moderate liberal.

Jesus & Dreyfus. After the vote, standing by House Majority Leader Carl Albert's desk, Powell appeared close to collapse. He clasped the desk with both hands, began shaking, started to weep, finally walked out of the chamber. Before a crowd of Negroes awaiting him on the Capitol steps, he soon returned to form. He branded the action "a lynching, Northern style," sneered at Udall ("He's a Mormon--they don't allow Negroes in"), compared himself to Dreyfus and Jesus Christ ("Jesus had only one Judas, but I had about 120"), and exhorted "all black people" to "take the scalpel of black power."

Even as he raved, the Republican caucus was drawing up its own resolution. Next day, with the great bronze doors of its formal entrance closed and locked against a possible invasion by Negroes gathered in front, the full House convened. Powell, resplendent in dark blue suit and canary yellow shirt, stood in the rear of the chamber casually puffing on a thin cigar. But his face went grim during the swearing-in when California's Lionel Van Deerlin, making good on a longstanding vow, exercized his prerogative of demanding that Powell stand aside. And Powell gazed solemnly at the ceiling as Udall, by prearrangement with McCormack, stood up to offer a motion that Powell take his seat pending an investigation of his "final right" to do so.

"Haven for Fugitives." Then it was House G.O.P. Leader Gerald Ford's turn to submit his resolution, which called for barring Powell first and investigating him afterward. Supporting the Republican proposal, Democrat Van Deerlin ridiculed contentions that Powell had not had his day in court. "Nearly a dozen judges in New York State," he countered, "will tell you where the fault lies. If election to the House carries a license for scofflaws, if this chamber is to become a haven for fugitives, then I say God help the Congress!"

Granted the floor at the behest of the Democrats, Powell delivered a mumbling, rambling soliloquy distinguished by a crude threat of political blackmail. "There is no one here," he snarled, "who does not have a skeleton in his closet. I know, and I know them by name." Concluded Powell: "Gentlemen, my conscience is clean [snickers in the gallery). All I hope is that you have a good night's sleep tonight."

Negro Summit. Moments later, on a roll-call ballot, the House overwhelmingly rejected, 305 to 126, Udall's compromise. Then it adopted, by the even more staggering margin of 364 to 64 (the latter all Democrats), the G.O.P. substitute decreeing that, pending an investigation, Powell "shall not be sworn in or permitted to occupy a seat in this House." It was the first time since 1920 that a member-elect had been excluded from the chamber. Under the resolution, Powell will continue to enjoy his congressional $30,000-a-year salary, office and expense allowance, while Mc-Cormack appoints a committee of five Democrats and four Republicans to carry out the probe. The committee is to report within five weeks, but the period could be extended.

In the aftermath, Negroes from Julian Bond to Stokely Carmichael denounced the House's action. Even notably moderate, responsible Negro leaders such as Martin Luther King were angered, contending that Powell is not the only Congressman deserving of censure--and indeed nobody expected a stampede by Congress to adopt a long-needed, enforceable code of conduct for all. In New York City, save-Powell propaganda was mailed out under cover of stationery bearing the mark, and postal meter cancellation, of Harlem's Powell-ruled HarYou-Act agency, which is financed in part by federal funds. Civil rights Patriarch A. Philip Randolph announced a "summit conference" of Negro leaders to plot a campaign to win back Powell's seat. It could well prove a lost cause.

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