Nation: Without a Prayer

Everett Dirksen was an eight-term Congressman back in 1948 when his doctors told him that he was losing his eyesight. Though a sure winner, he declined to run for a ninth term and went home to Pekin, Ill., to pray. Dirksen, who today is almost as sound of vision as he is of voice, is genuinely convinced that what saved him from blindness was prayer—and he is determined to pass on its 20/20 benefits to the rest of the U.S.

Last week, fresh from his successful battle to kill the 1966 Civil Rights Act, Dirksen rose in the Senate to introduce his so-called “Amen Amendment”—a measure designed to strike at two Supreme Court decisions by modifying the First Amendment so as to permit voluntary prayer in public schools. Few religious leaders favored the amend ment, but that hardly daunted the minority leader. Who did support his cause? “Not the professionals in the church hierarchy,” declared Dirksen. “Not the cocktail-party, luncheon-circuit bunch. I’m talking about the church members—the rank and file—and they’re in favor.”

In an election year, when a “nay” might seem like a vote for atheism, Ev was confident that he could put the amendment over. Nor was he worried that Senate liberals might try to talk it to death. “Well, now,” he said, “if anybody wants to filibuster the Lord . . .”

Nobody had to. Dirksen got expected support from most Republicans and Southern Democrats, but he ran into a formidable obstacle in the form of North Carolina Democrat Sam Ervin, whose concern for the Constitution rivals Dirksen’s passion for prayer. “For God’s sake,” bellowed Ervin, “and for freedom’s sake, let us not vest arbitrary permission power in school boards.” When the vote came, Dirksen never really had a prayer. Though he won a 49-to-37 majority, he fell nine short of the two-thirds margin required to amend the Constitution.

Even so, Dirksen refused to give up on the Amen Amendment. “I will not let it die,” he said, adding that a national organization is already being formed by such Protestant leaders as Daniel Poling and Billy Graham to carry on the fight in the 90th Congress.