Nation: Willing to Deal

The Attorney General of the U.S. marched into a congressional hearing room last week to argue for the Administration’s new civil rights package. But instead of winning friends and dispelling doubts, Bobby Kennedy got involved in quarrels. His main antagonist: New York City’s articulate Republican Representative John V. Lindsay, 41, himself an outstanding champion of civil rights.

The clash concerned Title II of the Administration bill, a proposal to guarantee equal access to privately owned public accommodations such as restaurants and hotels. Title II is by far the bill’s most contested section. It is persuasively argued that, in the name of racial rights, it would impair the constitutional rights of private property.

A Burst of Laughter. In the Administration’s wording, Title II would apply only to accommodations involved to a “substantial” degree in interstate commerce. That puzzled even Brooklyn’s Democratic Representative Emanuel Celler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a civil-righteous sort if ever there was one. Asked Celler, after Bobby had finished reading his prepared statement: “What is ‘substantial’?” Bobby’s answer touched off a burst of laughter in the crowded hearing room. Replied he: “More than minimal.”

Not even Celler was satisfied by that. He finally asked what Bobby thought about the possibility of placing a limitation of $500,000 gross annual revenue, dividing public-accommodations operators who would come under the new law from those who would not. Bobby said he saw “a good deal of merit” in that approach. “We’d be willing to work something out,” he said.

When Lindsay’s turn for questioning came, he asked Bobby if he had taken the trouble to read a Republican public-accommodations bill embodying most of the same principles to which the Attorney General now seemed amenable. That bill had been introduced by Lindsay and 23 other House Republicans. Bobby did not even bother to be polite. No, he said in effect, as Attorney General he felt his time was much too important to be spent reading Republican bills.

Lindsay said he doubted whether the Administration really wanted a public-accommodations section in the civil rights package. “Let’s be frank about this,” he said, his voice sharp-edged. “There are rumors in the cloakrooms all over Capitol Hill that the Administration and the [congressional] leaders have made a deal to scuttle public accommodations.” Bobby flared. “I don’t think the President or I have to defend our good faith to you or anyone else.”

An Odd Move. Despite Bobby’s protestations, cloakrooms were indeed abuzz with rumors of a deal by which, after a sham battle, the Administration would let the Southern Democrats kill off Title II, and the Southerners would let the Administration have the rest of the bill. The Administration could then claim credit for having tried to get a public-accommodations measure, attempt to blame the failure on Republican opposition.

Indeed, more significant signs than cloakroom gossip seem evidence of the probability that a deal is in the making. To a striking extent, Georgia’s Richard B. Russell and other Southern Democratic leaders in Congress have concentrated their fire upon Title II, although the bill includes other provisions highly objectionable to Southerners (TIME, June 28). Another sign is Senate Democratic Leader Mike Mansfield’s odd move in cosponsoring, with Senate Republican Leader Everett Dirksen, a bill containing the entire Administration bill package—minus Title II. Mansfield would hardly have done that without a signal from the White House. Still another sign: even Harlem’s Democratic Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, a demagogic Negro, declared at a press conference that apparently Title II “doesn’t have a chance.” Airing what will doubtless be the official Democratic doctrine, Powell said that what dooms Title II is Republican opposition.

What really dooms it is that it is a dubious proposal in the first place—and that the Administration does not really mean to fight for it.