THE NATION: Bitterly Disappointing

The President of the U.S., volunteered a visitor who had just left him one day last week, was “damned unhappy about the vote last night.” The vote: the Senate’s 51-to-42 acceptance of an amendment that snarled up the civil rights bill by specifying jury trials in criminal contempt cases. Acute unhappiness overtoned the crisp and unprecedented statement that a grim-jawed Dwight Eisenhower dictated to his press secretary. “My first reaction … is to extend my sincere appreciation to … those Senators who stood … in valiant and persistent efforts to bring to all our citizens protection in their right to vote—a protection of which many are now deprived. Rarely in our entire legislative history have so many extraneous issues been initiated into the debate in order to confuse both legislators and the public.

“The result cannot fail to be bitterly disappointing to those many millions of Americans who realized that, without the minimum protection that was projected in Section IV of the bill as it passed the House of Representatives, many fellow Americans will continue in effect to be disenfranchised.”