Everett Dirksen on Record
“A Billion Here, a Billion There”
Did Dirksen ever say, " A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money"? (or anything very close to that?)
Perhaps not. Based on an exhaustive search of the paper and audio records of The Dirksen Congressional Center, staffers there have found no evidence that Dirksen ever uttered the phrase popularly attributed to him.
Archivists undertook the search after studying research statistics showing that more than 25 percent of inquiries have to do with the quote or its variations.
Here is what they examined: all of the existing audio tapes of the famed "Ev and Charlie" and "Ev and Jerry" shows, newspaper clippings in the Dirksen Papers, about 12,500 pages of Dirksen's own speech notes, transcripts of his speeches and media appearances, transcripts of Republican leadership press conferences, and Dirksen's statements on the Senate floor as documented in the Congressional Record.
Although Dirksen rarely prepared the text of a speech, preferring to rely on notes, he would jot down a few words to remind him of a particular turn of phrase. For example, in referring to the public debt or excessive government spending, Dirksen would write the word "pothole" to remind him to tell the following story, on this occasion in reference to the debt ceiling:
"As I think of this bill, and the fact that the more progress we make the deeper we go into the hole, I am reminded of a group of men who were working on a street. They had dug quite a number of holes. When they got through, they failed to puddle or tamp the earth when it was returned to the hole, and they had a nice little mound, which was quite a traffic hazard.
"Not knowing what to do with it, they sat down on the curb and had a conference. After a while, one of the fellows snapped his fingers and said, ‘I have it. I know how we will get rid of that overriding earth and remove the hazard. We will just dig the hole deeper.'" [Congressional Record, June 16, 1965, p. 13884].
On the same occasion, Dirksen relied on yet another "spending" story, one he labeled "cat in the well":
"One time in the House of Representatives [a colleague] told me a story about a proposition that a teacher put to a boy. He said, ‘Johnny, a cat fell in a well 100 feet deep. Suppose that cat climbed up 1 foot and then fell back 2 feet. How long would it take the cat to get out of the well?'
"Johnny worked assiduously with his slate and slate pencil for quite a while, and then when the teacher came down and said, ‘How are you getting along?' Johnny said, ‘Teacher, if you give me another slate and a couple of slate pencils, I am pretty sure that in the next 30 minutes I can land that cat in hell.'
"If some people get any cheer out of a $328 billion debt ceiling, I do not find much to cheer about concerning it." [Congressional Record, June 16, 1965, p. 13884].
But there are no such reminders for the "A billion here, a billion there . . . " tag line as there surely should have been given Dirksen's note-making tendencies. He spoke often and passionately about the debt ceiling, federal spending, and the growth of government. Yet there is no authoritative reference to the "billion" phrase.
The chief evidence in support of Dirksen making the statement comes from people who claim to have heard him. The Library of Congress, for example, cites someone's personal observation on the campaign trail as evidence. The Dirksen Center has received calls from people who heard Dirksen say those words, some even providing the date of the event. But cross-checking that information with the records has, so far, turned up nothing in the way of confirmation.
The closest documented statement came at a joint Senate-House Republican leadership press conference on March 8, 1962, when Dirksen said, "The favorite sum of money is $1 billion – a billion a year for a fatter federal payroll, a billion here, a billion there." [EMD Papers, Republican Congressional Leadership File, f. 25] But the "and pretty soon you're talking real money" is missing.
In another close call, the New York Times, January 23, 1961, quoted Dirksen: "Look at education – two-and-one-half billion – a billion for this, a billion for that, a billion for something else. Three to five billion for public works. You haven't got any budget balance left. You'll be deeply in the red." [Cited in Byron Hulsey's "Everett Dirksen and the Modern Presidents," Ph.D. dissertation (May 1998, University of Texas, p. 226]
Of course, the Dirksen Papers do not document completely the late Senator's comments. For example, The Center that bears his name does not have his testimony before committees. Their collection of Congressional Records ends in 1965, omitting the last four years of Dirksen's life and career – he might have employed the phrase only late, although witnesses claim he said it throughout his career. Dirksen's campaign speeches tended not to produce transcripts, only sketchy notes or abbreviated newspaper accounts. Dirksen also held center stage before the video age, meaning that many remarks, particularly those in campaigns, escaped capture.
Bottom line: the late Senate Minority Leader certainly would have endorsed the meaning behind the phrase, but it is questionable that he ever coined it.
Update, May 25, 2004. A gentleman who called The Center with a reference question relayed that he sat by Dirksen on a flight once and asked him about the famous quote. Dirksen replied, "Oh, I never said that. A newspaper fella misquoted me once, and I thought it sounded so good that I never bothered to deny it."
Update, January 15, 2009. We received a call from someone in Pennsylvania who recalled a very clear, even emphatic memory of Senator Dirksen uttering this famous phrase on the “Johnny Carson Show.” This is the second person who shared such a recollection. Unfortunately, a Google search failed to turn up confirmation—apparently the “official” Web site for the “Tonight Show” has video beginning only in 1969—Dirksen died in September of that year.
Update, September 25, 2012. Historian John Steele Gordon concurs with the January 15, 2009, update. He also recalls Dirksen making the statement on Johnny Carson’s show. With regard to the lack of hard documentation authenticating the phrase, Gordon writes, “But I really don’t see a historiographical problem here. It’s long been attributed to Senator Dirksen and several people, including myself, remember him saying it at the same time and the same place. For this historian, at least, that’s good enough.” [Gordon to Mackaman, e-mail, September 25, 2012, Dirksen Information File]
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Everett Dirksen on Record
Dirksen: Master Legislator
by Byron Hulsey, Assistant Director, Jefferson Scholars Foundation
NOTE: Byron Hulsey delivered these remarks at the National Archives, January 11, 2001. Everett Dirksen was the subject of his Ph.D. dissertation, "Everett Dirksen and the Modern Presidents: truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson" (University of Texas at Austin, 1998).
At the most superficial level, Everett Dirksen never escaped the caricature of a purposeless ham, well-meaning and good-natured but nevertheless a puppetlike buffoon who used the nation's political stage more to entertain and amuse than to lead and inspire. The journalist David Halberstam offers such a perspective, writing in the 1970's that "Dirksen was marvelously over-blown, like a huge and rich vegetable that that has become slightly overripe; watching him, one had the sense that he was always winking at the audience, winking at the role he had chosen to play, the stereotype of a slightly corrupt and old-fashioned senator." (1)
Dirksen's theatrical inclinations and rumpled appearance masked the fact that he was one of the twentieth century's master legislators. Today I would like to focus on six aspects of Dirksen's personality and character that made it possible for him to shape some of the most important laws of his generation. In addition to the qualities peculiar to Dirksen, I will from the beginning argue that his accomplishments were also due to luck, to a fortune whose opportunities he shrewdly grasped, but a fortune that he could not in the end control. Throughout this presentation, I want to invite you to compare today's political culture to the Washington milieu in which Dirksen worked. I will argue in the end, as an historian rather than a political scientist, that it was much easier to be a master legislator in Dirksen's day than in ours.
But first, to the world of Everett Dirksen. He was born in 1893 in the small, midwestern, and middle American town of Pekin, Illinois. Even as a child, he enjoyed a rhapsodic fascination for words and for the power of language. Coupled with an innate preference for showmanship that never eluded him, Dirksen's affinity for language made him into an oratorical giant. As a child he tirelessly practiced his preaching and his speech-making from the nearby family barn, as his brothers rolled their eyes and his mother sushed them quiet. At thirteen, he enjoyed the thrill of a lifetime when he met Democratic standard-bearer William Jennings Bryan, who counseled his young admirer to always speak to the back row of an audience. Young Everett's high school peers said Dirksen was afflicted with "bigworditis," but I am convinced that his love of language inspired his public life and fueled the speeches that so many Americans of his day remembered.(2) Very few senators admit to changing their votes as a result of a colleague's speech, but it is fair to say that on at least two critical occasions (when he spoke on behalf of the United Nations in 1962 and endorsed the Civil Rights Act of 1964) his remarks altered the moral and philosophical language of the debate.
Now most of us would acknowledge that oratorical prowess alone does not make for a master legislator. Two heralded speechmakers of Dirksen's day, John Kennedy and Barry Goldwater, were widely considered Senate lightweights whose lack of enthusiasm for the upper house prevented them from doing anything substantive as senators. Dirksen balanced his oratorical gifts with Herculean work habits. His son-in-law Howard Baker, himself a former Minority Leader of the Republican Senate, recently described Dirksen as a "semi-insomniac" and recalled that "he used to get up at 4:30 in the morning. On those occasions when I was with him, at that hour I would wake up and see the light on at his desk." Reporter Robert Novak suggested that Dirksen's emphysema, brought on by his three-pack-a-day smoking addiction, contributed to his insomnia. "He'd go back out on his screen porch in Leesburg," Novak remembered, "with an old portable typewriter and he'd take every bill that came out of committee, read the bill, read the report, and write a one-page precis on it." Thomas Kuchel's legislative assistant Stephen Horn remembered that Dirksen's work continued after the close of the legislative day. "When his chauffeur-driven car took him out to his home in Virginia," Horn recalled, "you could see the light on in the back seat and Dirksen reading his bills under that light." Horn argued that "there was no senator more serious about the study of legislation than Everett Dirksen." Novak agreed, insisting that Dirksen "knew the legislation better than anybody in the Senate."(3)
Closely connected to Dirksen's work ethic was his unparalleled knowledge of the rules. When he was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1932, Dirksen took a preliminary trip to Washington and sought the counsel of senior Republicans. He especially valued the advice of Joe Martin from Massachusetts, who told him to "Take the assignments you can get and work at them. Perfect yourself in committee work, and in due course you'll start up the ladder. Study the rules. Those who know the rules know how to operate in the Congress." Dirksen followed the crux of Martin's advice through his entire career, and used it to his advantage as Minority Leader when he was charged with slowing the Democratic legislative stampede. In 1959, with the Democrats enjoying a 66-34 margin in the Senate, Democratic Senator John Kennedy of Massachusetts sponsored legislation that would protect union finances and ensure workers the right to vote secretly for union officials. In addition to the provisions stipulated in Kennedy's bill, Republican President Dwight Eisenhower and Dirksen sought legislation to outlaw blackmail picketing and to prohibit secondary boycotts. Kennedy and the Democrats saw these additions as antilabor proposals and fought to push the original bill through the Congress. Dirksen sought to slow its passage. By resorting to a Senate rule that forbade committees to meet without unanimous consent while the Senate was in session (usually beginning at noon), Dirksen frustrated Democratic efforts to hold Labor Committee hearings on the bill. When the committee did meet, Dirksen stymied the legislation's progress in other ways. To delay the formation of a quorum, he and other Republicans would wait until the last Democrat appeared before arriving at the committee hearing. After Kennedy spoke for the bill, Dirksen turned to a stack of materials he had brought to the hearing and announced, "Well, we've been considering legislation in the Judiciary Committee that has a bearing on legislation, particularly as it affects the Northwestern Railway. I have here a history of the Northwestern Railway, which I want to place in the record, if the chairman will permit." He then proceeded to read until noon, when the bell rang and the committee had to adjourn for the opening of the legislative day. Ultimately, Dirksen's tactics resulted in a bill that Eisenhower described as a "definite improvement on the legislation previously existing."(4)
Oratorical prowess, an unquenchable work ethic, and knowledge of the rules are not enough to make a master legislator. Dirksen's flexibility, combined with a conscious ambiguity, were even more important factors. More than any other quality he possessed, this trait was learned over time, and represented in the end a great departure from his early days in the United States Senate when he postured, fumed, and blustered against the New Deal and global containment with no great effect. Ideological elasticity is currently out of fashion in today's politics, but Dirksen never apologized for his bobbing and weaving. He once explained "I am a man of principle, and one of my principles is flexibility." Although some interested parties remain critical of Dirksen's inconsistencies, his son-in-law Howard Baker has a different take. "Virtually every idea he held," Baker has recently written, "he held tentatively. The world would be better off if more people did that these days."(5) Dirksen's discomfort with a rigid set of ideas was a function of his awareness that changing times and dangerous conditions require pragmatic cooperation with the other side of the aisle. As Minority Leader he sensed intuitively that his first obligation was to ensure that the Senate functioned smoothly as a governing institution, not that it screech to a halt for mere ideological posturing.
Dirksen's unparalleled importance as a legislator arose in the 1960s from an apparent paradox. Even though he represented just 33 Republicans against 67 Democrats, Dirksen played the critical role in the civil rights debates. Southern Democrats were unalterably opposed to any significant legislation, and Democratic President Lyndon Johnson was forced to reach across the aisle to gain Dirksen's support as the administration sought to de-segregate public facilities in the South and guarantee the right of all Americans to vote. Johnson minced no words when it came to appreciating Dirksen's importance in the field of civil rights. Johnson told the NAACP's Roy Wilkins, "You're gonna have to persuade Dirksen why this is in the interests of the Republican party….I'm a Democrat, but if a fella will stand up and fight with you, you can cross party lines." Dirksen refused to make an early commitment to the legislation, and his indecisiveness heightened his importance on Capitol Hill. After Democratic whip Hubert Humphrey, who was in charge of the bill on the floor, went on Meet the Press and praised Dirksen's patriotism, Johnson called to congratulate him: "Boy, that was right. You're doing just right now. You just keep at that. Don't let those bomb throwers…talk you out of seeing Dirksen. You drink with Dirksen! You talk to Dirksen! You listen to Dirksen!" He advised Humphrey that "Ev is a proud man. So don't pull any damned protocol. You go see him. And don't forget that Dirksen loves to bend at the elbow. I want you to drink with him till he agrees to vote for cloture and deliver me two Republicans from the mountain states." Though he drank himself "damned near blind," Humphrey kept after him and later claimed, "I would have kissed Dirksen's ass on the Capitol steps."(6) Can you imagine a Democrat saying that about a Republican today? Imagine Tom Daschle and trent Lott on the steps of Capitol Hill! In the all-important area of civil rights, Dirksen enjoyed unparalleled prestige in the Washington establishment.
Dirksen's oratorical prowess, his tireless work ethic, his flexibility, and his deliberate ambiguity were critical, but taken together, still not enough to make him a master legislator. The last variable under Dirksen's control was his understanding of human relationships, in particular his fondness for his colleagues and his uncanny appreciation of the motivations of the men and women around him. In this regard, though they employed radically different styles, Dirksen and his Democratic counterpart Lyndon Johnson had much in common. Dirksen and Johnson interacted daily, both on and off of the Senate floor, as the two were responsible for scheduling the legislative agenda and pursuing the interests of their parties. Johnson's legislative assistant George Reedy told me that the encounters were often unplanned and rarely formal. In fact, the two politicos so understood each other that nods, snorts, and grunts often composed the whole of their conversations. As Reedy recalled, "One of the characteristics of a really good rather than merely capable politician is their capacity to come up with large-scale, complex plans without one single word on paper and practically nothing spoken except 'hello.' It's quite an act, and that's one act at which Dirksen and Johnson were masters."(7)
trust was at the center of Dirksen's treatment of his colleagues. His word was his bond. In all of my research, I never uncovered a single significant instance where Dirksen promised a colleague a vote he did not deliver or failed to follow through on an endeavor he had begun with a fellow senator. Dirksen also possessed the rare but all-important ability to disagree without being disagreeable. When he was fighting Kennedy on the 1959 labor bill and reading the history of the Northwestern Railroad into the record, an eyewitness observer noted that "Kennedy was laughing and everyone was broken up. It was just preposterous business." Dirksen knew by instinct that in American politics an enemy today can be your friend tomorrow. Jack Valenti, who was an aide to President Johnson, remembered that Dirksen would call the White House and ask about Johnson. Then he would ask Valenti to relay a message: "Tell him I'm going to sort of cut him up a little bit on the floor tomorrow." After his floor speech, he would call back: "I'd like to see the boss." Valenti recalled that Dirksen knew to arrive through the Diplomatic Reception Room so the Washington press corps would not know that he was making yet another call at the White House. Valenti described the atmosphere at those meetings: "Sometimes they would have a drink together. They would sit and chew the fat, reminisce, tell stories, laugh, and really enjoy themselves. Then they would sit down about half an hour after they arrived and really begin to parley."(8)
Almost as important in his dealings with others was the concept of sacrifice. When Dirksen was elected minority leader in 1959, he broke with precedent and pledged that he would place every Republican senator on at least one major committee. Of course this meant that Dirksen played an important role in dispensing plum committee slots, but, more to the point, his GOP colleagues praised him for sharing the spotlight on Capitol Hill. When John Tower was elected to the Senate in 1962, Dirksen sacrificed his own seat on the Banking and Currency Committee and gave it to the ever-grateful Texan who had run his campaign as a fiscal conservative.(9) In Tower, Dirksen had a life-long friend who never forgot his mentor's beneficence.
Dirksen possessed five traits (oratorical prowess, herculean work habits, knowledge of the rules, a deliberate flexibility, and an unparalleled command of human relationships) that helped him become a master legislator. But like all historical actors, Dirksen was also subject to a future that he could not control. He was extraordinarily lucky. He succeeded the unpleasant and cantankerous William Knowland, a Californian crumudgeon who alienated Eisenhower and irritated most of his Republican colleagues. Whether Dirksen's colleagues agreed with his politics or not, they were pleased to be rid of Knowland, and therefore gave Dirksen some space and goodwill to chart his own course on Capitol Hill. Dirksen was also fortunate that Eisenhower did not freeze the Illinoisian out of the establishment as a result of his early grandstanding against the general's political career.(10) Most important of all, Dirksen profited from and contributed to a unique political culture, a Washington milieu that I call suprapartisanship.
Launched by Eisenhower and conservative Democrats in the 1950s in the wake of Cold War crises, suprapartisanship was consolidated in the Kennedy years and peaked in the 1960s when President Johnson reached out to Dirksen and other Republicans at the height of the civil rights crisis. Suprapartisanship placed a premium on human relationships bound by trust, and flourished in an era in which the media was a less aggressive and less intrusive player in Washington politics. As a political culture, suprapartisanship had legislative effects. Deep in Dirksen's Capitol Hill office sat the Twilight Lodge, his fully stocked bar that he opened up at the close of every day for his Republican colleagues, their favorite Democratic counterparts, and trusted members of the national media. Similar to Sam Rayburn's Board of Education, the Twilight Lodge sported a clock with every hour replaced with the number five, so that it was always time for a drink. Make no mistake: important, albeit informal, business was carried out in the Twilight Lodge. When Justice Department officials and legislative assistants were crafting the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Dirksen insisted that they hang around his office until the close of the legislative day so that they might have time to share a drink with suspicious senators and lobby them about the progress of the bill.(11)
Of course leaders from both parties had their partisan causes to serve, but during times of national crisis, Republicans and Democrats, for good and ill, gathered behind closed doors and pursued their shared understanding of the national interest. In short, suprapartisanship, a culture that Dirksen profited from and contributed to, enabled the Illinois leader to be a master legislator even when his party was so vastly outnumbered in the Senate.
As a result of Vietnam, urban riots, and Watergate, suprapartisanship fell apart in the late 1960s and early 1970s and was replaced by a more acrimonious and contentious political culture that welcomed differences, capitalized on discord, and deemed national consensus an unrealized and foolhardy dream of the broken past. Legislative mastery is much more complicated today than in Dirksen's era. Interest groups have flourished, and a jaundiced media launches expose after expose detailing the sordid and corrupt behavior of our public servants. Loyalty to the system, the establishment, and the administration has become a relic of the past. Those who work at the highest level are expected to sell their stories to the highest bidder long before the president has concluded his time in office. Lobbyists and political consultants are more influential than ever, and most would prefer that the politician/client defend his or her selfish interest and frame the hot-button issues in incendiary press conferences and with negative television ads than pursue the common good.
Senate culture has changed as well. Most experts interviewed for this book point to a decline in the human relationships that have made the Senate the world's most deliberative legislative body; a few senators privately admit that their lives are lonelier than they could have ever expected.(12) Dirksen's successors have not replaced the famed Twilight Lodge, and opportunities for fellowship and camaraderie on Capitol Hill are more scant today than ever. Except for party caucus luncheons, the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast, and roll-call votes on the Senate floor, there are precious few chances for members to engage each other in off-the-record conversations.
Senators more often than not blame the media, but much of the responsibility lies with the neverending need to raise more money for the next campaign. Washington is more than ever a transient town. When Congress is in session, money-hungry senators expect to leave for their states on Thursday evening and not return until Monday afternoon. By contrast, Dirksen and his colleagues spent most of their time in Washington and entertained each other on the weekend. Relationships today are thinner and more transparent, largely because senators do not know each other. Senators from both sides of the aisle sadly but not surprisingly reported a "bonding experience" during President Bill Clinton's impeachment trial. Until then, they had not sat and listened to one another as a complete legislative body in a media-free environment.(13)
The relentless need to raise more money calls into question the vitality of democracy in today's America. At the very least, the constant coming and going and the endless posturing have created a poor working environment for deliberative legislation. Dirksen hammered out most of his deals during face-to-face confrontations with his colleagues. Today, as Rowland Evans Jr. argues, too many senators too often fail to master the critical details in pending legislation. "Well," Evans imagines one senator telling another, "I'll have Harry look at it and why don't you tell your guy to call Harry."(14) Some of you, I am sure, are not displeased that writing laws is more difficult now than in Dirksen's day. While I in no way yearn for a return to the establishment politics of the 1950s and 1960s, I do fervently hope that there are enough eager, willing, and able men and women to overcome the fractured state of our political institutions in the face of whatever our next national crisis might be.
END NOTES
1. David Halberstam, The Powers That Be (New York: Knopf, 1979), p. 387.
2. For Dirksen's time in the family barn, see "Everett Dirksen's Washington," Remarks and Releases, January 22, 1968, Everett M. Dirksen Center (EMDC); for "bigworditis," see Frank H. Mackaman's introduction to Dirksen's Education of a Senator (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998), p. xiii.
3. For "semi-insomniac," see author's interview with Howard Baker, August 9, 1999; for "screen porch," and "anybody in the Senate," see author's interview with Robert Novak, August 4, 1999; for "Dirksen reading his bills," see "Roundtable of Participants in the Passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964," This Constitution, 19 (Fall 1991), p. 35.
4. For "know the rules," see Neil MacNeil's Dirksen: Portrait of a Public Man (New York: World Publishing Company, 1971) pp. 41, 51-52; for a general history of the labor bill, see R. Alton Lee's Eisenhower and Landrum-Griffin: A Study in Labor Management Politics (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1990); for "if the chairman will permit," see Stewart E. McClure's oral history, no. 3, Senate Historical Office; for "definite improvement," see Eisenhower's The White House Years: Waging Peace, 1956-1961 (Garden City: Doubleday, 1965), p. 329.
5. For "one of my principles is flexibility," see Jean E. Torcum, "Leadership: The Role and Style of Everett Dirksen," in To Be a Congressman: The Promise and the Power, Sven Groennings and Jonathan P. Hawley, editors (Washington, DC: Acropolis Books, 1973), p. 217; for "he held tentatively," see Howard Baker's forward in Dirksen's The Education of a Senator, p. viii.
6. For "I'm a Democrat," see Johnson's conversation with Roy Wilkins, January 6, 1964, Telephone Tapes and transcripts (TTT), WH6401.0618, Lyndon Johnson Library (LBJL); for "You drink with Dirksen!", see Hubert H. Humphrey, oral history no. 1, August 17, 1971, interview by Joe B. Frantz, LBJL; for "two Republicans from the mountain states," see Carl Solberg, Hubert Humphrey: A Biography (New York: W.W. Norton, 1984), p. 224; for "Capitol steps," see Carl T. Rowan, Breaking Barriers: A Memoir (Boston: Little, Brown, 1991), p. 248.
7. Author's interview with George Reedy, July 30, 1998.
8. For "Kennedy was laughing," see McClure's oral history, interview no. 3, Senate Historical Office; for "I'd like to see the boss," see Jack Valenti's oral history, interview no. 5, July 12, 1972, interview by Joe B. Frantz, pp. 10-13, LBJL.
9. Dirksen's 1961 correspondence with John Tower, Alpha File, EMDC.
10. For Eisenhower's impression of Knowland, see, for instance, the President's diary entry for January 10, 1955, reel 5, p. 0759, Diaries of Dwight D. Eisenhower; for Eisenhower's commitment to Dirksen, see, for instance, Ann C. Whitman Diary Series, April 27-28, 1954 (1), Dwight D. Eisenhower Library (DDEL).
11. For information on the Twilight Lodge, see Francis R. Valeo's oral history, interview no. 17, December 11, 1985, pp. 776-777, Senate Historical Office; for the Twilight Lodge and the Voting Rights Bill, see Stephen Horn, "Roundtable of Participants in the Passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964," This Constitution 19 (Fall 1991), p. 36.
12. Author's interview with Harry McPherson, August 26, 1999.
13. Author's interview with David Broder, March 16, 1999.
14. Author's interview with Rowland Evans, Jr., August 5, 1999.
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Everett Dirksen on Record
Legislative Record
When once asked to cite his greatest legislative achievement, Everett Dirksen offered his reply: "Well, if I had to put it in the large, probably it would be my endeavors to stop legislation that was not in the public interest. Because I have followed the old precept of Gibbon, the great historian, who said, 'Progress is made not so much by what goes on the statute book but rather what is kept off, and what is not put on.'" [Dirksen on ABC's "Issues and Answers," July 3, 1966, transcript, Remarks and Release, Dirksen Papers].
Nevertheless, Dirksen contributed substantially to legislation by introducing or co-sponsoring bills and by offering amendments to legislation proposed by others. Not surprisingly, his office staff kept track of his legislative activity, which spanned the 73rd Congress (1933-34) through the first session of the 91st Congress (1969-70). In 1962, for example, a staff summary showed that in his House career, Dirksen had introduced 24 bills that had become law. By 1962, he was the Senate sponsor or co-sponsor of 73 bills that had become law [Legislative File. Dirksen Bills, f. 1486. Dirksen Papers].
This section of the Center's web site illustrates Everett Dirksen's legislative activity. It reproduces as graphical images over 130 pages of original documents maintained by the Dirksen office. Typically each document or image lists the Congress in which the bill was introduced, a short title, the bill number, and some indication of its disposition. Staff organized these tracking documents alphabetically by subject.
| Letter | Page Heading | Number of pages |
| A | administrative practices and procedures alcoholic beverages antitrust appropriations awards emblems and best wishes |
1 1 2 1 3 |
| B | banking budget |
1 1 |
| C | civil rights civil rights bills civil rights legislation civil rights legislation civil services claims commemorative stamps commissions and incorporation's communism congressional constitutional amendments |
7 14 6 8 1 1 1 1 1 4 2 |
| D | dept. of defense district of columbia |
2 3 |
| E | economy and planning education elections |
6 2 1 |
| F | farm federal controls foreign affairs and trade |
3 1 4 |
| G | government operations government bonds |
1 1 |
| H | housing | 1 |
| I | immigration and naturalization inaugurals industry interstate commerce International revenue service |
1 1 1 2 4 |
| J | judicial | 1 |
| K | ... | |
| L | labor loans lobbyists |
2 1 1 |
| M | March 8, 1968 March 8, 1968 medical memorials mining miscellaneous |
3 4 1 3 1 3 |
| N | national holidays and weekends | 2 |
| O | ... | |
| P | peace post office printed documents |
1 1 1 |
| Q | ... | |
| R | records reorganization revenue act rivers and harbors |
1 2 1 4 |
| S | securities and exchange social security state of illinois |
1 1 1 |
| T | tariffs and trade taxes trade with the enemy |
1 1 1 |
| U | ... | |
| V | veterans | 2 |
| W | ... | |
| X | ... | |
| Y | ... | |
| Z | ... |
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An Early Advocate for Civil Rights
Everett Dirksen's Civil Rights Record: The Case of the National Association of Colored Women's Clubs
Everett McKinley Dirksen enjoys a well-deserved reputation for his effectiveness in passing civil rights legislation. He led Senate Republicans in the successful effort to enact President Dwight Eisenhower’s civil rights program in 1957. Dirksen provided crucial support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. His leadership proved indispensable in passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Senate Minority Leader’s presence loomed large on the national stage.
Over a 35-year career in the House and Senate, the Republican senator from Pekin, Illinois, proposed more than 140 bills to eliminate discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Dirksen himself pointed repeatedly to his civil rights record, claiming that he was “no Johnny-come-lately” to the issue.
Less well known, however, is Dirksen’s performance in a smaller theater of civil rights politics where progress came incrementally, often only for the benefit of a few.
The senator’s efforts on behalf of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs in the mid-1950s to establish a National Negro History Week, to obtain a national charter for the organization, and to exempt it from a variety of taxes demonstrate his doggedness in supporting the NACWC’s civil rights agenda. He was motivated primarily by three factors: (1) the president of the organization was a constituent and a Republican active in the black community in Chicago; (2) Dirksen believed the organization should be treated in the same manner as other non-profit organizations in the matter of taxation; and (3) the senator acted in a manner consistent with his career-long commitment to advancing civil rights.
The National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs
The NACWC was founded in 1896 at the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church in the nation’s capital. The organization grew out of a merger of the Colored Women’s League of Washington and the National Federation of Afro-American Women. That black women’s clubs had been prevented from exhibiting at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, Illinois, Dirksen’s home state, provided the impetus for the consolidation.1 Harriet Tubman, Frances E.W. Harper, Ida Bell Wells-Barnett, and Mary Church Terrell numbered among the founders. Their original intention was “to furnish evidence of moral, mental and material progress made by people of color through the efforts of our women.”
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By the early 1950s, the organization counted 50,000, with members in every state, in Canada, Hawaii, Haiti, and in Africa. There were state associations in 44 states, including Illinois. The women had instituted “industrial homes for girls and boys all over the Southland,” opened boarding homes for “colored girls,” sponsored scholarships, and maintained the home of Frederick Douglass on 14 acres in Anacostia in the District. As its 1952 convention program proclaimed, “The National Association of Colored Women is probably the largest organized group working without remuneration for the social uplift of the race.”2
According to the program, the organization listed five specific goals:
1. Standardize the Negro home.
2. Make [the] best environment for the Negro child.
3. train Negro girls to be industrious and artistic, gracious and deserving.
4. Raise [the] standard of service available among Negro women.
5. Make working conditions what these women and girls deserve.3
At its core, the organization proclaimed,
We consider our deficiencies (the source of all our ills) as entirely within the home circle; we lack something of [a] foundation which the race, as a whole, is not receiving at the proper time during childhood; something of [the] beauty and culture that [a] poor environment is robbing our children of; something of an informed and careful motherhood that will be able to produce a virile race; something of the love of law and order and propriety that helps our general prosperity; something of the respect for the rights of others that would cause us to give the evidence of leadership, initiative, and the regard for leadership.4
To reflect their estimate of the challenge, NACWC organized itself into five departments: Legislation, Family Life, Vocational Guidance, Peace, and Interracial. Each had a charter. For the Family Life Department, the charter read
The American family is under severe strain. Rising divorce rates, delinquencies, desertions, maladjusted children and other manifestations of severe emotional tension clearly show that we must concentrate our efforts on the members of the family. To help cope with such problems is the department of family life.5
The Interracial Department accepted the following charge:
The function of this committee is most important. Racial tensions in recent years have tended to increase, rather than diminish. Negroes have moved into industrial employment in which they were previously denied, creating new situations of tensions. Negroes have been taken into the armed services and stationed in communities where Jim Crow and patterns of segregation exist. Discrimination at the polls is still prevalent, job discrimination in public and private employment persist[s], denial of the use of public parks, public health, restraint in the use of hotel and facilities of public use, denial of civil liberties in general—these remain problems that confront 15,000,000 Americans. Thus the work of the Interracial Department is incessant.6
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Irene McCoy Gaines Elected President of NACWC |
In 1952, NACWC elected Irene McCoy Gaines, then 62, as its 15th president.
Irene McCoy was born in Ocala, Florida, in 1892 but moved to Chicago as an infant. She attended public schools in the city, graduating from Wendell Phillips High School before enrolling in Fisk Normal School in Nashville, Tennessee. She returned to Chicago in 1910 for a job as a typist in the complaint department of the Juvenile Court.7
During World War I, at the urging of Mary Church Terrell, a civil rights activist, Gaines joined the War Camp Community Service, just the beginning of a long career of volunteer and public service. In 1920, she became industrial secretary for the first African-American branch of the YWCA in Chicago. During this period, she also recruited for the Urban League and took classes in social work at the University of Chicago.
After her two children began school, Gaines became a social worker in the Cook County welfare department, where she stayed for 15 years. She grew increasingly active on behalf of civil rights during this period. For example, she used her position as a member of the Citizens Advisory Committee and as president of the Chicago Council of Negro Organizations from 1939 to 1953 to protest against inferior schools and segregation. The CCNO provided a high-profile platform for Gaines; it coordinated the work of nearly 100 civic, educational, religious, and labor organizations.8 Her lobbying was effective, too, resulting in the first integrated nursery schools in the city and improved facilities for pregnant teenagers.
Gaines tackled discrimination in employment, as well. She tried to improve working conditions for domestics, most of whom were black. Through the CCNO, she organized what has become known as the march on Washington in 1941 to advocate for fair employment. She led a group of 50 Chicagoans where, with other protesters from throughout the country, they formed committees to visit government department heads to protest discrimination against blacks seeking employment.
Before assuming the president of NACWC, Gaines served as president of the Chicago and Northern District Association of Colored Women and the Illinois Association of Colored Women. She was a past matron of the Northern Light Chapter, Order of the Eastern Star; a member of the board of directors of the Chicago NAACP; a member of the Illinois Child Labor Committee, Citizen School Committee, and Women’s Conference on Legislation; and vice chairman of the Women’s Joint Committee on Adequate Housing.9 She also served as president of the Maude E. Smith Nursery School, Inc., where “children from two and one-half to five of different races learn to play happily together under the direction of two well-trained and experienced staff members, aided by parents and other volunteers.”10
Her other activities included membership on President Herbert Hoover’s Housing Commission, on the Citizen Advisory Committee to the Chicago Plan Commission, and on the Advisory Committee on Intercultural Activities in Chicago Public Schools.11 Gaines also made a plea for minority rights at the United Nations Assembly at Lake Success, New York, in 1946.
Gaines earned Republican credentials, too. As president of the Illinois Federation of Republican Colored Women’s Clubs from 1924 to 1935, she helped organize the first network of Republican women’s clubs in Illinois. In 1928 she served as the Republican state central committeewoman for the First Congressional District. Gaines was the first black woman to run for a state legislative seat, and the first to run for the county commissioner’s office in Cook County.
She and Dirksen, through the senator’s aide in Chicago, Harold Rainville, became acquainted during her political campaigns. In 1950, at the same time Dirksen first ran for the Senate, he and Rainville convinced Gaines to run for the county commissioner position on the Republican ticket. She was the first African American to lead a party ticket in any Chicago election.12 As Rainville later recalled, “As the first colored woman ever to graduate from the University of Chicago [,] she has a very high standing in the colored community . . . .” Although she topped the list of ten Republican candidates, Gaines failed in her 1950 election bid by a very small margin—she did receive 743,316 votes.13 She, her husband, Harris, a lawyer and former representative in the Illinois General Assembly, and their son, Charles, worked for years to build the Republican Party in Chicago.14
Gaines’s work with the NACWC began inauspiciously when she assumed the post of the organization’s historian and then recording secretary. In 1952 she was nominated from the floor at the biennial convention to be president and was elected to the first of an unprecedented three terms. As was the custom for NACWC president, Gaines operated from her home at 4534 Woodlawn Avenue in Chicago rather than from the headquarters in Washington, DC. She was Dirksen’s constituent by residence.
Not surprisingly, Gaines contacted Senator Dirksen periodically on behalf of NACWC.15 In 1954 and 1955, for example, she invited him to participate in the association’s biennial meeting, informed him of the NACWC’s move to headquarters on O Street in the nation’s capital, asked him “to find out if the Emma Lazarus Federation of Jewish Women’s Clubs is on the Attorney General’s subversive list” (it was not), and weighed in on a patronage matter.16
Early in 1956, Gaines wrote Dirksen to endorse a request of President Eisenhower by the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History to designate a week to honor black history. “Although we are earnestly working for integration of the races,” she wrote, “we feel that for some time to come it will be necessary to observe Negro History Week, pointing up the achievements and accomplishments of that race as school textbooks for the most part, either ignore or distort the truth about the Negro and his accomplishments.” Gaines asked Dirksen to initiate action in the Senate, promising “you shall make Negroes everywhere your debtors.”17
Americans had recognized black history annually but without presidential sanction since 1926 when history scholar Carter G. Woodson, himself the son of former slaves, launched National Negro History Week. Woodson chose the second week in February because it marked the birthdays of two men who greatly influenced black Americans, Frederick Douglass18 and Abraham Lincoln.
Dirksen initially believed, erroneously, that the president had the constitutional authority to issue the proclamation absent congressional direction. When he discovered his error, however, Dirksen introduced S.J. Res. 140 on February 8 authorizing the president to proclaim February 12 to February 16, 1956, as National Negro History Week. Since a joint resolution required passage by both the House and the Senate, Dirksen doubted the measure would pass in time for the observance. He was right.19
On January 7, 1957, Dirksen renewed the attempt, introducing S.J. Res. 6 to proclaim February 12 to February 19, 1957 as National Negro History Week. The measure again went to the Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Federal Charters, Holidays and Celebrations chaired by Joseph C. O’Mahoney (D-Wyoming). Nothing came of the effort.
He tried again in the 86th Congress, updating S.J. Res. 6 and introducing the new version, S.J. Res. 38, on January 29, this time at the behest of the Afro-American Heritage Association. Dirksen continued to push for congressional authorization of a presidential proclamation at least through 1963, always without success.20
Despite Dirksen’s best efforts, even after he assumed the more powerful role of Senate Minority Leader, it took another decade for the black history designation to receive official status. In 1975, President Gerald F. Ford issued a “Message on the Observance of Black History Week” urging all Americans to “recognize the important contribution made to our nation’s life and culture by black citizens.” Another decade passed before Congress enacted Public Law 99-244 which designated February 1986 as “National Black (Afro-American) History Month.” The law further directed the president to issue a proclamation calling on the people of the United States to observe the occasion with the appropriate ceremonies and activities.21
While it is true that Dirksen did not use the full force of his personality or position to push for National Negro History Week, it is doubtful that he could have prevailed in any case given that southern Democrats would have prevented the measure from passing.
NACWC Seeks Property Tax Exemption
The NACWC had a more ambitious agenda than simply establishing a National Negro History Week by presidential proclamation. They again appealed to Dirksen for help.
In 1954, the organization purchased a building to house their national headquarters at 1601 R Street NW in Washington, DC, moving from 1114 O Street NW. This purchase set in motion an effort by the NACWC to secure an exemption from District of Columbia property taxes for the facility. To succeed would take the proverbial “Act of Congress” because of the building’s location in the federal enclave.
From Irene Gaines’s perspective, Dirksen must have seemed the ideal candidate to sponsor the necessary legislation. She knew him. She was his constituent. She and her family were prominent Republicans among Chicago’s African Americans, and Dirksen was running for re-election to his Senate seat in 1956. There were more substantive reasons to recommend Dirksen, too.
Dirksen’s record on civil rights was well established by 1956. As early as 1945, when he served in the House, he had introduced legislation to prohibit discrimination in employment, to punish the crime of lynching, to outlaw the poll tax, and to protect persons from mob violence. As a junior senator, he introduced S. 1 on January 7, 1953, to establish a Federal Commission on Civil Rights and Privileges. Dirksen followed that in 1954 with yet another proposal to prevent employment discrimination.22 None made it out of committee. The senator also endorsed the 1955 United Negro College Fund drive; re-introduced his bill to establish the Federal Commission on Civil Rights and Privileges on March 12, 1956;23 and introduced S. 3605 to establish a six-member, bipartisan Commission on Civil Rights in the executive branch.24 In April 1956, he joined with several colleagues to sponsor two bills to strengthen civil rights statutes.25 His personal notebooks and speech drafts frequently include remarks on behalf of civil rights measures.26 On April 29 and May 12, 1956, for example, Dirksen talked about civil rights during his weekly television and radio address.27
Dirksen used these occasions to provide historical justification for guaranteeing equality of rights. In his April television program, for example, he cited the Declaration of Independence as the authority for the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Bills Of Rights, he said, guaranteed the freedom to speak, worship, and assemble for all citizens. He recounted two decades of congressional efforts to outlaw the poll tax, lynching, employment discrimination, and segregation in housing, military service, transportation, and recreation. Dirksen then reviewed a series of legal cases that had moved the nation in the direction of equal rights before concluding with a summary of pending civil rights matters in the Senate.28 Dirksen may not have been the most liberal of senators on civil rights, but he adopted a progressive stance on much of what constituted the civil rights agenda in the mid-1950s.
Nor were appeals on behalf of groups related to federal district business foreign to Dirksen. He introduced S. 3069 on January 27, 1956, for example, to benefit the General Federation of Women’s Clubs by granting the organization an exemption from property taxes within the district.29 In making the case to the Committee on the District of Columbia, Dirksen compared the General Federation to other organizations to which tax exemptions had been provided. “The General Federation of Women’s Clubs is broader and more inclusive to reach many more people,” a background memo contended. “Its programs include all that these organizations do, and much more, and reach more representative groups of people—not just professional or selected individuals. It is a very democratic organization with no barriers to membership whatever and is open to women of all classes—political, religious, racial, etc. It is essentially an adult educational and community-service organization.”30
Dirksen’s involvement with District issues is easily explained, even though he was not a member of any Senate committee with relevant jurisdiction. He had served, however, on the House District committee for a time during his 16-year career in that body, and he had even chaired the committee in the 80th Congress. As a result, he knew the players both in the House and in the federal district.
On May 28, 1956, Gaines wrote Dirksen to request his help in obtaining a property tax exemption for NACWC.31 On June 16, Dirksen introduced S. 4044 to grant the tax exemption for the property at 1601 R Street NW in Washington. The assessed value of the property was $36,500--$11,500 for the land, $25,000 for the building.32
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The total tax revenue at stake: $839.50 annually as of July 1, 1956.33 The bill was referred to the Committee on the District of Columbia.34 Bill Stevens, Dirksen’s legislative assistant, listed in a background memo the following organizations that had received a like exemption: the Jewish War Veterans, the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, the American Veterans of World War II, the YMCA and YWCA, the Young Women’s Christian Home, Colonial Dames, Daughters of the American Revolution, Sons of the American Revolution, General Federation of Women’s Clubs, Inc., “and various other educational, scientific, and charitable institutions.” Stevens’s conclusion: “It would appear from the foregoing that the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, Incorporated, ought to have like exemptions.”35
Next, Dirksen sought the advice of Samuel Spencer, Commissioner of the District, about “the merits of the bill and the propriety of its passage.”36 As Dirksen well knew, the District committee would request the views and recommendations of the District Commission before acting on Dirksen’s proposed bill. Dirksen knew Spencer and thought highly of him—the senator chose Spencer to serve on the Platform Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Immigration at the Republican Convention in San Francisco later that year. Dirksen chaired the subcommittee.37
The Subcommittee on Fiscal Affairs of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia held hearings on S. 4044 on July 12. Senator Alan Bible (D-Nevada) presided over the session in Room P-36 of the Capitol. Only Senator Joseph Frear (D-Delaware) and committee counsel William P. Gulledge joined him. The third member of the subcommittee, Senator James Beall (R-Maryland) was unable to attend. Dirksen showed up before 10:00 to testify but left almost immediately for an Appropriations Committee hearing without making a statement. He asked Gulledge to express his interest in the bill, which Gulledge did as the hearing opened.38 Later that day, Dirksen wrote Senator Matthew Neely, chairman of the full committee, stating his support of the bill and citing the precedents Bill Stevens had discovered.39
Speaking on behalf of the bill at the subcommittee hearing was Ruby Kendrick, Director of Public Relations for NACWC.40 She stressed that her organization operated almost exclusively through volunteers, that it was “dependent almost entirely upon its membership for financing its several projects,” and that it expected nothing in return from “recipients of its beneficence.” Senator Bible asked a question about the size of the staff and, upon hearing how small it was, stated, “The Chairman is delighted to see some association that does not have more paid employees than it has members. I think that is wonderful.”41
Kendrick continued her testimony by describing NACWC’s history, organization, programs, and services. “The fundamental needs of all working women are equality of opportunity and of pay,” she told the subcommittee. “Since Negro women must work to compensate for the customary low wages of their husbands, the Negro Club Women decided to do something about the condition—and they did,” by establishing NACWC. She closed with these words:
These women of National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs Inc. their name is legion, their will to serve is without limit; and their power for good is without measure. With their 60 year old motto “Lifting As We Climb” still as their beacon, they stand ready to the last woman to answer any call to make this battered world of ours a better place in which to live.
Therefore gentlemen of the committee, I feel that because of these things, this Association falls well within the law of Exemption of Taxes.42
Henry Wixon, Assistant Corporation Counsel for the District of Columbia, testified next on behalf of the Commissioners of the District. Despite Dirksen’s entreaty to Commissioner Spencer, the Board of Commissioners opposed the bill. As Wixon stated, the commissioners “have consistently opposed bills of this type conferring upon separate or distinct organizations exemption which could not be conferred under the general laws of the District of Columbia.” This opposition “stems from the basic theory that tax exemption should only be conferred upon organizations which perform a function of public service and thus relieve the District government of a part of its public burden.” Examples included schools and organizations which provide assistance to indigent persons who otherwise would become public charges of the District of Columbia government. Granting the exemption would be discriminatory “in that it confers upon a single organization a favored status over other organizations which are unable to comply with the standards laid down by Congress in the general exemption statute.”43
The Board of Commissioners also pleaded financial distress in opposing S. 4044. Noting that over 50 percent of the total land area in the District with an assessed value in excess of $1,251,000,000 was exempted from taxation, “it is the Commissioners’ view that the cumulative effect of granting of special exemption from real property taxation, when added to the vast amount of property now exempt from such taxation, is an extremely serious matter.”44 “That has nothing to do with the merits of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs,” Wixon testified. “That factor does not enter into these matters as the committee well knows.”45
July 19 brought good news for NACWC—Dirksen sent a telegram to Gaines announcing that the District Committee, following the hearings on July 12, had approved and favorably reported out S. 4044.46 Four days later, on July 23, the full Senate passed the bill without amendment and cleared it for action in the House of Representatives.47
Dirksen immediately wrote Congressman Sid Simpson (R-IL) asking him to “secure action in the House” on S. 4044.48 Simpson, a former colleague in the House who represented a congressional district southwest of Dirksen’s, served on the House district committee and had been its chairman in the 83rd Congress. But it was too late for Simpson to lend a hand. The bill reached his committee on July 24; Congress adjourned three days later for the national political conventions in 1956 with no action on Dirksen’s bill.
Earlier in the summer, Gaines alerted Dirksen to a potential obstacle involving her past associations. She asked the senator to arrange an interview with the House Un-American Activities Committee “regarding my connection with the several ‘Red Front’ organizations that Harold [Rainville] told me they have listed against me.” She added, “I am most anxious to have the opportunity of clearing my name of any Red taint that may be connected with it because of any previous affiliations with some of their ‘front’ organizations which were so numerous during the war years and the time that our country was an Ally of theirs.”49 Gaines’s concern about “Red taint” resurfaced later.
Following the November elections, in which he ran successfully for a second term, Dirksen told Gaines that both branches of Congress would take up the tax exemption early in the upcoming session since it had already passed the Senate. 50
On January 7, Dirksen introduced three civil rights-related measures. S. 83 proposed “to make more certain that rights guaranteed by the Constitution and the laws of the United States will be enjoyed by all, regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin.” That bill, along with H.R. 6127, became the basis for the Civil Rights Act of 1957 signed by President Eisenhower on September 9.51 Dirksen also proposed S.J. Res. 6 authorizing the president to proclaim a week in February as National Negro History Week.52 Finally, the Illinois senator introduced S. 105 to provide the tax exemption for NACWC. He asked the chairman of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia for “speedy action.”53 “I am sure that S. 105 will receive the same favorable consideration by the Senate that was given in the last session,” Gaines wrote upon learning of Dirksen’s initiative. “I am writing to Congressman Marguerite Stite Church,” she continued, “to remind her of her promise to introduce the same bill in the House.”54
On April 12, the Subcommittee on Fiscal Affairs of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia held hearings on S. 105. In what was essentially a replay of the hearing on S. 4044 nine months before, the committee spent all of nine minutes collecting written testimony from Ruby Kendrick (almost identical to her previous testimony), the Board of Commissioners of the District (in opposition), and Henry Wixon (also opposed).55
On May 15, the Senate committee reported the bill favorably to the Senate floor without amendment.56 The bill passed the Senate on May 27 and was sent to the House.57 “We are all rejoicing over the good news,” Gaines exclaimed. She confirmed that Congresswoman Church would shepherd the bill through the House.58
By the Fall, however, the bill to provide the property tax exemption remained stuck in the House District Committee. At the same time, Dirksen was pursuing yet another tax break for NACWC—this time an exemption from the District of Columbia Income and Franchise Tax Act of 1947. He wrote the District’s Collector of Taxes on September 13 urging his “careful and sympathetic consideration” of the matter.59 Five weeks later, however, NACWC still had not completed the necessary application.60
Dirksen’s work on behalf of NACWC took place against the backdrop of the vigorous debate in the Senate on what became the Civil Rights Act of 1957. Dirksen’s fidelity to the cause of civil rights was confirmed repeatedly in remarks he made on the Senate floor while fighting for passage of the bill. He believed that the momentum for civil rights was unstoppable, “that the whole unfolding is according to the great design and plan of the Great Architect.” A moral and ethical standard was at issue, he thought. “Though their color is black, I cannot imagine for a moment that they were not endowed with a spirit and a soul, just as is every other human being under the canopy of God’s blue heaven.”61
Dirksen attempted to re-start action in the House on S. 105, the property tax exemption bill, in February 1958 by writing John L. McMillan, chairman of the House District Committee. McMillan acknowledged Dirksen request by offering a quid pro quo: “I would like to state that we have approximately thirty bills that have passed the House of Representatives now pending before the United States Senate for consideration and I would consider it a personal favor if you could use your best efforts to secure prompt consideration of these bills.”62
Dirksen also urged Gaines to contact other members of the House committee: “Letters direct from you will carry a great deal of weight in our effort to push this bill along.”63 Gaines did so, but no action resulted. Dirksen’s staffer Harold Rainville met with Congressman Simpson in May in yet another attempt to resolve the property tax matter.64
Finally, in early June, the Subcommittee on Fiscal Affairs of the House Committee on the District of Columbia favorably reported S. 105 to the full committee. Rainville’s conversation with Simpson had the desired result.65 The Washington Daily News took note on June 10 with a story headlined, “When Will Exemptions Stop? The District Tax Merry-Go-Round.” Apparently, subcommittee chairman Howard W. Smith (D-Virginia) complained that one exemption inevitably led to another and then another. District tax officials claimed that exemptions cost the District $750,000 per year. In referring to the NACWC exemption, Smith said he would approve it but would then establish a subcommittee rule “that we won’t have any more bills like this.”66
On July 10, Dirksen wrote John McMillan, chairman of the House District Committee, requesting action by the full committee on S. 105 at the committee’s next meeting. The senator reported, too, that the House bills pending before the Senate District Committee “had been pretty well cleared.”67 The House committee reported the bill that same day.68 On July 14, Dirksen sent Gaines a telegram with the long-awaited news: “The Association’s bill (S. 105) passed the House of Representatives today, without amendment, thereby clearing it for the White House for Presidential action.”69 President Eisenhower signed the bill on July 25.
For Irene Gaines, the two-year effort to secure a property tax exemption for 1601 R Street NW capped her six-year presidency of NACWC. Dirksen went to the trouble of securing from the White House the pen used to sign Private Law No. 85-496, which he sent to Gaines.70
Years later when compiling a list of his civil rights measures over his entire career, Dirksen counted the property tax exemption among them.71
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A Federal Charter for NACWC? |
Dirksen and the NACWC did not enjoy the same success in obtaining a federal charter. As was the case with the property tax matter, Gaines started the ball rolling in May 1956 when she sought Dirksen’s advice about how to proceed.72 The Senate Judiciary Committee had jurisdiction over bills granting such designations and had done so only in very limited numbers for such organizations as the American Legion.73 Dirksen promised to “do my best on these matters.”74
On July 11, Dirksen learned that the charter application completed by Gaines had been found wanting by the Senate Legislative Counsel. Dirksen sent to Gaines a copy of Public Law 605, 83rd Congress, approved August 20, 1954, outlining the requirements imposed by the House and Senate Judiciary Committees on organizations seeking a federal charter. The senator suggested that Gaines use legal counsel to draft a proposal “using the enclosed law as a pattern, containing the names of your incorporators and trustees, together with current information with respect to the purposes of the new corporation, its corporate powers, and other necessary information.” Dirksen promised that such a draft could be translated into “proper legislative language” for introduction in the Senate.75
As Dirksen put together his legislative program for the 85th Congress, which would convene in January 1957, he wrote Gaines to ask if she had compiled the information he had requested in July, information necessary for the Legislative Counsel to draft an appropriate bill.76 She replied on November 27, reporting that her husband was compiling the information. “We are still rejoicing over your splendid victory on November 6th!” Gaines exclaimed, referring to Dirksen’s successful bid for re-election to the Senate. “Both Mr. Gaines as president of the 4th Ward Regular Republican Organization and as one of your Watchers in another 4th Ward precinct, and I as a Watcher for you in our home precinct . . . felt very elated when the returns indicated that you were in by such a good margin!”77 “Let me say that I appreciate the splendid work performed by you and Mr. Gaines in the Fourth Ward,” and that “I will certainly do my best on the Federal charter proposal,” the senator replied.78
At long last, Gaines sent the information prepared by her husband for the application in late March.79 On April 1, 1957, Dirksen introduced S. 1768 to incorporate the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs. The bill listed more than 120 women from 41 states and the District of Columbia as the creators of the organization. The bill stated NACWC’s purpose as
To promote the education of women and girls, and to hold an educational institute biennially at the convention; to raise the standard of the home; to work for the moral, economic, social and religious welfare of women and children; to protect the rights of women and children who work; to secure and use our influence for the enforcement of the constitutional rights for our group; to obtain for all women the opportunity of reaching the highest standards in all fields of human endeavor, and to promote interracial understanding, justice, good will, and peace among all people.
Notice that this version of the purpose statement omitted mention of race. The 14-page bill also described the organization’s corporate powers, the nature of its membership structure and governing authority, the principal office and scope of activities, the use of income and a prohibition on loans to officers or employees, the nonpolitical nature of the organization, and various administrative matters, including a requirement to report to Congress annually.80
S. 1768 was referred to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Charters, Holidays, and Celebrations. Senators Joseph C. O’Mahoney of Wyoming (chairman), John C. McClellan (D-Arkansas), and Arthur Watkins (R-Utah) comprised the subcommittee, but they had not considered a single federal charter proposal thus far in the congressional session. Dirksen asked Gaines for more updated information about her organization’s programs in order to bolster the case before the subcommittee.81 By the Fall, the bill to grant a federal charter languished there.82
Throughout Dirksen’s efforts on behalf of NACWC in Washington, Irene Gaines was not bashful about contacting Harold Rainville in Dirksen’s Chicago office for all manner of help. On November 21, 1957, for example, she asked Rainville to assist on five separate items. First, NACWC had received word that it would receive the George Washington Medal from the Freedom Foundation. But Gaines had been unable to learn the details and sought help from Dirksen’s assistant. Next, she wanted Dirksen’s or Rainville’s help to join a “People to People” trip to Asia, Africa, and Europe sponsored by the Department of State. She hoped “to show other colored peoples of the world, regarding the opportunities given by our country for the advancement and progress of colored Americans.”
Returning to a request she had made the previous year, Gaines asked to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee to clear her name. “I admit that during the war I had association with three or four organizations . . . that I later found to be controlled or dominated by Communists,” she explained while noting that she had left those groups. She suggested that “the continued by-passing of me and my organization of Colored Women’s clubs, the oldest and largest—and only federation of colored women’s clubs in the country, makes me know that something is definitely wrong.”83 Presumably, she was referring to the lack of progress on both the tax exemption and the federal charter.
Fourth, she complained to Rainville that the State Department had selected the president of the National Council of Negro Women to participate in a Radio Free Europe trip abroad instead of someone from NACWC, especially since the NCNW president was a Democrat. Her final request had to do with her son, Charles, who was trying to find employment as Deputy Coroner—“The many long years of service to GOP by his father as well as his mother, should also be a factor in helping to secure for him something better than he has now.” After expressing gratitude for Dirksen’s help on the tax and charter matters, Gaines concluded her letter, “I hope you can also appreciate my position in these other matters, and try to clear it [sic] up for me . . . .”84
The paper trail regarding the federal charter for NACWC ends at this point. Dirksen’s staff carefully recorded the progress of each bill he introduced, co-sponsored, or amended from start to finish. The bill file for S. 1768 merely notes the date of introduction and referral to committee. There are no notes indicating hearings or action by the subcommittee or full committee. Further, when the staff compiled Dirksen’s legislative record for use in his 1968 re-election campaign, S. 1768 does not appear on this list. It seems safe to conclude that Dirksen failed to obtain the charter.85
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Commentary: What is the Significance of Dirksen’s Efforts on Behalf of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs? |
Over Dirksen’s career in Congress, progress toward guaranteeing equality of rights for black Americans came in fits and starts. Southern Democrats blocked the most ambitious legislative attempts in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Success typically came in small steps until 1957 when Congress passed a civil rights bill proposed by the Eisenhower administration. Momentum increased in the years following, with Dirksen playing key roles in passing substantive civil rights legislation in 1960, 1964, 1965, and 1968.
In the meantime, however, Dirksen attempted to move Congress to act on a range of more restricted pro-civil rights measures from designating an official National Negro History Week to establishing a civil rights commission in the executive branch.
Against this backdrop, Dirksen’s work on behalf of the NACWC can be interpreted on different levels. Was it simply a case of constituent service? Perhaps. Although the organization she headed was located in Washington, Irene Gaines was Dirksen’s constituent. Moreover, she had an established relationship with the senator and with his political adviser, Harold Rainville. It is no stretch to assume that Dirksen would lend her a hand.86
Alternatively, “politics” might explain his motive. Gaines held various leadership positions in the African American community in Chicago, and she was active and prominent in Republican circles there. Did Dirksen need her support to advance his career? No. Dirksen stood to gain little politically by cultivating Gaines—his success at the polls depended on turnout downstate, far removed from Chicago politics and the African American vote.
The most compelling interpretation combines constituent service with Dirksen’s core commitment to civil rights. It seems reasonable to assume that Dirksen would respond to a request from Irene Gaines and the NACWC simply because she was his constituent. But there is more to it. By his actions over two Congresses, Dirksen helped to secure the future of the organization, went on record as endorsing the purpose and worth of the NACWC, and encouraged their on-going activities on behalf of African American women and children.
He helped the NACWC because, at the heart of it, he supported equality of rights for all Americans. He was asked later in his career, “How have you become a crusader in this cause?” Dirksen replied, “there occurs to me a line from an English poet whose name was John Donne. He left what I believe was a precious legacy on the parchments of history. He said, ‘Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.’
“I am involved in mankind,” Dirksen continued, “and whatever the skin, we are all involved in mankind. Equality of opportunity must prevail if we are to complete the covenant that we have made with the people, and if we are to honor the pledges we made when we held up our hands to take an oath to defend the laws and to carry out the Constitution of the United States. . . . in line with the sentiment offered by the poet, . . . every denial of freedom, every denial of equal opportunity for a livelihood, for an education, for a right to participate in representative government diminishes me.”87
Epilogue
In 1964, following the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, NACWC awarded Dirksen its Distinguished Service Award for his “untiring efforts in the fight for human rights and dignity for all Americans.”88
ENDNOTES
1 http://www.nacwc.org/about/history.php. Accessed September 22, 2009.
2 “National Association of Colored Women, Inc., 1896-1952,” p. 18, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 412.
3 “National Association of Colored Women, Inc., 1896-1952,” p. 20, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 412.
4 “National Association of Colored Women, Inc., 1896-1952,” p. 20, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 412.
5 “National Association of Colored Women, Inc., 1896-1952,” p. 23, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 412.
6 “National Association of Colored Women, Inc., 1896-1952,” p. 24, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 412.
7 The most complete biography of Gaines was written by Adade Mitchell Wheeler and published in Notable American Women (Harvard University Press, 1971): 258-59.
8 “National Association of Colored Women, Inc., 1896-1952,” p. 99, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 412.
9 “National Association of Colored Women, Inc., 1896-1952,” p.99, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 412.
10 “National Association of Colored Women, Inc., 1896-1952,” p. 97, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 412.
11 “National Association of Colored Women, Inc., 1896-1952,” p.99, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 412.
12 “National Association of Colored Women, Inc., 1896-1952,” p.99, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 412.
13 Rainville to John Gomien, May 16, 1961, Dirksen Papers, Chicago Office Files, f. 595.
14 Rainville to John Gomien, May 16, 1961, Dirksen Papers, Chicago Office Files, f. 595.
15 The office files normally associated with constituent requests were disposed of until about 1954. As a result, Dirksen’s papers do not contain correspondence with Gaines before that time.
16 Gaines to Rainville, July 24, 1954, and Rainville to Gaines, July 27, 1954, Dirksen Papers, Alpha File 1954, “G.” EMD to Gaines, November 28, 1955, Dirksen Papers, Alpha File 1955, “Cockrell.”
17 Gaines to EMD, ca. January 31, 1956, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 501.
18 The NACWC owned the historic Douglass home in Washington.
19 EMD to Gaines, February 8, 1956, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 501.
20 Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 677.
21 http://www.loc.gov/law/help/commemorative-observations/african-american.php. Accessed October 6, 2009.
22 Civil rights record, 1956, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 133; Dirksen Papers, Remarks and Releases, January 6, 1956; Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 41; “The problem of Civil Rights,” January 1953, Dirksen Papers, Notebooks, f. 181; Press Release, 1954, Dirksen Papers, Remarks and Releases, 1954.
23 EMD, Remarks to the Senate, Congressional Record, April 26, 1955, p. 5221; EMD to Gaines, February 8, 10 and 27, 1956, Dirksen Papers, Alpha File, 1956; “Dirksen Record on Discrimination & Civil Rights,” 1956, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 133; Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 166.
24 S. 3605, April 11, 1956, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 180.
25 S. 3717 and 3718, April 24, 1956, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 185.
26 Dirksen Papers, Notebooks, f. 13, 126, 130, 137, 138, 139, 140, 142.
27 Dirksen Papers, Notebooks, f. 184
28 TV-Radio, “Civil Rights,” April 29, 1956, Notebooks, f.184.
29 Gaines to EMD, May 28, 1956, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 280. S. 3069 was similar in purpose and language to Private Law 323, 84th Congress, 1st Session (S. 1741), approved August 4, 1955, to exempt from taxation certain property of the Jewish War Veterans in the District.
30 Memo headed “S. 3069,” no date, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 280.
31 Gaines to EMD, May 28, 1956, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 280.
32 Board of Commissioners to Matthew M. Neely, July 10, 1956, “Report of Proceedings,” Hearing held before Subcommittee on Fiscal Affairs of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia, July 12, 1956, Center for Legislative Archives, National Archives and Records Administration (SEN 84A-E5, Box 137).
33 Senate Report No. 2644 to accompany S. 4044, July 19, 1956, Dirksen Papers, Alpha File 1957, National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs.
34 S. 4044, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 204, 280.
35 Memo headed S. 4044, no date, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 280. He sent a copy to Gaines promising to do his best to obtain early committee consideration of his proposal. See EMD to Gaines, June 15, 1956, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 280.
36 EMD to Spencer, June 15, 1956, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 280. At this time, the District was administered by a three-member Board of Commissioners appointed by the president.
37 EMD to Spencer, September 7, 1956, and Spencer to EMD, September 10, 1956, Dirksen Papers, Alpha File 1956, “Spencer.” See also Press Release, August 15, 1956, Dirksen Papers, Remarks and Releases
38 “Report of Proceedings,” Hearing held before Subcommittee on Fiscal Affairs of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia, July 12, 1956, Center for Legislative Archives, National Archives and Records Administration (SEN 84A-E5, Box 137).
39 Drksen to Neely, July 12, 1956, “Report of Proceedings,” Hearing held before Subcommittee on Fiscal Affairs of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia, July 12, 1956, Center for Legislative Archives, National Archives and Records Administration (SEN 84A-E5, Box 137).
40 Kendrick joined the organization after teaching in the public schools in Greenville, Mississippi. She earned her normal school degree in 1905 from Knoxville College, Knoxville, Tennessee. Widowed in 1923, she began a career that spanned five decades with NACWC in 1927.
41 “Report of Proceedings,” Hearing held before Subcommittee on Fiscal Affairs of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia, July 12, 1956, Center for Legislative Archives, National Archives and Records Administration (SEN 84A-E5, Box 137).
42 “Report of Proceedings,” Hearing held before Subcommittee on Fiscal Affairs of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia, July 12, 1956, Center for Legislative Archives, National Archives and Records Administration (SEN 84A-E5, Box 137).
43 Board of Commissioners to Matthew M. Neely, July 10, 1956, “Report of Proceedings,” Hearing held before Subcommittee on Fiscal Affairs of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia, July 12, 1956, Center for Legislative Archives, National Archives and Records Administration (SEN 84A-E5, Box 137).
44 Board of Commissioners to Matthew M. Neely, July 10, 1956, “Report of Proceedings,” Hearing held before Subcommittee on Fiscal Affairs of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia, July 12, 1956, Center for Legislative Archives, National Archives and Records Administration (SEN 84A-E5, Box 137).
45 “Report of Proceedings,” Hearing held before Subcommittee on Fiscal Affairs of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia, July 12, 1956, Center for Legislative Archives, National Archives and Records Administration (SEN 84A-E5, Box 137).
46 EMD to Gaines, July 20, 1956, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 280.
47 EMD to Gaines, July 24, 1956, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 280.
48 EMD to Simpson, July 24, 1956, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 280.
49 Gaines to EMD, June 9, 1956, Dirksen Papers, Alpha File 1956.
50 EMD to Gaines, December 3, 1956, Dirksen Papers, Alpha File 1956.
51 See S. 83, January 7, 1957, Dirksen Papers, Working Papers, f. 1819e; Legislative File, f . 274-75. Dirksen provided the leadership for the Senate Republicans in helping to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957
52 S.J. Res. 6, January 7, 1957, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 501.
53 EMD to Neely, February 6, 1957, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 281.
54 Gaines to EMD, February 4, 1957, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 281.
55 “Report of Proceedings,” Hearing held before Subcommittee on Fiscal Affairs of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia, April 10, 1957, Center for Legislative Archives, National Archives and Records Administration (SEN 85A-E5, Box 100).
56 EMD to Gaines, May 15, 1957, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 281; “Report of Proceedings,” Hearing held before Subcommittee on Fiscal Affairs of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia, April 10, 1957, Center for Legislative Archives, National Archives and Records Administration (SEN 85A-E5, Box 100).
57 EMD to Gaines, May 23, 1957, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 281.
58 Gaines to EMD, May 28, 1957, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 281. Dirksen wrote Sid Simpson, as he had done in 1956, urging the congressman to assist with the bill in the House. See EMD to Simpson, May 31, 1957, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 281.
59 EMD to Pearson, September 13, 1957, Dirksen Papers, Alpha File 1957, National.
60 EMD to NACWC, October 23, 1957, Dirksen Papers, Alpha File 1957, National.
61 Congressional Record, July 10, 1957, p. 11213-14. In addition to the Congressional Record, Dirksen’s Notebooks contain frequent references to civil rights in 1957—see f. 140, 142, 150.
62 EMD to McMillan, February 27, 1958, and McMillan to EMD, March 5, 1958, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 281.
63 EMD to Gaines and EMD to McMillan, February 27, 1958, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 281.
64 “Discuss with Sid,” May 20, 1958, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 281.
65 Dirksen’s legislative aide credited Rainville with prompting Simpson to move the bill to full committee. See Stevens to Rainville, July 10, 1958, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 281.
66 The Washington Daily News, June 10, 1958, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 281. The NACWC exemption was valued at $839 per year.
67 EMD to McMillan, July 10, 1958, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 281.
68 McMillan to EMD, July 11, 1958, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 281.
69 EMD to Gaines, July 14, 1958, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 281.
70 Jack Martin to EMD, July 28, 1958, and EMD to Gaines, July 30, 1958, Dirksen Papers, Alpha File 1958.
71 “Civil Rights,” 1968, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 1478
72 Gaines to EMD, May 28, 1956, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 280.
73 Memo re NACWC, June 1, 1956, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 280. The organization was originally incorporated under the laws of the State of Missouri; Goldstein to EMD, June 4, 1956, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 280.
74 EMD to Gaines, June 7, 1956, and Gaines to EMD, June 15, 1956, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 280.
75 EMD to Gaines, July 11, 1956, Dirksen Papers, Alpha File 1956 and Legislative File, f. 412.
76 EMD to Gaines, November 20, 1956, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 280, 412.
77 Gaines to EMD, November 27, 1956, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 412.
78 EMD to Gaines, December 3, 1956, Dirksen Papers, Alpha File 1956.
79 Gaines to EMD, March 24, 1957, and EMD to Gaines, March 27, 1957, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 412.
80 S. 1768, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 412.
81 EMD to Gaines, May 31, 1957, Dirksen Papers, Legislative File, f. 281, 412.
82 EMD to Pearson, September 13, 1957, Dirksen Papers, Alpha File 1957, National.
83 Dirksen eventually received a report from HUAC that listed four so-called “communist” activities in which Gaines had once engaged. For example, the report noted that Gaines “was one of the signers of the “Statement by Negro Americans” in behalf of arrested Communist leaders, as shown in The Worker, A Communist Party publication, August 29, 1948, (page 11)” and that she was listed as a member of the Board of Directors of the Abraham Lincoln School which the Attorney General, HUAC, and the Internal Security Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee had cited as subversive. See “Information from the Files of the Committee on Un-American Activities,” November 27, 1957, Dirksen Papers, Alpha File 1958. There is no evidence, however, that Gaines’s past activities accounted for the delay in action on the legislation proposed by Dirksen on behalf of the NACWC.
84 Gaines to EMD/Rainville, November 21, 1957, Dirksen Papers, Alpha File 1958.
85 Repeated efforts to contact NACWC for information about the charter did not elicit a response.
86 Yet Dirksen seemed to put more time and effort into the property tax matter and the federal charter than he normally did for constituents. This may simply be the artifact of his record-keeping—there are few, if any, similarly well-documented examples in his constituent case work files. He could have worked just as hard for others in Illinois but the files did not survive.
87Congressional Record, June 19, 1964, Dirksen Papers, Remarks and Releases.
88 Dirksen Papers, Alpha File 1964, National.
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Everett Dirksen on Record
On Civil Rights: June 10, 1964
NOTE: The following article was published originally in the Peoria Journal Star on June 10, 2004. Forty years ago marks a civil rights milestone. On June 10, 1964, the Senate voted to end a five-months-long debate on what would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Between February and June, Senate opponents of the bill had proposed over 500 amendments designed to weaken the measure. Yet after 534 hours, 1 minute, and 51 seconds, the longest filibuster in the history of the United States was broken. Pekin's Everett McKinley Dirksen, then Senate Minority Leader, provided the votes that made cloture, the procedure for ending debate, possible. It was his greatest moment as a legislator.
The nation teetered on the edge of a racial divide in the mid-1960s. Frustrated by decades of second-class treatment, African-Americans were losing patience with their country's legal and political institutions and turning to direct action to secure their rights. Only 12,000 of the 3,000,000 African-American students in the South attended integrated schools. African-American life expectancy was seven years fewer than white, infant mortality twice as great.
Nineteen sixty three and 1964 were the years of civil rights marches in Birmingham, Alabama, the murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evers in Mississippi, the March on Washington and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, "I Have a Dream" speech, John F. Kennedy's assassination, and the murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi. "To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious," James Baldwin asserted in 1961, "is to be in a rage all the time."
At long last, the White House and Congress awakened to the need to strength civil rights law. Beginning in June 1963, first Presidents John F. Kenney and then Lyndon Johnson cajoled and threatened Congress into action. The House of Representatives passed a bill, known as H.R. 7152, in early 1964 and sent it to the Senate on February 17 where the real battle would take place. Senate rules had allowed southerners in the past to mount filibusters, effectively killing nearly all civil rights legislation. Passage depended on getting the Senate to vote for cloture, a procedure to end debate and bring a bill to a vote. Cloture required the votes of two-thirds of the Senate. Democrats numbered 67, exactly two-thirds of the one hundred-member Senate. But 21 of the 67 came from southern states. This so-called "southern bloc" would oppose the measure vigorously and lead the filibuster. The White House and the Senate Democrats needed support from at least 22 of the Senate's 33 Republicans.
From the beginning, the pro-civil rights forces knew that Dirksen was the key to achieving cloture. When the Senate received the House-passed bill, Majority Leader Mike Mansfield (D-MT) issued the challenge. "We hope in vain," he said, "if we hope that this issue can be put over safely to another tomorrow, to be dealt with by another generation of senators. The time is now. The crossroads is here in the Senate." He then turned to face Dirksen. "I appeal to the distinguished minority leader whose patriotism has always taken precedence over his partisanship, to join with me, and I know he will, in finding the Senate's best contribution at this time to the resolution of this grave national issue."
The senator from Illinois replied: "I trust that the time will never come in my political career when the waters of partisanship will flow so swift and so deep as to obscure my estimate of the national interest. . . . I trust I can disenthrall myself from all bias, from all prejudice, from all irrelevancies, from all immaterial matters, and see clearly and cleanly what the issue is and then render an independent judgment."
Dirksen played the central role in steering the civil rights bill along its twisting parliamentary path through the Senate. The wily, hard-working Republican leader used his personal charm, legendary knowledge of Senate rules, and finely honed political instincts to convince enough Republicans to vote for cloture and the bill's passage to overcome southern Democrats' opposition. He was asked to deliver Republican votes in support of a Democratic president who could not bring along enough of his own party to seal the deal.
Seal the deal he did. And the capstone to that effort occurred forty years ago on June 10, 1964. Time Magazine reported the historic details. Dirksen arose at 5:00 a.m. on that Wednesday, and, after a light breakfast, went out to his garden to clip some long-stemmed roses to take to the office. Leaving his farm in Virginia shortly after 8:00 in his chauffeur-driven limousine, Dirksen arrived at the Senate just as Robert C. Byrd (D-WV) was completing his marathon address of 14 hours and 13 minutes, the longest speech in the entire debate. It ended at 9:51 a.m, just nine minutes before the Senate was scheduled to convene for the pivotal vote on cloture.
Dirksen had the last word. In poor health, drained from working fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen-hour days, his words came quietly. Twice he gulped pills handed him by a Senate page. In his massive left hand, he held a 12-page speech he had typed the night before on Senate stationery . "I have had but one purpose," Dirksen intoned, "and that was the enactment of a good, workable, equitable, practical bill having due regard for the progress made in the civil rights field at the state and local level."
He warned his colleagues that "we dare not temporize with the issue which is before us. It is essentially moral in character. It must be resolved. It will not go away. It's time has come." He quoted Victor Hugo, the historian and French philosopher who, on the night he died, entered these words in his diary: "stronger than all the armies is an idea whose time has come." Dirksen declared, "The time has come for equality of opportunity in sharing of government, in education, and in employment. It must not be stayed or denied. It is here!" His last words were these: "I appeal to all Senators. We are confronted with a moral issue. Today let us not be found wanting in whatever it takes by way of moral and spiritual substance to face up to the issue and to vote cloture."
Never in history had the Senate been able to muster enough votes to cut off a filibuster on a civil rights bill. And only once in the thirty-seven years since 1927 had it agreed to cloture for any measure. The clerk proceeded to call the roll at 11:00 a.m. At 11:15 a.m., Republican Senator John Williams of Delaware replied "aye" to the question. It was the 67th vote; cloture had passed by a vote of 71 to 29. The final count showed 44 Democrats and 27 Republicans voting for cloture with 23 Democrats - 20 from the South -- and only 6 Republicans opposed.
The formal Senate vote on the bill took place on June 19th. It passed overwhelmingly, 73-27. Majority Leader Mansfield said of Dirksen, "This is his finest hour. The Senate, the whole country is in debt to the Senator from Illinois."
Editorial opinion saluted Dirksen. For example, the Chicago Defender, the largest black-owned daily in the world, which had pilloried Dirksen for weeks, changed its tune and praised him "for the grand manner of his generalship behind the passage of the best civil rights measures that have ever been enacted into law since Reconstruction." Bill O'Connell, the Peoria Journal Star's political writer, suggested that Dirksen might join the Republican ticket in the Fall as the vice presidential candidate partly because of his performance on the civil rights bill.
Among the many private letters Dirksen received, one stands out. Two days after the historic cloture vote, Roy Wilkins, Executive Secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, wrote a two-page letter to the Republican leader. "Let me be the first to admit that I was in error in estimating your preliminary announcements and moves," Wilkins noted. He and other civil rights leaders had feared that Dirksen would gut the bill through amendment during the Senate debate. Wilkins allowed that "there were certain realities which had to be taken into account in advancing this legislation to a vote. Out of your long experience you devised an approach which seemed to you to offer a chance for success." He called the final vote tally, with the majority including 27 of the 33 Senate Republicans, a "resounding vote" which "tended mightily to reinforce your judgment and to vindicate your procedure."
After commenting on particular sections of Dirksen's June 10th speech, Wilkins concluded with these words: "With the passage of the bill . . . the cause of human rights and the commitment of a great, democratic government to protect the guarantees embodied in its constitution will have taken a giant step forward. Your leadership of the Republican party in the Senate at this turning point will become a significant part of the history of this century."
Dirksen appeared on the cover of Time Magazine on June 19th. When asked by a reporter why he had taken the lead, Dirksen replied, "I come of immigrant German stock. My mother stood on Ellis Island as a child of 17, with a tag around her neck directing that she be sent to Pekin, Illinois. Our family had opportunities in Illinois, and the essence of what we're trying to do in the civil rights bill is to see that others have opportunities in this country."
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Everett Dirksen on Record
On Vietnam
The following links take you to scanned documents from the Everett M. Dirksen Papers relating to Dirksen's statements on the war in Southeast Asia. These remarks were delivered originally during Sunday morning talk shows, on the floor of the Senate, and in television broadcasts to his Illinois constituents. There are also images of standard replies to letters, called Robos.
| Date | Description |
| June 21, 1953 | Bill Henry's "Window on Washington," NBC Television, Washington, DC. |
| April 4, 1961 | "Laos, Little Land, Big Threat," Radio-TV Broadcast to Illinois constituents. |
| February 2, 1964 | "Meet the Press," NBC Radio and Television, Washington, DC. |
| January 24, 1965 | "Meet the Press," NBC Radio and Television, Washington, DC. |
| February 18, 1965 | Press Release of Remarks on the Senate Floor. |
| June 21, 1965 | "A Capsule Story of Vietnam." Radio-TV Broadcast to Illinois constituents. |
| January 9, 1966 | "Issues and Answers," ABC Radio and Television, Washington, DC. |
| January 11, 1966 | "The Today Show," WRC-TV, NBC, Washington, DC |
| January 17, 1966 | "A Look Ahead by the Republicans," U.S. News & World Report. |
| February 2, 1966 | Robo letter. |
| February 14, 1966 | "That Was the Week That Was," Radio-TV Broadcast to Illinois constituents. |
| February 21, 1966 | "The Commander in Chief," Radio-TV Broadcast to Illinois constituents. |
| February 23, 1966 | "S. 2791," notes prepared by Dirksen. |
| May 9, 1966 | "The Choices in Vietnam," Radio-TV Broadcast to Illinois constituents. |
| July 8, 1966 | Robo letter. |
| July 31, 1966 | "Issues and Answers," ABC Radio and Television, Washington, DC. |
| August 7, 1966 | "Meet the Press," NBC Radio and Television, Washington, DC. |
| February 6, 1967 | "Annual Visit with Lincoln," Radio-TV Broadcast to Illinois constituents. |
| May 2, 1967 | Press Release |
| May 16, 1967 | "Why Are We in Vietnam?" Radio-TV Broadcast to Illinois constituents. |
| May 24, 1967 | Remarks on Senate floor. |
| June 27, 1967 | Letter to constituent whose son had died in Vietnam. |
| August 1, 1967 | Robo letter. |
| August 6, 1967 | "Face the Nation," CBS News, Washington, DC |
| October 3, 1967 | "Vietnam," Dirksen's remarks on the Senate floor. |
| February 4, 1968 | "Issues and Answers," ABC Radio and Television, Washington, DC. |
| February 8, 1968 | Robo letter. |
| February 29, 1968 | Robo letter. |
| March 27, 1968 | "Capitol Cloakroom," CBS Radio Network, Washington, DC |
| March 31, 1968 | Notes prepared for press release upon the resignation of President Lyndon Johnson. |
| May 27, 1968 | "Suppose It Ended Today," Radio-TV Broadcast to Illinois constituents. |
| October 31, 1968 | "What if a Viet truce Came?" From Dirksen's syndicated newspaper column, "A Senator's Notebook." |
| April 1, 1969 | Robo letter. |
| June 2, 1969 | "Senator Kennedy and Vietnam Strategy," remarks prepared for delivery on the floor of the Senate. |
| June 15, 1969 | "Issues and Answers," ABC Radio and Television, Washington, DC. |
| June 23, 1969 | Robo letter. |
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Everett Dirksen on Record
On Politics as a Career
[Source: Draft prepared for The Cowles Comprehensive Encyclopedia, in Alpha Files, 1964, Leerburger; revised draft in Remarks and Releases. Model Statements. "Politics" (See also Dirksen Information File, "Politics as a Career.")] Years ago, a polling agency which samples public opinion at the national level asked the fathers and mothers of the nation whether they would like to see a son or daughter pursue a political career. The answer was a resounding, unanimous "no" and the reason assigned was that it was a corrupt, dishonest, immoral field of endeavor which could only defile one who entered that domain.
This is a strange but understandable attitude. It is understandable because mass media inevitably brings the evils of politics and the peccadilloes of politicians inevitably reach the front page and make racy reading. On the other hand, it is a strange attitude because politics as the profession dealing with the management of public affairs at every level, whether local, state, or national, conditions the very climate in which virtually all human activity is conducted.
Today, the farmer, the laborer, the businessman, the industrialist, and the educator are directly affected by governmental action. One can name no field of activity which Directly or indirectly is not touched by public law or regulation and hence the art of government becomes increasingly important. Moreover, every year sees a deeper and deeper intrusion of government into the affairs of people and this intrusion is spelled out in terms of those who direct and manage the affairs of government.
Is the political field a worthwhile endeavor? The honest answer is that it is frustrating, it is disappointing, it is disillusioning but along with all this, it is exciting and brings a rich satisfaction in terms of service rendered to community, state and nation. And to the people who are served.
What then are the opportunities in political life? They are many and varied. But to provide a more specific answer, it is necessary to analyze the political field.
The first determination to be made is whether the individual interest lies in the field of local, state, or national politics. To this should be added the field of party politics, aside from the field of public office. Whatever the interest - whether the goal be the governorship, other state office, the mayoralty of a city, a councilman or alderman, the Congress, or the Presidency - the objective must determine the course to pursue and the specialization of effort and preparation to be undertaken.
Still another choice or determination must be made and that is whether one has in mind the field of elective of administrative office.
Administrative office is also a part of the political domain. At the national level it would include the Cabinet, the heads of the many Federal agencies and bureaus and in fact that huge group from a humble file clerk to a top administrator in government. In the State field, it would include the same general group from department heads on down, and likewise in the local field.
To give some hint of how extensive the whole political domain really is, a recent estimate indicates that there are in round figures 2,500,000 persons on the Federal civilian payroll and 7,000,000 on state and local rolls. To be sure, these estimates include both blue collar and white collar workers of all types and classifications, but they are still impressive in indicating how governmental activity at all levels has grown, and it is fair to say that on the basis of historical perspective, that it will continue to grow..
To anyone interested in the administrative field, one can give only a general hint of the preparation to be made. Today there are thousands of lawyers in government. A basic legal education will suffice, leaving specialization to come later. The Department of Agriculture has a veritable army of employees and obviously the top career positions are occupied by those who have become specialists in some field of agriculture. This might well be said of the growing interest in Space and space technology. In any event the goal is important for it will automatically dictate the type of preparation which must be made.
But turning now to the elective field, which unlike the administrative or bureaucratic field is a more precarious career, in the sense that one can make it a lifetime work only by the sufferance of the voters, the approach is quite different.
There is however no absolute rule. It has been so often observed that a young man or woman preparing for a venture into politics should begin at the very bottom of the political structure and advance from there. One can point to many Governors, Senators, Congressmen, Mayors and others, who had very little contact if any with party organization but who were elected because they were well known and had succeeded in some other line of endeavor whether it was law, business, industry or some other field.
Generally speaking, however, it is a good rule to take an elementary approach and learn what makes politics tick. To be nominated for and elected to public office, whether local, state, or national, is essentially a party matter. The major political parties - Republican and Democrat - could function only through a vertical organization which runs from the precinct committeeman and county chairman, through the State organization and on up to the National Committee and the National Chairman. Through party service, one can place himself in line for a party call to fill a place on the ballot and, hence, the precinct - the very keystone of the party structure - is the ideal place to begin.
No better experience can be had than to volunteer for work in the precinct and at the party headquarters in a campaign. Here, as at no other level, one gets the feel of voter reactions, the nature of the appeal to be made by the candidates, the quality of party literature, candidate personalities, how votes might be influenced, the importance of personality in securing the confidence of the voter, and a score of other elements which enter into a campaign. This basic knowledge obviously leads to advancement in the party councils, and readies the individual for the day when he would like to see his own name on the ballot.
What basic academic or professional preparation does one make for all this? All basic knowledge is useful whether it be the study of the classics, or history, or economics or science. But several specific items merit emphasis. The first is logical thought in presenting a case, whether for the party or for oneself. The second is a capacity to fluently present the case in terms that the public will readily understand. The third is that type of poise which begets confidence. The fourth is the development of a manner which wins friends since this whole political art is an intensely human business. The fifth is a facility for using the means of communication such as newspapers, radio, and television because the individual must rely heavily on these to reach the vast electorate whom he can never contact or see because of the limitations of time, energy and numbers. How then shall a young man or a young woman start a political career? Perhaps when all is said and done, there is only one worthwhile and very succinct piece of advice. Make a start.
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Everett Dirksen on Record
Quotations
Excerpts from historical documents on such topics as government spending.
Quotations: Everett Dirksen Said That?
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Everett Dirksen on Record
Interview transcripts, 1940-69
Think of this page as a table of contents to 57 interview transcripts featuring Everett Dirksen from 1940 through 1969, largely the period of his service in the U.S. Senate. We have reproduced all the interviews contained in his Remarks and Releases files housed at The Dirksen Congressional Center in Pekin, IL. Although Dirksen served in the House of Representatives from 1933 until 1949, only a single interview survives from that period.
These records do not include press conference transcripts. It is likely that Dirksen participated in many other interviews for which The Center lacks documentation. In 1964, for example, despite Dirksen’s prominence in such legislative battles as the civil rights bill, only a single interview transcript exists in The Center’s holdings.
Note: These transcripts require Adobe® Reader -- free software for viewing and printing. If you don't have this software installed, click on Download Adobe Reader now and follow the steps provided.
Date |
Program Title |
Subject |
3.3.40 |
Government spending, unemployment, monetary policy |
|
June 1951 |
Senate office procedures, work load, District of Columbia home rule, cloture, future of Republican Party, the economy, foreign policy, minority rights |
|
9.11.51 |
Candidacies of Robert Taft and Dwight Eisenhower for president, Dirksen’s availability for place on the national ticket, the Republican program, the nature of "isolationism" and foreign policy, Universal Military training; campaign issues |
|
1.27.52 |
National budget, government spending, congressional oversight of spending |
|
3.2.52 |
Peace, internal security, preparedness, human freedom, economic freedom |
|
5.2.52 |
Impeachment of truman, truman’s seizure of steel mills, price and wage controls, Dirksen’s candidacy for president, Robert Taft, foreign aid |
|
5.8.52 |
Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee activities, 1952 convention, government spending |
|
6.21.53 |
Dirksen’s trip to the Pacific, Korea, the war in French Indochina, Formosa |
|
11.7.54 |
Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee’s performance, McCarthy issue and censure |
|
1.9.55 |
Eisenhower’s State of the Union message, Republican Party unity, foreign and domestic policies, McCarthy |
|
3.21.55 |
Republican political situation in 1956, Formosa, Illinois politics, McCarthy, Bricker Amendment |
|
1.20.57 |
Suez incident, relations with Great Britain, duties of Republican Party Whip, Rule 22, Republican Party fortunes, McClellan labor racketeering committee, Red China |
|
5.19.57 |
Federal budget battle, Republican Party unity, civil rights bill, foreign aid and foreign policy, Dirksen describes his brand of Republicanism, his possible candidacy in 1960 |
|
9.16.57 |
Unemployment, federal pay raises, Eisenhower’s program, aid to education, congressional junkets, Little Rock racial situation, Taft-Hartley Act |
|
2.2.58 |
U.S. space launch, space program and link to federal aid to education, the economy, presidential disability, Middle East, labor legislation, national defense, Dirksen’s political plans |
|
6.21.59 |
Republican Party’s future in 1960, campaign issues, inflation, Senate rejection of Lewis Strauss for Secretary of Commerce, summit meetings |
|
6.23.59 |
Lewis Strauss nomination, 1960 election prospects and issues, the economy, Berlin crisis, summit conferences, NATO, Eisenhower’s program |
|
| 7.26.59 | "Ruth Hagy's College News Conference" | Eisenhower's legislative program, 1960 election, Republican Party, Nixon's visit to Soviet Union, congressional influence in regulatory agencies, labor-management legislation, Eisenhower's veto of housing bill, civil rights bill |
1.17.60 |
Democratic and Republican responses to Eisenhower’s message |
|
1.18.60 |
NBC Program for Radio, "Senator Dirksen's Radio and TV Message" |
Third party possibility, method of selecting candidates, nature of politics and politicians, voting behavior, partonage, chaleenges of the next 50 years |
4.18.60 |
Disarmament, Cold War, space program, water resources |
|
6.19.60 |
Dirksen as a vice presidential candidate, Japanese treaty, possible Republican nominees, U-2 incident and the summit conference, campaign issues, pending legislation |
|
8.14.60 |
Minimum wage legislation, legislative accomplishments, pending matters, Eisenhower’s message to Congress, civil rights proposals, Forand bill, Nixon’s campaign, Dirksen’s relationship with Lyndon Johnson |
|
1.8.61 |
Rule 22, John Kennedy’s appointments, the question of a coalition between Republicans and southern Democrats, congressional action on Kennedy’s legislative program, leadership of Republicans |
|
1.13.61 |
Republican strategy, legislative agenda |
|
1.22.61 |
Legislative agenda, Republican-Democratic coalition, Republican strategy |
|
1.29.61 |
Relations with the Soviet Union, question of secrecy in the Kennedy administration, Republican leadership, evaluation of Nixon’s campaign, Republican congressional strategy, legislative agenda |
|
3.5.61 |
Why Dirksen left the House of Representatives, his oratorical style, biographical information, how he received his middle name, pre-congressional years, Dirksen’s flexibility, government’s role in society, Dirksen’s leadership methods, evaluation of Kennedy, Republican Party leadership |
|
9.24.61 |
Record of the 87th Congress |
|
10.15.61 |
The Kennedy administration record |
|
3.11.62 |
Republican Party, Soviet Union, politics, the Kennedy administration |
|
2.3.63 |
"Ev and Charlie Show," challenges to Halleck’s leadership, Cuba, aid to education, role of the opposition party, legislative priorities, government spending |
|
4.1.63 |
Political party cohesion and alignments, Republican Party fortunes in 1964, Kennedy’s quality of leadership |
|
5.5.63 |
Middle East |
|
9.29.63 |
Republican candidates and election chances in 1964, evaluation of Kennedy’s program, Republican-southern Democratic coalition; tax bill; unemployment, civil rights, other issues |
|
11.6.63 |
Tax bill, spending limitations, impact of tax legislation |
|
11.25.63 |
Impact of the Kennedy assassination on legislation, Lyndon Johnson as president |
|
2.2.64 |
1964 election, Bobby Baker cawse, Halleck as possible chairman of the Republican convention; Vietnam, civil rights bill |
|
1.24.65 |
Role of the Republican Party in Congress, federal aid to education, Republican Policy Coordinating Committee, chemical warfare, presidential disability, Vietnam, Republican Party unity, United Nations |
|
2.7.65 |
Dirksen’s eye problem, comparison of House and Senate careers, "consistency" on issues, marigolds, theatrical career, Dirksen’s style of leadership, hazards of public life, evaluations of the presidents he served with, what would Dirksen do differently if he had to do it again? |
|
9.19.65 |
Implication of India-Pakistan war, bipartisan foreign policy, Southeast Asia, possible campaign issues, Johnson’s domestic program, repeal of 14(b), reapportionment, Dirksen’s relationships with Democrats; Republican Party spokesmen, lessons of 1964 |
|
1.9.66 |
Dirksen on Johnson’s Vietnam policy, relations with European allies, domestic programs, federal budget, civil rights |
|
1.11.66 |
Vietnam war, role of Republican Party in the war issue |
|
1.17.66 |
U.S. News and World Reportinterview |
Republican Party prospects, Great Society programs, government intrusion, Vietnam, arms shortages, "guns and butter," 14(b) and reapportionment, pending issues |
7.3.66 |
Bombing in Vietnam, Douglas-Percy Senate race in Illinois, Dirksen Republicanism, reflection on career, reapportionment, 14(b), prayer in schools, Dirksen’s future goals, evaluation of Johnson |
|
8.7.66 |
Machinists’ strike, public prayer amendment, pending civil rights legislation, gun control bill, Great Society programs, Johnson’s conduct of the Vietnam war, Dirksen’s influence in the Johnson administration, election finances |
|
9.15.66 |
Why did the 1966 civil rights bill fail, demonstrations by blacks, political demise of Joe Martin |
|
10.9.66 |
Personal and political philosophy, reflections on career, views of current events and future, plans for future |
|
10.16.66 |
Personal and political philosophy, reflections on career, views of current events and future, plans for future |
|
1.15.67 |
Budget and taxes, national defense, Vietnam war, East-West trade bill, consular treaty, Rule 22, civil rights legislation, Bobby Baker investigation, Senate ethics |
|
8.6.67 |
Riots and urban problems, Vietnam, gun control bill, Democratic Party’s liabilities, issues, government spending |
|
1.22.68 |
ABC News with Howard K. Smith, "Everett Dirksen’s Washington" |
Dirksen in recording studio, tour of the Capitol, reflections of career, survey of Pekin, discussion with Ben and Tom Dirksen |
2.4.68 |
Vietnam, Pueblo capture, Republican candidates |
|
3.27.68 |
Congress’s role in relation to the White House, workload in Congress, pending issues, Vietnam |
|
8.4.68 |
Work of the Republican platform committee, Republican candidates, nomination of Abe Fortas |
|
6.15.69 |
Nixon’s Vietnam policy, ABM Safeguard Missile System, ethics in government, charges about Dirksen and his law firm, tax legislation, Senator Ted Kennedy’s criticism of Vietnam policy |
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