National Affairs: Dixie Victory

Square-jawed little James C. Davis of Georgia could hardly wait for the chaplain to finish the House's opening prayer. At the sound of the "Amen" he was on his feet demanding a quorum call. It was the opening gun in a new Dixiecrat filibuster designed to prevent the FEPC bill from coming to the floor under the special rules of "Calendar Wednesday." Through most of the session the swinging doors to the chamber banged back & forth with metronomic regularity as the members scurried to answer eight different roll calls. Each swallowed up about 40 minutes.

Finally, shiny-pated Speaker Sam Rayburn, who has a Texan's distaste for FEPC itself, brushed aside two more Southern appeals for adjournment and ordered the District of Columbia Committee to call up any measures it had on tap. If it had none, FEPC supporters would be next at bat—and that was precisely what the Dixie-controlled District Committee wanted to avoid. For the rest of the day its members kept the House in meandering debate on the question of incorporating the Girl Scouts, enlivening the discussion occasionally with a few bitter sideswipes at FEPC.

"We are told," drawled Mississippi's red-haired Bill Colmer, "that [FEPC] would prevent discrimination in private employment because of race, color, creed or national origin". . . but the proponents ... do not point out that it is the most flagrant proposal for the regimentation of business . . ."

The Dixiecrats saw FEPC as an unconstitutional, Communist-inspired plot to force unwanted employees on unwilling employers, an attempt to legislate what only persuasion and education could achieve. With the South in full control, there was not much chance for the FEPC counterargument: that FEPC did not deny an employer's right to hire & fire on merit, that it specified only that religion or race could not be a factor in employment, that local FEPC plans had already proved workable in states like New York.

Though both Republicans and Democrats were solidly committed to FEPC in their party platforms, neither seemed willing to bring the fight for the bill into the open. By a 6-6 vote next day the powerful Rules Committee—which gives the red or green light for full-dress House debate —again refused a go-ahead for FEPC. Four Democrats and two Republicans voted for it; four Southern Democrats and two Republicans voted against.