The Congress: The Covenant

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That bill, the skeleton on which the legislation presently before the Senate was fleshed, was submitted June 19, 1963. It called for: 1) a ban on discrimination in hotels, motels, restaurants and stores, and authorized the Justice Department to bring suit to force compliance; 2) power for the Attorney General to file desegregation suits against public schools and colleges; 3) withholding of funds from federally assisted programs where discrimination was practiced; 4) establishment of a Community Relations Service to help cities and towns over the rough phases of desegregation; 5) strengthening the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity by giving it a statutory basis.

The House Record. But even that package was not nearly strong enough for civil rights advocates in the House of Representatives. Brooklyn's Democratic Representative Emanuel Celler and his tenman Judiciary subcommittee produced a bill that fairly bristled with teeth. Where Kennedy had asked for voting rights protection for federal elections only, the subcommittee bill included all state and local elections as well. In public accommodations, the Celler group measure added a ban on discrimination in any business that "operates under state or local authorization, permission or license."

Both President Kennedy and Brother Bobby believed that this bill was too drastic to have a chance of legislative approval. In testimony before the full Judiciary Committee, also chaired by Celler, the Attorney General protested: "What I want is a bill, not an issue." Celler was willing to compromise a little, but not much—and in his drive, he got some vital help from House Republican leaders. In conferences with Celler and President Kennedy, G.O.P. Floor Leader Charles Halleck and Ohio's William McCulloch, the ranking minority member of the Judiciary Committee, pledged their support for a slightly watered-down version of the Celler package. They asked only one thing in return: that the President publicly acknowledge the G.O.P. contribution. Kennedy agreed.

That was last fall, just before the assassination. Lyndon Johnson took up where Kennedy had left off, gave Republicans full credit for their stand, and urged the House to pass the bill as a memorial to Kennedy. Halleck remained steadfast in his support, and in February the House approved the measure by a vote of 290 to 130. For the bill were 152 Democrats and 138 Republicans; against it were 96 Democrats and only 34 Republicans.

Critical Eye. Now it was up to the Senate—and even among Senators favoring civil rights there were some grave reservations. Everett Dirksen, for one, had been following the course of the House civil rights measure with a close and critical eye. Says he: "I kept annotating it and making a list of prospective amendments." In early

February, just before the House passed the bill, Dirksen entered Washington's Sibley Memorial Hospital for treatment of a bleeding ulcer, took along his own dog-eared copy of the measure and began to rewrite it. He kept at it during a week's recuperation at Broad Run Farm, his redwood-and-field-stone ranch house in suburban Sterling, Va.