The Congress: The Covenant

(6 of 7)

In many ways, despite other Senators' heavy involvements, it is Dirksen's bill, bearing his handiwork more than anyone else's. Dirksen's 70-odd amendments are less notable for their number than for their thrust. In essence, he has changed the bill so as to allow the states more leeway in controlling their own civil rights conflicts, and to bar possibly overzealous federal officials—such as an Attorney General—from charging in and initiating civil rights suits without first establishing a "pattern" of discrimination. On both sides of the Senate aisle, almost everyone agrees that Dirksen's proposed amendments vastly improved the House-passed bill.

Just what lay behind Dirksen's endless efforts to shape a workable civil rights bill? Although he voted for lesser civil rights measures in 1957 and again in 1960, there is nothing in his background to suggest that he is any sort of civil rights crusader.

The Essence. To Ev Dirksen, the answer to that question is simple enough. "I come of immigrant German stock," he says. "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."

Last year Chicago Negroes, protesting that Dirksen had not committed himself on the civil rights bill, threw up a picket line around a hotel where Ev was scheduled to speak. Throughout his long political career—16 years in the House, 14 in the Senate—he has received little support from Negroes. He feels a certain bitterness about all this, but not enough to affect his advocacy of the civil rights bill. Explaining his support of that measure, Dirksen says: "I have looked at all the people who came into this office to see me—lawyers, contractors, businessmen, ministers, rabbis, priests. It was a constant walkin. And I thought: something must be done. Civil rights can't and won't be put off. Do we duck it or come to grips with it? Suppose we don't do something? What will be around the corner in the way of national tranquillity?"

Even so, Dirksen was far from ready to accept what he thought was a bad bill—and the shouts of professional civil rights men bothered him hardly at all. "If the day ever comes," he said, "when, under pressure or as a result of picketing or other devices, I shall be pushed from the rock where I must stand to render an independent judgment, my justification in public life will have come to an end."