The Congress: The Covenant

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Thus Dirksen labored, and chipped, and carved, and chiseled toward what he considered to be a fair, realistic measure. For 87 days Democratic segregationists filibustered. But finally the hour for the cloture vote approached. On the morning of the big day, Dirksen arose at 5 a.m., half an hour earlier than usual, at Broad Run Farm. He joined his wife Louella in the kitchen for a breakfast of cereal and toast; then the pair went outside to Dirksen's beloved rose garden, where he clipped some long-stemmed beauties to take to his office. Shortly after 8 o'clock, Dirksen's chauffeur-driven Cadillac, a perquisite of his position as minority leader, came for him. Dirksen kissed Louella goodbye and, carrying his bulging briefcase and the fresh-cut pink roses, stepped into the car for the 32-mile ride to Capitol Hill. As he arrived in the Senate chamber, Last-Ditch Filibuster Robert Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat, was just sitting down after a 14-hour all-night speech.

Still, the Demonstrations. Even as the historic cloture vote was achieved, Negro demonstrations kept cropping out across the U.S. In St. Augustine, Fla., there were riots, and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was thrown into jail for trying to integrate a white restaurant. In Tuscaloosa, Ala., a pitched battle broke out between cops and 500 Negro demonstrators. In Canton, Miss., bombs were hurled at a Negro home and church.

All this went to prove a vital point. Many whites, resentful of the Negro revolution, think of the civil rights bill as an incursion into their own rights. It isn't. At the same time, many Negroes believe that the bill will end all their troubles, that upon its signing they will enter a bright new era that is free from prejudice. They are wrong too. Civil rights conflicts will continue this summer and next summer and for summers stretching far into the future.

What the civil rights bill will do is provide a broader legal basis for the equality of opportunity. That is all it is meant to do, and certainly that is plenty. Ev Dirksen knows it well. With a good deal of Democratic cooperation, he practically wrote the thing.