THE CONGRESS: Nine Days of Labor

As he viewed the Senate from his rear-row desk, Massachusetts' wire-haired John Fitzgerald Kennedy saw little cause for worry. Again Kennedy had written a moderate labor-reform bill, persuaded George Meany's A.F.L.-C.I.O. to accept it. This time he had more Democratic liberals to back him than ever before; moreover, in the first days of debate his bipartisan bloc of Northerners and Westerners had easily defeated attempts to knock out of the bill a spoonful of sweeteners for labor. This time, as in last year's sessions, Kennedy's personal ambitions rode with the bill; adroit floor management and quick passage could do much to build his reputation as a statesman and help him on the way to the Democratic presidential nomination. Jack Kennedy had every reason to be satisfied with his chances. And then at midweek came a jolt.

Up rose Arkansas' John Little McClellan, dour, flint-eyed chairman of the Senate special committee investigating labor-management abuses, who had gaveled 26 months of hearings, heard 1,200 witnesses, watched hundreds of Fifth Amendment labor hoodlums slide in and out of his witness chair. Rasped Democrat McClellan with the fervor of an Ozarks revivalist: "The citizens of this country generally have been shocked and nauseated by the disclosures of impositions and abuses which have been perpetrated upon the working people of many of our states by the thugs who have muscled into positions of power in labor ... I say we cannot leave unlimited and unrestricted power in the hands of the [labor] leaders, however much a great majority of them may use it wisely, because there are those in the labor movement who will not use power wisely." Kennedy's bill, said he, was too weak. Thereupon McClellan introduced an amendment calling for a seven-point labor "bill of rights"—freedom of speech and equal voting rights, protection against unjust discipline—with authority for the Secretary of Labor to enforce the rights by federal injunction.

Loss of Face. McClellan's powerful, two-hour speech changed the Senate's temper. Arizona's Barry Goldwater, the bill's chief Republican opponent, sensed that he had a fighting chance, began rounding up votes to back John McClellan's amendment. Kennedy sprang from his chair, held 40 floor conferences in the space of an hour, discovered that he was in real trouble. Two liberal Democratic stalwarts—confident that there would be no difficulty—were absent: Illinois' Paul Douglas (Canada-bound for discussions on U.S. use of Lake Michigan waters), Minnesota's Hubert Humphrey (campaigning on the West Coast). Kennedy flushed A.F.L.-C.I.O. Lobbyist Andrew Biemiller from the Senate reception room, sent him scurrying to round up any votes he could produce.

It was too late. John McClellan's amendment carried, 47 (15 Democrats, 32 Republicans) to 46; a vote on tabling a motion to reconsider the amendment wound up in a tie: 45 (13 Democrats, 32 Republicans) to 45. Crisply, Vice President Nixon announced the tie, broke it in McClellan's favor.