Civil Rights: Liberty in Peril

By a lopsided vote of 70 to 19, the U.S. Senate extended for two years the life and investigatory power of the Civil Rights Commission. Southern Senators predictably opposed the measure—and by their lights, they had good reason. For last week, after its continued existence was assured, the six-member commission released a massive report on its two-year, nationwide investigation into voting discrimination. The major finding: in some 100 counties in eight Southern states—North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee and Florida—there was "reason to believe that Negro citizens are...