Honorable Discharge

The true Republican attitude towards Civil Rights will be revealed in the coming weeks as civil rights proposals attempt to struggle out of hearings before the House Rules Committee. One hundred and seventy-six Democrats have signed a discharge petition to bring a civil rights bill to the floor. As of Monday, only thirty Republicans had signed. A Civil Rights Commission plan to assign Federal Registrars to voting districts which practice discrimination in registering Negroes has been called constitutional by Professor Freund of the Law School and Texas Law School Professor Charles Alan Wright, thus countering the doubts President Eisenhower recently expressed as to its legality. But because of traditional Southern Democrat opposition, this plan will receive debate only as an amendment to the House Bill.

Neither the House Bill nor the Civil Rights Commission's plan can see action without the signatures of more House Republicans on the discharge petition. President Eisenhower, vice-President Nixon, and House Minority Leader Charles Halleck must decide whether or not they will exert leadership to bring about floor debate of these measures. Failure to do so will suggest that Northern Republicans and Southern Democrats have indeed made a deal, as many liberals have charged.

Discriminatory practices in voting diminish our international prestige and mock our national ideals. If President Eisenhower refuses to marshall signatures from Republicans to the House discharge petition, his tactic in behalf of the civil-liberties of school children in Little Rock will seem very hypocritical indeed.