History Making

"THIS is the day we make some history in this country," Senator Everett Dirksen (R-I11.) said last Friday. That was the day the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders released its 1400 page report, but Dirksen was referring to the Senate's attempt to pass a three year old civil rights bill on open housing.

The cloture vote was three short of the number needed to stop debate. The measure, billed as a compromise between Dirksen and liberals, would have made discrimination illegal in two-thirds of the nation's housing action rather than 97 per cent as the original bill provided. Still Dirksen failed to deliver; he could produce only three new votes for cloture including himself and his son-in-law.

He failed despite a low piece of political double-dealing earlier in the day that would further catch the liberals off guard. Dirksen's son-in-law, Howard W. Baker (R-Tenn.), slipped in an amendment which would lop off 29 million more units from the anti-discrimination law. Dirksen termed the amendment "technical changes," and later, trying to explain himself to the liberals, he said that "some provisions crept into the bill which I was not aware of."

Today the Senate will once again consider whether or not to close debate on what is left of the open housing law. Hopefully last Friday's performance was not a portent of the kind of history being made.