Same Old Merrygoround

The Fair Deal has run into a strong foul wind from Dixie. The noisome success of the filibuster means not only the postponement of civil rights legislation, but a severe loss in prestige for Truman Democrats. Perhaps more important, the fears that Senate Torics on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line would join forces to balk Administration action have been sadly justified.

Of the 46 Senators who voted down Vice-President Barkley's anti-filibuster ruling on Friday, exactly half were Republicans. Most of the GOP bloc was from the conservative Mid-West, led by Arthur Vandenberg. The issue, as Vandenberg put it, was not civil rights. The Republicans indeed clasped these rights to their bosoms many years ago. Vandenberg disagreed with Barkley on principle; he just felt that the Parliamentary rule in question did not apply to debate on a motion to introduce a measure. To pretend that it did, Vandenberg said, would be tainting the worthy end of civil rights by using unwholesome means.

It is difficult to disagree with anyone who claims that the means do not justify the end. But Senator Vandenberg has clouded the argument by his appeal for cricket. When the rule was adopted in 1917, its purpose was to allow two-thirds of the Senate to prevent a filibuster; the fact that later on the Dixiecrats joyfully discovered a loephole is unfortunate, yet Barkley's effort to plug that loophole seems in no way a breach of ethics.

It would appear that conservative Republicans have scrambled aboard a pretext in order to embarrass their opponents. Such hypocritical strawsnatching has set a queasy precedent for the future for the present Congress. If Tory Republicans earnestly determine to make the Eightieth Congress another "do-nothing" session, they can at least block important items of the Fair Deal, with the aid of fellow-conservatives from the South. And this would be in spite of the GOP party platform which agrees with the Fair Deal in such significant areas as civil rights. It looks as though the Old Guarders hate the Administration more than they adore their own professed program for the national welfare.