Word: dirksenism
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...many cartoonists and editorial writers, the man chiefly responsible was Senate Minority Leader Everett M. Dirksen, who at one point observed: "Someone has to kill Cock Robin, and it might as well be me." Last week, however, Dirksen argued that the Administration had signally failed to ride to Robin's rescue. "Where was Hubert? Where was the President?" he rumbled. Pointing to the Democrats' 67-33 margin in the Senate, he added: "Had the Democrats in the Senate truly wished it, the bill would have passed...
...Dirksen knew perfectly well, of course, that a solid score of those Democrats are Southern segregationists, hence that no civil rights bill stands a chance without G.O.P. support. All the same, Majority Leader Mansfield, for one, refused to make Dirksen the scapegoat. He reasoned that support for the bill had been eroded by the "rioting, marches, shootings and inflammatory statements which have characterized this simmering summer." He indicted, in particular, the evangelists of black power, "those who, in the name of racial equality or perhaps more accurately in the name of a new racial superiority, have not advocated further civil...
...Everett Dirksen was an eight-term Congressman back in 1948 when his doctors told him that he was losing his eyesight. Though a sure winner, he declined to run for a ninth term and went home to Pekin, Ill., to pray. Dirksen, who today is almost as sound of vision as he is of voice, is genuinely convinced that what saved him from blindness was prayer-and he is determined to pass on its 20/20 benefits to the rest...
Last week, fresh from his successful battle to kill the 1966 Civil Rights Act, Dirksen rose in the Senate to introduce his so-called "Amen Amendment"-a measure designed to strike at two Supreme Court decisions by modifying the First Amendment so as to permit voluntary prayer in public schools. Few religious leaders favored the amend ment, but that hardly daunted the minority leader. Who did support his cause? "Not the professionals in the church hierarchy," declared Dirksen. "Not the cocktail-party, luncheon-circuit bunch. I'm talking about the church members-the rank and file-and they...
...best advice for Dirksen to heed now is: quit wasting your time. With controversial and crucial problems needing Congressional action, this is no time for a man of Dirksen's importance to attempt to combat religious decay, real or imagined, with an amendment of dubious value. Dirksen can perform a positive role in the Senate, but only if he confines his attention to the questions that need and deserve a legislative solution...