EXPLOSION IN THE SENATE

(Excerpted from the Congressional Record of last week )

It was Dec. 7, anniversary of shame, and the Senate Chaplain, Rev. Frederick Brown Harris, D.D., offered a special prayer for tolerance:

'Fashion in us a mind forgetful of past ill will, a heart of forgiving love. . . ."

(Up rose Virginia's Harry Byrd, who has rigorously avoided personalities in his ten years in the Senate. Senator Byrd felt moved to answer a statement made by Pennsylvania's Senator Joe Guffey. He notably ignored Senatorial courtesy, referring to the Pennsylvania Senator only as "Guffey.")

MR. BYRD: "He [Guffey] charged that: a) northern Republicans, under the leadership of Joe Pew, and southern Democrats, under the leadership of Harry Byrd had conspired to deprive the armed services of America of the right to vote; and b) that this alleged conspiracy was the 'most unpatriotic and unholy alliance that has occurred in the United States Senate since the League of Nations for peace of the world was defeated in 1919.'

"This statement was a gratuitous insult to 24 Democratic Senators and 18 Republican Senators, who voted their convictions in support of the soldiers' voting bill. I have reliable information that this misleading statement will be sent through various Government agencies to the members of the armed services. . . . This will be done I am told under the guise of information to the soldiers, but the official dissemination of this misleading charge against United States Senators is a contemptible and indefensible act. The soldier who receives such a statement will believe that the facts alleged are true and, unless he receives at the same time a contradiction, he will be led to believe that something evil has been done in the United States Senate; that some sinister political chicanery has been accomplished for the purpose of depriving him of his right to vote; and that this has been done ... by trickery. . . .

"This charge made against the 42 members of the Senate, Guffey did not have the courage and fairness to make on the Senate floor in the presence of those he maligned and misrepresented.

"Never before, Mr. President, have I risen on the floor of the Senate to answer an attack made upon me, but never in my ten years of service in the Senate has the provocation been so great. . . . There is not one iota of truth in a single part of the statement made by Guffey. ... I do not even know Joe Pew, and never had any communication with him. . .

"The charge that northern Republicans, under Pew, and southern Democrats under me, adopted the Eastland-McKellar-McClellan voting bill is, on the record itself completely inaccurate. ... Of the 42 votes cast in favor of this legislation, 17 were cast by southern Democrats and six by northern Republicans, making a total of 23 or less than one-third of those Senators voting. The balance of 19 votes came from four northern Democrats, three western Democrats, and twelve western Republicans.

"In all my experience in the affairs of the United States Senate I have never known a more deliberately offensive or a more untruthful charge to be made against a group of fellow Senators than this charge made by Guffey.

"I demand, Mr. President, that the Senator from Pennsylvania, Joseph F. Guffey either prove the charge he has made, or rescind his statement. . . .

"I speak as one who has three sons--all I have--in the armed services; one a private one a sergeant, and one a lieutenant. . . ."

(Up rose North Carolina's Josiah William Bailey to join the attack.)

MR. BAILEY: "Mr. President, I rise to tender my thanks, my hearty and unreserved commendation, to the junior Senator from Virginia.

"Consider the accuser and consider the accused--a satyr to Hyperion.

"Here is the Senator from Virginia, a man still in the prime of life, who has been Governor of his State, a leader of his party, an ornament to a great civilization there in Virginia 30 years and more. No man ever laid a charge against him. No man ever will. Here in the Senate he has borne himself in the high-minded character of a Roman Senator. . . We know him, we love him, and we honor him.

"I am one of the accused; but I am not greatly concerned. According to the accuser I am guilty of having entered into an unholy alliance led by the Senator from Virginia and a Mr. Pew, of Pennsylvania. Well, that seems pretty bad. That is a terrible thing. But I plead before the Senate that at any rate I am not guilty of a holy alliance with the junior Senator from Pennsylvania.

". . .Mr. President, what is wrong with being a southern Senator? Why should anyone lay it to your account, Senator, or mine, or yours, or yours, or yours, or yours or yours, or yours, or yours, or yours, or yours, or yours--that we are southern Senators? Let it be said for us that we do not raise sectional issues in the Senate. Let it be said that when the hour comes we undertake to maintain the Constitution of the United States, we do not fail; and let it be said that we are not ashamed, we are proud to be called southern Senators. . . .

"Down yonder across the Potomac, and the James, and all the way to the Gulf and beyond the Mississippi, we kept the fires burning upon the altars of our fathers and of our country, and when there was nobody else to vote in the electoral college for the Democratic candidate, southern Democrats were sending 144 votes to the electoral college; and for that we are scornfully referred to as southern Democrats.

"Now, there can be an end to that sort of thing, Mr. President. . . . Here on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor I would not raise any party issue, I would not talk about party matters. But when a man's honor is attacked, whether it be on the holiest of days, and whatever his contempt may be for him who touches it, he must answer. . . .

"There is a remedy, Mr. President. We are southern Democrats. We are southern Senators, and we have no apologies, and no shame, and no fear. They might possibly drive us out, in which event there would never again be a man elected President of the United States on the Democratic ticket. . . .

"The South has borne long and has been patient. Southern Democrats know where the patronage goes in the day of victory, and they know who leads the way to the trough where the pigs feed and the swill is poured out. . . .

"We can have the contrast drawn between the holiness of a northern Democrat from Pennsylvania, and the unholiness of southern Democrats from Virginia, and North Carolina, and Georgia, and South Carolina, and Texas, and Arkansas, and Louisiana, and Florida, and Mississippi."

MR. BANKHEAD. "Do not forget Alabama."

MR. BAILEY. "And Alabama."

(Mr. McKellar rose.)

MR. BAILEY. "And Tennessee; yes. . ..

"Mr. President, they can drive us out; yes, they can drive us out. There can be an end of insults, there can be an end of toleration, there can be an end of patience. We can form a southern Democratic party and vote as we please in the electoral college, and we will hold the balance of power in this country. . . .

"By the eternal gods, there are men in the South, and women, too, who will not permit men in control of our party to betray or to insult us in the house of our fathers. We will assert ourselves . . . and we will vindicate ourselves; and if we cannot have a party in which we are respected, if we must be in a party in which we are scorned as southern Democrats, we will find a party which honors us, not because we are southerners, and not because of politics, but because we love our country and believe in the Constitution from which it draws its life day by day, as you, sir, draw your breath from the atmosphere round about you. . . .

"I ask Senators on both sides of the aisle, Whence comes the offense? How long shall we endure, how long shall we be patient, how long shall we forbear to assert our self-respect, to demand our rights as men and Americans, and to find our place in the sun of this our blessed land? . . ."

(After this outburst, no more until Thursday, when up rose the Senate's ancient Ellison D. Smith of South Carolina. Baggy-faced, walrussy Cotton Ed, 79, went farthest South yet in criticism of Franklin Roosevelt, bitter sneers that were heard with laughter, nods, and in warm silence.)

MR. SMITH. "Mr. President, the comments we are hearing are not very pleasant for those of us who for seventy-odd years have kept the real Democratic fires burning and made possible the election of the gang that is now disgracing it. ...

"Take a measure such as the anti-lynching bill. How many Senators who have lived in the midst of an ungovernable, lustful crowd, and had their womenfolk outraged, would sit down and say, 'Let the law take its course'? Let the law take its course? No. . . . There is no lynching in my section of the country. We would lynch some white people if they would go down there [laughter]--and I think I would join in the lynching--but so far as the Negro is concerned, there are no lynchings. . . .

"The idea of saying that Harry Byrd led a conspiracy. Conspiracy against what? It was a conspiracy on behalf of the Constitution of the United States, if it was a conspiracy at all. If he led a conspiracy, I was one of the conspirators. Of course they would say, ' "Cotton Ed" Smith, that dirty dog, yes. . . .' If the people of the South organize and stand by their self-respect, if they organize and say 'We are going to vote for the man of our choice,' there will never be another Democratic President--I mean of a certain variety. . . .

"Mr. President, I want to nominate Harry Byrd for President right now, and call on the Southern States to organize a Democratic Party, and let us try to get one decent President. I have been here with five Presidents and a piece--and a sixth; five Presidents and the thing we have got. Yes; I have. I have been here with six Presidents, and I enjoyed being a Senator until this miserable thing came along--I mean this miserable party. . . .

"I wish to tell the Senate something which happened long ago. My brother Coke was talking to Sam Jones, a great Georgia evangelist, who was sitting in his study. I was a poor boy, and I happened to drop in there. My brother said to Sam Jones, 'Sam, did you hear anything about my being made bishop at the next general conference?'

"Sam looked at him, and said, 'No. Where did you ever hear of a Smith being made a bishop?' He looked in the fire for a while, and then said, 'I do not know, Coke; you might have a chance. That office has got powerful low.' [laughter]

"So, Mr. President, I say that my friend Harry Byrd has a chance, for that office has got powerful low [laughter]. . . ."

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