Ev's Extendalong

"The lines are intact," intoned Sen ate Minor ity Leader Everett Dirksen, "the boys are prepared. The captains are on duty at the appointed hour in the ap pointed place. The speakers are ready."

No one was more battle-ready than Generalissimo Dirksen, 69. After months of threatening what he calls "extended debate" to block repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act's celebrated section 14(b), Ev's hour had come. Dirksen, who on most days is about as soigne as Margaret Rutherford, even subjugated his mutinous curls, donned a neatly pressed blue suit, and had a shoeshine in honor of the occasion. An occasion it certainly was, presaging as it did one of the few defeats dealt Lyndon Johnson by the prodigiously productive 89th Congress.

The Administration, determined to honor a campaign debt to organized labor, was unconditionally committed to repeal of the Taft-Hartley "right to work" clause, anathema to labor because it allows individual states to outlaw the union shop. Nevertheless, Dirksen's filibuster, powered by a hard-core coalition of some 38 Republicans and southern Democrats, seemed insurmountable, for the Administration could not possibly muster the two-thirds majority (67 votes) to invoke cloture. So, unable to stop the show and concerned that it might prove too arduous for elderly Senators, Majority Leader Mike Mansfield ruled out the seriocomic, all-day-all-night marathons of filibusters past. "The opposition to repeal is such, and the rules of the Senate are such, that a final disposition of 14(b) can be delayed for weeks or months," declared Mansfield. "That is the reality. Ten-hour sessions, twelve-hour sessions, 24-hour sessions will not change the reality."

Featherbedding. Then, with only five Senators on the floor, a radiant Ev Dirksen led off the extendalong with a three-hour-20-minute oration. It was a mere trumpet flourish compared to some buncombe spectaculars of the past.* Under Mansfield's gentlemanly ground rules, of course, this was more like featherbedding than filibustering. Dirksen read newspaper editorials, won permission to have sacks of anti-repeal mail brought into the chamber, told Dirksenesque jokes to his colleagues. "I am sure the Senator has heard about the schoolteacher who said, 'Johnny, how do you spell straight?' Johnny replied, 'S-t-r-a-i-g-h-t.' The teacher said, 'What does that mean?' ; Johnny answered, 'Without ginger ale.' "

There was even some overdue debate on the pros and cons of 14(b). Union membership as a condition of employment, argued Dirksen, limits a man's right to earn a living. Said he: "After all the noise and detonations in this chamber about the right to vote, that right cannot compare with the right to work, because inherent in it is the right of survival." Nonsense, replied Tennessee Democrat Ross Bass: "The American worker is never led into a box or into a factory where he has to work. He has the free right of working there or of seeking employment elsewhere. He does not have to work in a given plant. He does not have to pay homage to a labor union."

Nary a Growl. Finally, in the talkathon's fifth day, Mansfield called for a test vote on whether the Senate should continue to debate the bill, his intent being to demonstrate the strength on each side. Wily old Ev was having none of that. He ordered his cohorts to vote with Mansfield's men to continue debate, so the Senate wound up in unanimous (94-0) but meaningless agreement. Whereupon Mansfield bravely announced that he would try for a cloture vote early this week.

Significantly enough, through it ail-indeed, for weeks--there had been nary a growl over 14(b) from the watchdog in the White House. But, unlike the puzzlement posed by the non-barking hound in Sherlock Holmes's celebrated Silver Blaze case, there was not much mystery in the silence. Lyndon Johnson knew perfectly well that there was little he could do to save the repeal bill --let alone upstage Ev.

* The alltime record was set by South Carolina's Strom Thurmond, who in 1957 spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes against a civil rights bill. The second-longest Senate oration was made in 1953 by Oregon's Wayne Morse, who talked for 22 hours and 26 minutes against a bill acknowledging state ownership of offshore oil lands.

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