HILL OF ALABAMA

...At the beginning of the current Congress the "wise men" around Washington held out no hope for Hill's cause...

...instead he is free to promote his own pet programs...

...Hill has opposed the Dixiecrats and the Taft-Hartley Act...

...During the 1952 campaign Dwight Eisenhower had promised title to the off-shore oil to the coastal states...

...Hill and Sparkman have found common ground in bucking the hostile and often predominantly conservative political forces all around them...

...His men won 44 of the 72 committee seats, and Hill recaptured his own Senate seat in the primary by a larger total than ever before...

...He had long believed that the public should retain title to off-shore oil, but he began to care most deeply when he realized, at Harold Ickes' suggestion, that oil revenues could be used for one of the many causes dear to him —American schooling...

...2, 1948...

...In the thirty years that he has represented his state in Congress—a record exceeded by only two Senators and four Congressmen—he has sponsored and fought energetically for more progressive legislation than any man now serving in the Senate...

...When the "buffoons and demagogues" who were with us in 1944 and whose counterparts are with us today cause us to despair, it is comforting to remember that we have such an able and devoted man in high office...

...Hill's personality, at far range, lacks that magic extra that evokes strong national appeal...

...And when did Lister Hill become not only a liberal but a fighter...

...His answer is simple, "It was with Franklin D. Roosevelt that I got tr vision...

...There is a spirit of tolerance and cooperation among Democrats of North and South unknown since the earliest Roosevelt days...

...Lister Hill, like many Southern politicians, comes from a "fine old family" with ancestors who fought in the Confederate Armies and who acquired property, security, and respectability...

...To list the early legislation in which...

...On the University of Alabama campus, he led the fight for student government and was elected its first president...

...you think he's in trouble...

...His rather fulsome speech and exuberant manner—full of such formalisms of the Southern gentleman as calling women "little lady"—sometimes gives strangers the impression that Hill is overdoing it...

...The other explanation of a Southerner's role in the oil controversy is that being a liberal is nothing new to Lister Hill...

...Ill Lister Hill constantly utilizes his enormous energy, and seems to enjoy the rough and tumble of debate...

...The second bill, a complete reversal that would grant full federal rights to the entire outer Continental Shelf, went through the Senate easily, and despite a competing education amendment introduced by Republicans, the Hill Amendment, for which hope had been abandoned by all but Hill, was adopted, by a vote of 45 to 37...

...Clinton Anderson of New Mexico, who understood the legal and technical aspects of public lands, and was dedicated to the fight for conservation and protection of public reserves...

...The Senator," said Douglas, "took hold of the issue some years ago when no one thought it had a chance of success...

...For twenty years, sometimes all alone, he fought for public power...

...Embarrassed supporters of the bill stayed away from the Senate floor...

...It has been because of his devotion and his intelligent direction that it has been brought so close to success . . . The whole country is indebted to him...

...He enlisted school organizations, labor unions, and "do-good" groups all over the country to publicize the issue...

...This alternative prevented a mass walkout with the Dixiecrats and kept the Democratic party whole...

...He spurred other Senators to work with him and joined forces with able men like Sen...

...In election years every big speciaj interest in the state seems out to get him...

...Senator...

...Moreover a large, responsible, and determined group has served notice of fighting resistance when further public properties come up for disposal...

...Hill participated as a member of the House is to recite the accomplishments of the New Deal...

...At the Convention in June, when the Dixiecrats walked out, Hill became chairman of the residue Alabama delegation...

...The Dixiecrats of Alabama won only one more round...

...As first on the roll-call, Hill was able to yield to Georgia...

...Working alongside the late Sen...

...Active in the defense field, he spurred military reforms and sponsored the act unifying the armed services...

...II By the time the issue came to the floor, under Hill's prodding, more than twenty Senators were ready to get on their feet, many of them to make speeches as fervent as any in their careers...

...In the passing years, Hill's influence and his stature in the Senate have grown greatly, but he remains today far too little known to a nation which continues to give its headlines to buffoons and demagogues...

...His mark appears on a prodigious variety of welfare legislation...

...we produced the raw materials for the factories up North, and they protected their manufactures by tariffs, making it harder and harder for us to sell cotton and the things we grew abroad...

...Joseph Lister, and then came home to practice all over the Alabama countryside...

...Were he an outcast, a rebel in a field in which the South is so emotionally involved, his strength and stature would be far less imposing and effective in the areas in which his contribution has been so striking...

...Luther Hill's many grateful patients formed the hard voting center that elected Lister to Congress at the age of 28...

...In the nation, in the South, and in his State, Hill has become an invaluable servant to progress...

...As the saying goes, "What profiteth a Senator to gain the whole nation if he loseth his home state...

...The most dramatic proof of Hill's effectiveness is the story of the fight to save the nation's off-shore oil resources...

...As one of the H's in the B2H2 Bill, he co-authored the first Senate endorsement for a United Nations Organization...

...Republican spokesmen for the Departments of State and Interior and the Attorney General were forced to contradict part of the position advanced by President Eisenhower...

...Judged by any standard except that of national publicity, Lister Hill is a huge success as U.S...

...He practiced law briefly, and then went to Washington, D. C. In speaking of the origins of his liberal drives, Hill recalls, "When I came to Congress thirty years ago, I hailed from the most conservative background you could imagine, but I soon came to be more and more conscious of the economic chains that bound the South...

...Her last assignment was as Time's correspondent on Washington's Capitol Hill, where she acquired a first-hand knowledge of the personalities and policies in Congress...

...A native of New York City, she attended Vassar and then took a master's degree in modern history at Columbia...

...Hill is a mysterious force in Alabama," says one political observer from the state...

...They were determined to break through the paper curtain of silence drawn by a bored and unsympathetic press...

...George W. Norris of Nebraska, Hill was the author of the House bill creating TVA and of subsequent amendments strengthening TVA...

...He has made himself a household word by stocking the state with hospitals, schools, and projects...

...When Hill fights for unpopular causes today, he often draws on his memories of George Norris for encouragement...

...It is warming for those who grow to know Hill that these effusions and the man behind them are indeed sincere...

...We were treated like provinces...

...Lister Hill hastened home from Washington and by his personal appeal scurried up some candidates from an outraged Alabama to run with him as "stay in" delegates...

...Every other Monday night during the 83rd Congress, in what they have called "The Lister Hill Club," the "progressives" have dined together and pooled views, research, and legislative plans on many issues—public lands among them...

...But while Russell's mien tends to be austere, Hill's features, like his spirit, are soft and kindly...

...There are those who credit the admixture of Jewish blood, from a maternal grandparent, for Hill's unusual insight and concern for the underdog...

...in fact, he considers a firm stand on fair freight and pricing issues the test of a true liberal...

...By 1950, when Hill was up again for the Senate, he campaigned all over the state, speaking not for himself but for anti-Dixiecrat representation on the State Democratic Committee...

...Hill claims some of his preaching prowess and rebel enthusiasm from Methodist preacher stock...

...How did it happen that the fight over an issue so dear to "liberals" as public trusteeship of lands was in the hands of a Southerner...

...As for the $64 question—how does Hill stand on civil rights?—the answer is that Hill's position is exactly that of every Dixie politician who manages to get elected by large majorities, year in and year out...

...First, there have been changes in the Democratic Party and the "pure" liberals of the original New Deal, now low in numbers, are widening their horizons and grouping with legislators who may not be 99 per cent "pure," but who usually support progressive measures...

...This gentle but insistent method of operation is of necessity unsensational and has in itself kept Hill from being well known to the country...

...Like an extravert salesman, he spends considerable time buttering up and proselytizing his colleagues, habitually pushing some health program, or hospital appropriation, or equitable freight rate...

...first, not to vote for Harry Truman and, second, to walk out if a civil rights plank were put into the program...

...Hill has had considerable influence over the Alabama Congressional delegation and was instrumental in the promotion of John Sparkman from the House to the Senate...

...Sparkman, the son of tenant farmers, has many of the same attributes as Hill: quiet friendliness and humanity, backed by intelligence and conviction...

...In his new and closer alliance with Northern liberals he brings what they most need, a wealth of shrewdness, persuasiveness, and tempered political experience...

...The majority leader had to blush for promises to the President that the whole thing would be over in a week...

...Past sessions of Congress had already legislated against this national interest provision, and only Harry Truman's vetoes had kept'the issues alive...

...He could even retain his Senate seat and take things easy...

...he has fought interstate commerce practice discriminatory to depressed economic areas...

...Oil for the lamps of learning" became the slogan—but nobody in Congress paid much attention...

...He is a down-the-line Southerner, against all Federal enforcement of race rights—anti-lynching, anti-poll tax, FEPC legislation...

...The debate raged for five long weeks...

...So wrote David L. Cohn in the Atlantic Monthly nine years ago in "an effort to retrieve from anonymity" Sen...

...While four states and a few oil interests had a tremendous stake in winning the titles, the public at large had no real awareness of the issue nor interest in preventing the grab...

...The most impressive display of Hill's personal strength at home came in the fight against the Dixie-crats...

...Young Lister had made a record of his own before that...

...He co-authored the Hill-Burton Act, the vitally important Hospital and Health Center Construction Act...

...IV What makes a man go, and go as hard as Hill goes today...

...Some of Hill's accomplishments for Alabama are not so "mysterious...

...He could honorably return to Montgomery, Alabama, which he loves, and practice law for big money...

...Although the Hill amendment could not get over the hump of an unprepared House (the House never voted on it but the conferees flatly rejected it) the outer Continental Shelf bill is now law...

...Hill started his "daring and cautious" work on his amendment several years ago...

...V Hill's horizon is wide, but he has never lost touch with his roots at home...

...In accepting a posthumous medal for his father last year, son Lister remarked, "It was 50 years ago that my father by the light of a kerosene lamp in a Negro cabin in Alabama successfully sutured the heart of a 13-year old Negro boy, and was generally accredited as being the first American surgeon to successfully perform the operation...

...Hugo Black, moved to the Supreme Court...

...FRANCES LOW served on the staff of Time and Life for ten years, in Chicago, New York, Washington, London, and Paris...

...This started the ball rolling for Dick Russell, providing an immediate focal point for Southerners who wanted to stay within the party...

...Lister Hill of Alabama...

...He pioneered legislation for schools, farm programs, rural electrification, social security, housing, and veterans...

...He helped bring an aluminum company to Alabama, and this now thriving town bears the name of "Listerhill...

...Sometimes his parliamentary juggling borders on the Machiavellian—for the loftiest causes...

...There was another hero who inspired Lister Hill...

...Fifty-six Senators voted in its favor, but the wedge cut deep...

...Hill smacks of another, more formal era...

...His background provides no quick and easy explanation...

...The anti-Truman forces in Alabama gathered on the spot and wrote out a pledge for delegates to the Democratic convention of the coming summer...

...Despite mounting conservatism all around him, his head is as full as ever of "hopeless" progressive plans...

...Hill's enthusiasm for Oil for Education continues undaunted...

...He is that rare specimen among politicians today, a first-rate legislator...

...Under these adverse circumstances, Lister Hill dug in to fight...

...Recently Hill has even fixed things so that he is neither a committee chairman nor a party leader...

...W^hen the showdown came, 35 Senators voted against a give-away bill that fell far short of giving the Coastal States what they wanted...

...The day the Hill Amendment was adopted in the Senate, Paul Douglas of Illinois rose to praise the Alabaman's "magnificent work...

...The Senate, moreover, passed the "Hill Amendment" earmarking ;revenues from outer-shelf royalties for education...

...Successful in the primary election of electors, they kept Truman's name off the ballot on Election Day 1948...

...I came to see too, the full meaning of all that George Norris had done...

...Hill's intelligence and even his high-domed, disciplined features resemble those of his good friend, Mr...

...He talked and he talked, and he explained and he explained, and finally we had the TVA...

...Northern Senators—if not other Northerners — understand that the key to Hill's strength is that he remains a Southerner, respected and trusted by Southerners...

...And then the primary votes come in, from all over the state, like a flood tide for him...

...Hill had received the Senatorial nod when his good friend, Sen...

...Although the much publicized original "Tidelands" bill gave the area from the low-water mark out to between three and ten miles to a few coastal states, the rest of the off-shore territory, with 80% to 90% of the mineral wealth, now goes to the United States under the "outer Continental shelf" bills passed by Congress...

...Ready to declare himself for one minority group, he struck out for equal participation by women — perhaps a precursor to a bill of his that many years later established the Wacs...

...Mail from aroused citizens protesting the giveaway flooded Capitol Hill...

...Despite this firmly "Southern" stance, it is only fair to Hill to note that his deep interest in improving the lot of all Americans at the bottom of the economic ladder has inevitably helped the Negro population inside Alabama and elsewhere...

...That was the day that President Truman bluntly proclaimed his civil rights program...

...Moreover, he has never publicly demanded anybody's resignation, he has never led an investigation, and he shuns radio and TV forums...

...Certainly his extended sallies against big business involve considerable risk for his tenure in office...

...With law degrees from both Alabama and Yale, Hill began his service to education early in the capacity of chairman of the Montgomery School Board...

...I wish to commend the Senator for the mixture of daring and caution which has always characterized his political life...

...now he was able to help in turn another self-made Alabaman...

...Working fast and hard, Hill managed to get 12 of the 26 delegates to the Convention— and his own name led all the others by 30,000 votes...

...There are two answers...

...The story began Feb...

...Before the debate was over, signs of partial victories could be detected on Capitol Hill...

...Although the South, with its oil-laden Gulf States, was the most deeply involved of any section in favor of the bill, a faithful nucleus of Southern liberals —Sparkman, Kefauver, Gore, and Fulbright—stuck with Hill...

...And just as Minority Leader Lyndon Johnson has helped promote unity in the party as a whole, so Lister Hill has gathered the more liberal half of the party to work together...

...Whence the drive...

...The Senate nearly voted to reject the bill—by a hairbreadth vote of 43 to 45—because it lacked the Hill amendment...

...I came to see the problems, but I could see no opportunity for solution...

...The group took pride that the speeches, though deliberately long, were pertinent and high-level...

...The successful outcome of the issue is one of the buried stories of 1953, and even many ardent supporters of public trusteeship of the off-shore lands do not yet realize the extent to which they have won...

...The streets of Montgomery," relates one indignant Alabaman, "boiled over...

...Southern Senator, Dick Russell of Georgia...

...Hill introduced his amendment with the argument that it was in the spirit and tradition of land grants to education...

...The state's electoral votes, like those of Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina, went to Dixiecrat candidate Storm Thurmond...

...Hill says "the vision" as if to describe his eyes opening to the sweeping possibilities of the fight for betterment of national conditions, and in that fight, the chances for better breaks for the problem-ridden South...

...he carries on in many ways the tempered but profoundly democratic qualities of the men who were able to found a Republic but who would doubtless lack television glamour...

...Hill received many of his qualities from his father, who studied medicine in England under the great Dr...