The Word from Washington
The Word from Washington Before Judge G. Harrold Carswell slips back into the richly deserved obscurity from which President Nixon tried, unfortunately, to rescue him, it ought to be acknowledged...
...To this, Hayes replied that the date had been chosen by Senator Gaylord Nelson, the Wisconsin Democrat who originated the teach-in idea...
...The lawyers and judges, the organizations and individuals who mounted a campaign against confirmation despite overwhelming indications that the cause was lost deserve much of the credit for the outcome...
...Each morning on his way to work, Defense Secretary Melvin R. Laird walks down the Eisenhower Corridor on the third floor of the Pentagon...
...This score, the Committee went on to note, places Mr...
...The formidable pressures exerted by the Administration in Carswell's behalf failed to overcome the profound revulsion engendered by the nominee's blatantly racist background, by his lack of candor before the Senate committee that passed on his nomination, and by his utter lack of judicial distinction...
...Mclntyre, the Fundamentalist radio preacher, who proclaimed "a holy crusade against Communism...
...Senators Barry M. Goldwater and Strom Thurmond, who sent messages of support...
...They clutched Bibles to their neckties and suit jackets and plain Republican cloth coats, and quite a few waved Confederate flags...
...But Senator Hruska, relentless in his quest for mediocrity, predicted that Mr...
...Take, for example, Congressman Carter's recent experience at a House subcommittee hearing on solid waste pollution...
...Two Justices appointed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt still sit on the Supreme Court, and a Nixon appointee could conceivably still be serving as we enter the Twenty-first Century...
...a black woman from Watts and three Indians from Wisconsin who told how they had been "saved...
...Each of these Senators undoubtedly voted his profound conviction, but the voice of conscience is often inaudible in the vaulted Senate chamber...
...There could not be a more suitable site for Eisenhower's most important Presidential utterance, except...
...The next move is up to the test-makers and the schools...
...William B. Spong, Jr., Virginia, and Ralph Yarborough, Texas...
...Supreme Court is as close as the American constitutional system comes to playing for keeps...
...There were two divergent reactions to the rejection of Carswell among those who had voted for confirmation...
...Whether President Nixon has come to the same realization remains to be seen...
...The pressures were particularly fierce on those Senators from the South or from the President's own Party who broke ranks with the conservative coalition, and they merit special appreciation...
...Among the memorabilia on display is a huge plaque inscribed with the late President's famous farewell address of January 17, 1961—the speech in which Eisenhower warned against "the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex...
...Winston L. Prouty, Vermont...
...Mclntyre scornfully pointed out, was on that very night entertaining the Duke of Windsor, "who gave up the throne of England to marry a divorced woman...
...The answer was disappointingly affirmative, but the Congressional sleuth was not deterred...
...The four Southern Senators who dared risk the wrath of the racists in their states were: J. W. Fulbright, Arkansas...
...The Republican Congressional Committee and Vice President Agnew have contributed, somewhat inadvertently, to the solution of one of the more troublesome controversies plaguing American education...
...It's also the birthday of Queen Elizabeth, William Shakespeare, Mary Ann Kaufman, and her aunt Alice," Hayes observed...
...Republican Representative Tim Lee Carter of Tompkinsville, Kentucky, is a man of many parts...
...This was the Old America assembled in protest against the New...
...For a few hours, at least, there in the rain, everything made sense...
...It rejected, too, the sage opinion of Carswell's foremost Senate champion, Roman L. Hruska of Nebraska, that the "mediocre people" of America "are entitled to a little representation" on the nation's court of last resort...
...When Hayes referred to industrial polluters as "criminals," Carter realized at once that he was dealing with a bona fide Bolshevik...
...Recapture the mainland...
...The President, some suggest, is advancing his Southern Strategy as effectively with unsuccessful nominations as he would with confirmed appointments...
...an emissary from Taiwan who brought the Gospel according to Chiang Kai-shek—"Onward, Christian soldiers...
...Their signs said, "Win the War," "Victory in Jesus," "Freedom of Choice in Education," "Prayer and Bible Reading in Schools," "Support Captain Medina and Lieutenant Calley," "God Bless Spiro Agnew...
...I can see you were prepared for that question," said Carter, and he dropped his line of inquiry...
...In the debate on the Carswell confirmation, Senator Edward J. Gurney, one of the Tallahassee judge's staunch-est supporters, called him "a man of destiny...
...The Senate majority that refused to confirm Carswell averted a devastating blow to what little faith remains in the nation's political institutions...
...Bearing the Cross and the Flag, like so many missionaries come to convert the heathen in an alien and hostile land, the followers of the Reverend Carl Mclntyre descended on Washington on a dreary Saturday in April to march for "victory" in Vietnam...
...Charles M. Mathias, Jr., Maryland...
...Then they rolled up their flags and banners and drifted back to their buses and automobiles, back into the complex, frustrating, incomprehensible world...
...But those who know the Congressman doubt he will let the matter rest there...
...They looked across Constitution Avenue to the White House, chanting, "We Want Victory in Vietnam...
...They provided a welcome—and long past due—demonstration of the fact that the democratic process can still be made to function in America...
...The former five-star general has fallen victim, posthumously, to military censorship...
...We didn't lose our war in Southeast Asia, we lost it here in Washington," the governor of Georgia told them...
...Jacob K. Javits, New York...
...His next question was, "Why did you choose April 22...
...Senator Hugh Scott, Pennsylvania, the Republican Leader, said he hoped the President had learned a lesson and would submit a new nominee of "impeccable credentials," one of "such quality as to warrant the widest possible support...
...Marlow W. Cook, Kentucky...
...Nixon indicated that he would go the other way—that he would persist in submitting nominations of the Haynsworth-Carswell stripe until the Senate capitulated...
...Critics of the schools—especially black critics—have long contended that standardized intelligence tests are unreliable and prejudicial instruments that should not be used as the basis for educational (or vocational) decisions...
...They stood in the rain on the Washington Monument grounds and cheered their heroes: Dr...
...As a two-time loser, he could be expected to attempt to find a less objectionable candidate, but in at least one private session with members of Congress, before the final vote on Carswell, Mr...
...He is also a dedicated—albeit amateur—counterspy who seizes every opportunity to expose the nefarious machinations of the international Communist conspiracy...
...The work sometimes has its frustrations, the Communists being fiendishly clever at resisting exposure...
...But the attack on the validity of IQ tests has always faltered because of a lack of widely accepted scientific evidence...
...Presumably responding to aspersions cast on the Vice President's mental prowess by effete intellectual snobs, the Republican Commitee has revealed that "the last time the Vice President had his IQ tested, he scored 135...
...Mark O. Hatfield, Oregon...
...The thirteen Republicans who stood staunchly against the Administration were: Senators Edward W. Brooke, Massachusetts...
...Potomacus...
...Mclntyre that he was with them 100 per cent...
...An appointment to the U.S...
...He is a practicing physician, a fraternity brother (Alpha Omega Alpha), a Legionnaire, a thirty-second-degree Mason, and a Shriner...
...Although there is no indication that the text has been abridged, the plaque merely reproduces three bland and pious paragraphs from Eisenhower's speech...
...Hiram L. Fong, Hawaii...
...What confidence could a black American— could any decent American—have retained in an Executive that nominated such a man to the Supreme Court, in a legislature that would confirm such a nomination, or in a judiciary in which he would have held the highest office ? In repudiating Carswell, the Senate declined to accept the President's judgment that the Supreme Court must be "balanced" at any cost—"balanced" between justice and injustice, between freedom and repression, between racism and equality...
...Robert W. Packwood, Oregon...
...Hruska may have been right when he declared that "we can't have all Brandeises and Cardozos and Frankfurters and stuff like that there," but the Senate majority realized that we have not come to the point where we must have Carswells...
...They prayed for Richard Nixon, but their hearts belonged to George Wallace, who let it be known through Dr...
...We write before the President has revealed his intentions with regard to a new appointee...
...As it turned out, Carswell's destiny was to provide the Senate with an opportunity to reaffirm, at least for a moment, that "decent respect to the opinions of mankind" which was invoked by the signers of the Declaration of Independence...
...Are you a native American...
...Richard S. Schweiker, Pennsylvania, and Margaret Chase Smith, Maine...
...In the case of the Carswell vote, that voice was amplified by a groundswell of public opposition to the nomination which lent courage to wavering Senators...
...But the President's gaze seems fixed firmly on 1972...
...Nixon would not be deterred by "a temporary setback" from his determination to remake the Court in his own image...
...Agnew just below the "genius" class...
...For once, we suspect, the Senator from Nebraska was absolutely right...
...he asked...
...Most of all, they cheered Lester Maddox, who explained why everything has been going wrong...
...Agnew and his friends on Capitol Hill have taken care of that...
...Albert Gore, Tennessee...
...Clifford P. Case, New Jersey...
...Miss Kaufman, he later explained, was a member of the teach-in staff: Hayes had been prompted to research the date by "a couple of letters from fascists" calling attention to Lenin's birthday...
...The Word from Washington Before Judge G. Harrold Carswell slips back into the richly deserved obscurity from which President Nixon tried, unfortunately, to rescue him, it ought to be acknowledged that in his unsuccessful candidacy for the Supreme Court Carswell probably did much more for his countrymen than they could reasonably have expected from his tenure on the highest tribunal...
...Charles H. Percy, Illinois...
...Then Carter delivered his intended coup de grace: April 22, he pointed out, was the birthday of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin...
...Except that the warning appears nowhere on the plaque...
...The President, Dr...
...Charles E. Goodell, New York...
...The witness was Denis Hayes, the student coordinator of the April 22 nationwide environmental teach-in (and author of the lead article in last month's special issue of The Progressive, "The Crisis of Survival...
...The crowd booed...
...There would be victory in Vietnam and prayer in the schools, Negroes would know their place and hippies would be in jail, if it hadn't been for "the sellout of Christian Americans...
...He's probably checking up on Queen Elizabeth right now...
Vol. 34 • May 1970 • No. 5
