In 1950, President Truman introduced legislation that would increase the Federal subsidy on Unemployment Insurance in the U.S., guaranteeing Unemployment compensation for a full 26 weeks.

The proposal was debated and argued on the basis that the States could handle it themselves. Despite the fact that a lot couldn't, it was still argued this was a States Rights issue and the Feds had no business meddling in the affairs of what was going on locally.

One could only imagine, had the legislation not passed, what it would be like now. But in 1950 it was hotly contested.

This episode of American Forum Of The Air, from January 15, 1950 tackles that question. In support of the Truman Administration is Secretary of Labor Maurice Tobin. On the States Rights side is Senator John W. Bricker (R-Ohio).

Ironically, Ohio is now one of the states with the highest rate of unemployment, but in 1950 Sen. Bricker didn't think Ohio would need any help. How times change.

In lesser hands this interview would have been a shambles and it probably would have become a forum for the Jabberwocky that flew out of his mouth, but this interview with Senator James Eastland (D-Mississippi) gives some idea just how entrenched, how arrogant and how racist the bloc of Senators known as Dixiecrats were.

I am still hot on the trail of the infamous (and somewhat legendary) Meet The Press interview with Senator Bilbo, another Dixiecrat from Mississippi who proudly proclaimed his membership in the KKK in 1946. But until I find it, this will have to do for the Mississippi contingent who made up the States Rights South in the 1950's and 60's.

A sampling of the interview:

Lawrence Spivak: “Senator, by what inalienable right do you ask certain freedoms for yourself and the other white people of Mississippi that you refuse to grant to the Colored people of your state?”

Sen. James Eastland: “ Why they have all the . . .there is no discrimination. Now, I believe in full economic equality, for every man.”

Spivak: “You say there is no discrimination . . . .

Eastland: “Wait, wait, just a minute now. For every man, regardless of race. But there are social questions and we do have a problem that we think we know more about than people who do not have that problem, And that we think the system of segregation is in the best interests of both races. It doesn’t mean . . it’s not based on any doctrine that one man is superior to another. It’s not based on any doctrine that one man is better than another, but that experience has shown that both races develop their own culture and develop better when they’re separated, because there is more to this question of race than merely the color of a man’s skin. There are different characteristics, different traits.”

And it stays pretty much the same for the entire interview.

This interview comes just about a year before the Central high school integration confrontation in Little Rock Arkansas. But you can see just how deeply the resistance was and what a political thorn these Dixiecrats were in the side of any Civil Rights reform on a Federal level. Which is certainly one reason the struggle lasted so long. The irony in all of this is that Eastland rose very high in the ranks of the Senate and, in addition to being second in line of succession to the Presidency in case of emergency he was also the longest serving Senator, having retired in 1978. In short, he wielded an enormous amount of power.

Here is Meet The Press with Senator James Eastland from January 29, 1956.

(Lester Maddox and thug wielding "drumstick" - some drum . ..and pay no attention to the gun)

Lester Maddox addresses a meeting of the New York Press Club on January 29, 1971. With the ongoing campaign to whitewash the Civil Rights Movement and the desire to turn the evolution clock back at least a hundred years, it's good to be reminded from time to time that those practitioners of hate, racism, bigotry and violence under the guise of "democracy and freedom" were very much alive and active and being revered as "misunderstood patriots". And even while their feeble attempts at explaining away hateful behavior fall on largely skeptical ears, there are still those, and they have forums now, who try to drive the point home that all that hate was an illusion, that those lynchings never happened, that passing laws eliminating discrimination were in fact bad for our country. That Lester Maddox wasn't as bad as all the "librul press" painted him to be. That he was just a "lovable boob who talked funny."

Lester Maddox: “You read about some drumsticks I brought up here, not axe handles, pick handles . . drumsticks, souvenirs. Pick in Pickrick means to select, choose, pick out. Rick means to pile up, heap or amass. So these are popular souvenirs for more reasons than the one you heard. And so . . many congressmen and Senators had asked for them. Capitol office officials and staff, black and white. And so they had asked for a number of them. And I brought a box rather than have them mail ‘em on my next trip to Washington. And the Capitol Police wanted to carry them into the dining room and I wouldn’t let them, because the manager of the club and others there wanted them and I said to go outside they can’t take them in. But you read in the paper and broadcast that I brought a boxful of them into the dining room. I read in a Chicago newspaper that I had a box full of them under my table.”

There is an active movement afoot to re-write history. And if the distraction is loud enough and the claims wild enough and told often enough, there is a strong chance you will simply forget what the truth of the situation was and believe the lie.

And you can't afford to do that.

(George Wallace - if he was still alive he'd be making his own teabags)

Someone once told me they could never get enough of listening to George Wallace because everything he said has some ring of insanity to it. I certainly couldn't argue with him there, but I wonder just how he would fit in with the current state of domestic turmoil we appear to be going through. Probably very nicely I suspect.

Here is an interview, an episode of Meet The Press from October 25, 1964 where Wallace as well as Vermont Governor Phillip H. Hoff (D-VT) talk about the upcoming election and how the landscape has changed, with Alabama heading over to the Republican side for the first time and Vermont headed over to the Democrats, also for the first time.

Wallace though, entertains no end.

George Wallace: “I don’t think there’ll ever be in my lifetime any desegregation to the extent that the liberals are talkin’ about. We have token integration in Alabama as a result of the Federal courts, who themselves have arrogated to themselves the right to determine the policy of schools in our state. People now on the Federal Court system run our country, they have even taken over the Congress, they’ve taken over my state. No governor in the country has authority anymore. One Federal judge, appointed for life, runs the schools and runs government in my state. Reapportioned the legislature to decide what district Congressmen can run from. And I don’t think in my lifetime or your lifetime that we’re going to have any total desegregation in any state in the union.”

For his part though, Wallace scrupulously avoids endorsing any candidate for President since he was all too aware his name carried a certain dose of poison along with it.

One aspect of civility and political intelligence our current crop of electoral luminaries fail to recognize.