(The Civil Rights Bill of 1957 - a lot of love in the room . . .)

There's been a lot of talk lately about the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, forgetting that it got started as the Civil Rights Bill of 1957 and an offshoot of the Supreme Court ruling on School Desegregation in 1954. The ball was rolling and so was the resistance. Only in 1957 the resistance was more overt, as is evidenced by this discussion, part of The American Forum of The Air as broadcast on July 7, 1957. The debaters were Sen. John Stennis (D-Miss.) and Sen. Arthur V. Hawkins (R-Utah) who co-authored the 1957 bill.

Sen. John Stennis: “I have no doubt about it, this bill is aimed primarily at the South. It’s inspired by those that have been wanting to get this enacted into law with affect of criminal statutes. And even though voting rights are involved some it’s directed primarily to the school problem, the intermingling of the races in the schools.”

Stennis was, needless to say, part of that breed of Southern Democrat known as the Dixiecrat (a cousin to the Blue Dog of today). It's interesting to note that the co-author of the bill, a landmark piece of legislation, was a Republican and part of that extinct breed known as the Moderate Republican.

I am really starting to wonder just how our current Republican Party views their party circa 1957. Would people like Hawkins be condemned or ridiculed? With so many Teabaggers voicing rejection of the 1964 Civil Rights Bill, would that mean every piece of progressive legislation authored by a Republican in history be viewed as some neo-Socialist sleight of hand?

Is this what they mean by re-writing history?

(Not too terribly far off the mark)

At the height of Cold War paranoia and subversives seemingly everywhere, the question over whether or not to make Wiretapping a legal procedure got a lot of attention in the 1950s.

So in 1956, part of its American Forum series, the question was posed to a Senator and Congressman - both Democrats, but one casually known as a Dixiecrat.

Emanual Celler (D-New York) favored Wiretapping but only in cases of National Security (the definition of National Security got a bit loose and fuzzy by 2002) while E.L. Forrester (D-Georgia) wanted everything wiretapped. Forrester, it should be noted was one of the early signers of the Southern Manifesto from the Alabama Council of Conservative Citizens . . .nuff said.

Emanual Celler: “I simply want to make wiretapping per se` a crime in the federal courts when it’s done across state lines. And in that sense, every wiretap would be illegal, except . . and the exception would be in the interests of national security. I would surrender some privacy and the right of privacy in the interests of preservation of our great nation and in the interests of national security. So that where the federal officials are running down malefactors against our espionage laws or sabotage laws or Atomic energy act or National security laws, I will say ‘alright, wiretap’ and use that evidence in the court, But anything beyond national security, I know I would say no, I would interdict that."

E.L. Forrest: “Now of course I wouldn’t agree with you. I would say that the states should have some laws on the subject. And that evidence of wiretapping should be admissible in courts. Now let me show you what you’re doing - Now I say to you that it is completely possible that a man could, in his own home here in the city of Washington, by using his telephone as his agent, that he could carry on all over the world a conspiracy dealing in narcotics. His agent in Atlanta could sit in his own home and he could talk to him on the phone, he could tell him to meet a plane and to go down and take the narcotics off of the plane – all right. Now that agent in Atlanta could call the messenger boy, over there in his own home and tell him to go down and meet that plane. What you’re doing, you are just giving the criminal a one way street and you’re not giving the police officer any opportunity to catch him.”

And so it went in 1956. The relentless dilemma.