Guns or Butter

by Bernstein, Irving;

  The administration bill was introduced on January 12, 1965, in the House as H.R. 2362 by Carl Perkins of Kentucky, chairman of the General Education Subcommittee, and in the Senate as S. 600, by Wayne Morse of Oregon, chairman of the Education Subcommittee. Because of the delicate compromises upon which the bill rested politically, the administration and the congressional leadership devised an unusual legislative strategy in the crafting of which Morse played the central role.

  Historically the Senate had been much more favorable to federal aid for education than the House. H.R. 2362, therefore, moved first to the House. The instructions Perkins received were to push his bill through his committee and onto the floor as swiftly as possible, to avoid any significant amendment, and to concede as few minor ones as possible. Thus, Perkins would lead with his hearings and Morse would follow at a more leisurely pace. The objective was to avoid a conference at all costs since that would require action by the still dangerous Rules Committee and, more important, would risk unravelling the strategy. It could be accomplished if the Senate adopted exactly the same bill the House had passed. Morse’s plan was bold and risky and was certain to arouse opposition.

  Wayne Morse was the Senate maverick, its hair shirt. Brilliant and courageous, he spoke his mind—sometimes at length, holding the record for the longest speech in Senate history. He could, however, change his mind, having been a Republican, an Independent, and, now, a Democrat. He was a proud teacher, a former professor and dean at the University of Oregon Law School.

  Morse was totally committed to federal aid. In fact, he and Charles Lee, the Senate subcommittee staff director, had been advocating the linkage of school aid to poverty since 1954. The country was now catching up with him. Morse had done a superb job on education for Kennedy in 1963 and he intended to do even better for Johnson in 1965. This was despite Vietnam. Morse recoiled before the President’s growing commitment in Southeast Asia and had been, with Senator Ernest Gruening of Alaska, one of the two members of both houses who had voted against the Tonkin Gulf resolution. But Lyndon Johnson was right on education and Wayne Morse, to Keppel’s astonishment, would stand by the President.

  Perkins held the House Subcommittee hearings on eight days between January 22 and February 2, 1965. He took his commitment to speed seriously and was a tough taskmaster. He shunted witnesses in and out like railroad cars and, since a large number lined up to testify, filled two fat volumes with their testimony. Perkins proudly reported to the White House that every witness who wanted to appear was heard and that the Republicans were allowed to examine them without time limits. The great majority favored H.R. 2362. There was a slight tremor when Wilbur Cohen’s tongue slipped and he said that library materials would go directly to private schools. This, in fact, was the most troubling issue raised by several other witnesses.

  Perkins, Larry O’Brien wrote the President, “pushed the committee night and day and did a tremendous job of achieving a markup on Monday, February 8.” There were nine amendments, all but one of secondary significance. The important one addressed title to library books and textbooks. Indicative of the Catholic commitment to the bill, Hugh Carey of New York, recognized as the spokesman for the Church, sponsored the amendment. Title would vest in a “public agency” and a “public authority” would have sole administrative control over their use. Students in parochial schools, therefore, would be loaned these books. All six Democrats voted for the amended H.R. 2362. The three Republicans boycotted the meeting at which the ballots were cast. According to one, Charles Goodell of New York, they did so to protest the subcommittee’s “hasty and superficial” action.

  Perkins was eager to have the full committee act prior to Lincoln’s birthday on the 12th. He did not take account of its chairman, Adam Clayton Powell. Cater reported to Johnson on the 16th that, despite the support of all the important lobbies, he had received “plaintive calls” from committee members that Powell would not move.

  This flamboyant headline-grabbing Harlem preacher could not restrain himself from exploiting the situation. His committee, the Democratic leadership, and the White House were extremely anxious to get swift action. He would stop them in their tracks.

  Powell, according to O’Brien, made “firm commitments” to Speaker McCormack and himself that the committee would take up the bill on February 8. He canceled the meeting, left for Puerto Rico, and refused to return calls. The Rules Committee was scheduled to decide on a request for funds from Education and Labor on February 17. Powell’s staff alerted the members of his committee that they would meet on the 18th. Rules had gone 9 to 1 and 9 to 2 against Powell on preliminary votes. As a result of “total pressure” from the leadership, Powell was given the money. But he still did not show up. The Republicans, O’Brien wrote, now understood what was going on and were “backing Powell to the hilt.”

  The Speaker and O’Brien, at the end of their rope, decided to take the committee away from Powell. The method they chose was to have a workable majority and a quorum present on the next regular meeting day, February 25, to adopt a resolution keeping the committee in continuous session till the education bill was voted out. On February 24 the Administration Committee and the House itself reversed Rules and denied the funds to Powell. The next day the majority and the quorum were present with the resolution, and the chairman decided that the jig was up. As O’Brien put it, “Powell had to rush to get in front of the troops.”

  The committee meetings provoked a donnybrook over the distribution of funds under Title I. If the formula had been based strictly on pupil population, one could have argued that it was equitable. But by skewing to favor the poor states heavily concentrated in the South and the ghettoes in the big cities a host of apparent inequities appeared. The formula was as follows: average state expenditure per pupil was divided by 2, and the result was multiplied by the number of children aged 5 to 17 in families with annual incomes under $2000; that became the number of dollars payable to the local school district.

  The South with many poor school districts liked the results. Texas beat out California, Mississippi got more than Missouri, Georgia surpassed Michigan, Alabama almost reached Ohio and beat Massachusetts by two and a half to one. The problem in the cities was even more glaring, as an illustration from Detroit and its suburbs demonstrates. James O’Hara represented Macomb County, Michigan, a bedroom suburb of Detroit. There were very few pupils in its schools from families with incomes below $2000. But the schools were desperately overcrowded and were on half-day schedules. Enrollment in the county had risen 72 percent in the preceding seven years and two school districts had grown by 177 and 360 percent. Macomb and its sister in the Detroit area came in last among Michigan’s 83 counties for Title I funds. O’Hara screamed. O’Brien pointed out that accommodating O’Hara would have “destroyed the whole theory of the bill and have completely unzipped the religious consensus. … The Catholic spokesmen, we were amply notified, would have shot the whole bill down in mid-air.”

  The managers decided that they must put more money into the cities and suburbs. They proposed $50 million, but, as things worked out, it became $63 million. In addition, Roman Pucinski of Mayor Daley’s Chicago machine put over an addendum to the formula to count as poor children those under Aid to Families with Dependent Children whose family incomes were $2000 or more.

  By the afternoon of Friday, February 26, action on amendments was concluded and the committee would be ready to vote the next day. But now Edith Green of Oregon made her appearance, or, more precisely, nonappearance. A key member of the Education Subcommittee, she was in Florida and had gotten an advance promise that the vote would be delayed until she returned. She told the speaker that she was making a speech in San Francisco Monday evening and would be out of town that day and Tuesday. McCormack, with difficulty, persuaded her to cancel the speech.

  On Monday morning Mrs. Green, put out, made a stormy entrance. In fact, nobody knew how to deal with Edith Green. In Kennedy’s time she had terrified the President,
Sorensen, Cohen, and Keppel. Moyers and Cater, both innocents, took her to lunch and into the Oval Office to talk to the President and receive a signed portrait. As Cater put it, “He tried very hard to keep her from jumping off the reservation.” But Green was in one of her world-class jumping moods.

  According to O’Brien, “She argued passionately … for a delay of several weeks.” She negotiated with the Republicans to work out a substitute. She called Protestant leaders to her office and told them that H.R. 2362 would “put Catholic priests in the public schools.” Green demanded and won a caucus motion to amend the Appalachia bill. She delayed the Public Works Committee’s consideration of the water pollution bill by threatening to vote against Appalachia unless they put northwest flood control ahead of water pollution. She got her way and still voted against Appalachia.

  Nevertheless, the House Education and Labor Committee reported the bill on March 2, by a vote of 23 to 8. All 21 Democrats (including Edith Green!) voted in favor and were joined by two Republicans, Ogden Reid of New York and Alphonzo Bell of California. But O’Brien wrote with foreboding, “Mrs. Green’s industry continues.” He considered the administration fortunate to have weathered the storm so successfully thus far and remained concerned about religion and race.

  On March 22 Speaker McCormack convened the Democratic leadership to plan floor strategy. Eugene Eidenberg and Roy D. Morey reported an “undercurrent of tension” attesting to the uneasiness of the bill’s supporters on the eve of debate. O’Brien caught the mood:

  In many ways this bill is the cornerstone to the entire Administration legislative program for the Eighty-ninth Congress. It contains so many different fundamental issues—church-state, rural-urban, north-south—that affect Congressmen so deeply that it could easily fall apart. If we can hold the troops together on this one it will surely make things much easier during the remainder of the session.

  The House debated H.R. 2362 for three days, March 24 to 26. The head counts were encouraging. On March 2 the NEA had reported that those with “positive commitments” split 242 for to 68 against. Gerald Ford, it was said, would announce no GOP position on the bill, but would allow Republicans to vote their districts. This suggested a substantial favorable Republican vote, and already two from Kansas had announced support. On March 23 Celebrezze came up with 200 to 18. On the next day he reported 248, and O’Brien, always cautious, turned up 229.

  At the outset of the debate the Republicans attacked the way the Democrats had rammed the “railroad bill” through the subcommittee, the allocation formula, and the distribution of library materials to parochial schools. Perkins, who had been a good subcommittee chairman, was an ineffective debater. Brademas, as usual, stepped in to defend the bill against these charges with skill and wit.

  There were two important issues: the allocation formula under Title I and aid to parochial school children. Edith Green was the leader in both fights and she was formidable. Of March 24, O’Brien reported, “It’s been hell today.”

  Green proposed replacing the present formula with a straight $200 grant for every child from a low-income family. New Jersey under the administration bill would receive $283 per child, Mississippi only $120. How, she asked, could liberals feign concern for the troubles in Mississippi? “Are you really shedding crocodile tears?” There were two answers: it was much more expensive to educate a child in the North than in the Deep South and the South would get much bigger percentage increases. The Green amendment was rejected 202 to 136.

  Green’s attack on assistance to Catholic pupils was more serious because it played to the ambivalence among Jews. “Mrs. Green,” Valenti wrote the President, “is trying to pick off the Jewish vote.” The Jewish community was very well organized, but hopelessly divided. Twelve groups had testified on H.R. 2362. While all but three had supported the bill “generally,” they did so with varying reservations. Views ranged from strong support from the National Society for Hebrew Day Schools, which wanted federal funds for its own parochial school system, to sharp opposition from the American Jewish Congress.

  Historically Jews had attached critical importance to the establishment clause of the First Amendment and had insisted upon a sharp separation of church and state. As a small minority with a wretched history of persecution in nations with established churches, Jews had good reason to oppose state support for religion. At the same time, most Jews strongly backed education and approved of federal assistance to the public schools. They also favored government help for blacks, who would be among the main beneficiaries under the bill. Two aspects of H.R. 2362 bothered them: providing library materials and textbooks for Catholic schools and the absence of an explicit judicial review provision in the bill.

  The Atlanta attorney Morris Abram was a good example of Jewish ambivalence. He was playing a key role in the desegregation of Atlanta, including its schools. At the same time Abram, as president of the American Jewish Committee, was asking for insertion of judicial review in H.R. 2362.

  The library issue had already been substantially resolved by Carey’s amendment establishing public title to printed materials. Thus, Green concentrated on judicial review and gained support from the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, the Lutheran Church, the Christian Church, and the American Civil Liberties Union, among others. There were actually two proposed amendments, one by Howard Smith of Virginia, making any part of the law subject to court review, and the other by John B. Anderson, the Illinois Republican, authorizing a state, its instrumentalities, and nonprofit institutions to bring suit.

  In fact, this was all sound and fury. The Department of Justice was convinced that there was no constitutional question and that the right to judicial review was constitutionally based, requiring no statutory authorization. Emanuel Celler, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, himself a Jew and a constitutional authority, strongly emphasized the inherent right to judicial review. His reassurance on the floor caused the National Council of Churches to send a telegram to Carl Albert undercutting Mrs. Green. Nor was she consistent. In 1963, when she was handling the Kennedy higher education bill, she had opposed judicial review over the Catholic warning that they would vote the bill down in the Rules Committee. They were still as strongly opposed, as O’Brien had emphasized. The Smith amendment was defeated by voice vote, Anderson’s by a 204 to 154 teller vote.

  On March 26 the House of Representatives passed H.R. 2362 by a vote of 263 to 153. The northern Democrats were solid—187 to 3, including Edith Green. The southern Democrats split 54 to 41 against and the Republicans divided 96 to 35 opposed.

  Edith Green had an unusual critic. Adam Clayton Powell, Cater wrote the President, “is burning mad over Edith Green’s behavior.” He threatened reprisals: (1) remove vocational education from her subcommittee’s jurisdiction; (2) fire her sister from the committee staff; and (3) shift sponsorship of the higher education bill to John Brademas. “Brademas is uncertain about No. 3, but is willing to undertake the job if it will serve the good of the bill.”3

  Fellow Oregonian Wayne Morse detested Edith Green and had derived great satisfaction from the bashing she had taken. But he had more important matters to be pleased about. His legislative strategy was unfolding according to plan. H.R. 2362 as enacted by the House was acceptable to him and to the Johnson administration. The House of Representatives, the historical burying ground of education bills, had passed the big one with a majority of 110. His Subcommittee on Education had ten members, seven Democrats and three Republicans, and he already had a majority. All the Democrats except Lister Hill of Alabama, the chairman of the full Labor and Public Welfare Committee, had sponsored H.R. 2362. The hearings, held between January 26 and February 11, 1965, had gone very well. Especially gratifying had been support from three top officials of the Eisenhower administration—Dr. James R. Killian, Jr., of MIT, former science adviser to the President; Marion B. Folsom of Eastman Kodak, former secretary of HEW; and Arthur S. Flemming, president of the University of Oregon, f
irst vice president of the National Council of Churches, and also former HEW secretary. The testimony of 103 witnesses and 42 statements filled six volumes totaling 3200 pages. Morse anticipated no serious trouble from the Republicans; he could afford to treat them generously. His strategic goal seemed within easy reach. The White House and the Democratic leadership agreed with this analysis. While they had monitored the House very closely, their policy in the Senate was: leave it to Wayne.

  Morse’s main problem during the subcommittee stage came from two important Democrats, the new senator from New York, Bobby Kennedy, and his younger brother from Massachusetts, Teddy. When Keppel testified RFK asked whether educationally deprived children were found only in low-income families. The response was that deprivation could arise from “a host of reasons.” Kennedy urged a broader definition. With Celebrezze the senator noted that many school boards and state commissioners refused to deal with deprivation. The secretary replied that so long as education was managed locally “that was the price of democracy.” Some newsmen interpreted this as another rift between Bobby and Lyndon Johnson.

  When, following the 1954 Brown decision, Prince Edward County, Virginia, had abandoned its public schools, RFK and Keppel had reopened them in order to provide education for black children. This included bringing in outside teachers who formed a kind of teacher corps. John Kenneth Galbraith in 1964 suggested the formation of a national corps to work in impoverished areas. Now Teddy Kennedy and Wisconsin Democrat Gaylord Nelson formally proposed a teacher corps as an amendment to H.R. 2362. Morse strongly favored the idea but, given his no amendment policy, was strapped. He met privately with Kennedy and Nelson and persuaded them to hold back in return for his promise to attach the teacher corps to the higher education bill.

  The House had passed H.R. 2362 on Friday, March 26. Morse called his subcommittee into session the following Tuesday, determined to get a unanimous vote. There was, in fact, only one proposed amendment. Ralph Yarborough, the Texas Democrat, and Peter Dominick, the Colorado Republican, asked to increase Title I allocations to the poor states by taking the money from the rich. Yarborough argued that H.R. 2362 did not recognize the equalization principle. Cater pointed out to him that the bill went further toward equalization than any prior legislation. The eleven southern states would receive 40 percent of the funds. Texas would get $74.6 million under the administration’s bill and $76.7 from Yarborough’s, hardly enough difference to justify the risk of defeat.