The Purpose and Powers of the Senate, Part LXIX: “The Decent People of This Country”

    So straightforward was Senator Spessard Holland’s approach to seeking an amendment banning the poll tax – his argument might as well have been, “I want to change something I find disheartening and the Constitution gives me the power to do it” – that his opponents during the Senate session of March 15^th, 1962 were fairly quickly driven to cast about for some means of merely slowing him down. Senator James Eastland, to that end, began flatly demanding proof. “The Senator has said that the people have been deprived of the privilege of voting [,]” he observed.

I defy him to name one human being who has been denied the right to vote because of the poll tax. I defy him to find one […] there is no proof that any more people will vote if the poll tax is removed. Does the poll tax disqualify them from voting?

Senator Holland answered quickly enough. “I have had some experience in this question [,]” he said.

In my State, as soon as the Poll tax was removed, at first the white people, and later the colored people, after the court threw out the white primaries, voted in greater numbers. I call attention to the list of States shown at page 475 of the printed hearings, which shows the following facts: In Mississippi the number participating—

Most indecorously for a United States Senator, James Eastland actually cut Spessard Holland off. “Will the Senator state the authorities?” he demanded. “He said the printed hearings. Who said that?” Holland responded calmly in spite of this flagrant violation of the rules of debate, stating that “The information is furnished by the American Heritage Foundation, the same figures were also found in the report of the Civil Rights Commission.” This response, unfortunately, was like waving a red flag at a bull.

    The Civil Rights Commission, for the record, is a bipartisan investigative and advisory body created by the Civil Rights Act of 1957 largely in response to a recommendation by the earlier Committee on Civil Rights formed by President Eisenhower in the aftermath of the Brown v. Board decision. But while its purpose, in the words of then-Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, is to “gather facts instead of charges [..] sift out the truth from the fancies [and] return with recommendations which will be of assistance to reasonable men [,]” the responses to its various inquiries have not always been particularly “reasonable.” By way of a representative example – particularly of the era that preceded the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 – consider the first major project undertaken by the Commission. Tasked with investigating the state of elections and voter registration in the city of Montgomery, Alabama, the Commission was first forced to conduct its business out of borrowed facilities on the grounds of Maxwell Air Force Base because all of the city’s hotels were segregated and so would not allow local members of the Black community to enter in order to testify. Then, when agents of the Commission sought access to the relevant voter registration records, Circuit Judge George C. Wallace (1919-1998) – later to become governor on an explicitly white supremacist platform – had them impounded. “They are not going to get the records,” he stated flatly. “And if any agent of the Civil Rights Commission comes down to get them, they will be locked up […] I repeat, I will jail any Civil Rights Commission agent who attempts to get the records.” Subsequent attempts by the Commission at seeking cooperation from Southern Democrats did not go much better.

    For Senator Holland to even speak the name of the Civil Rights Commission in a less than disparaging manner – as he did on March 15^th, 1962 – might accordingly be described as nails on a chalkboard to men like J. Lister Hill and James Eastland. The Commission, as far as they and their like were concerned, was nothing more or less than the spearhead of an intrusive federal government intent on undermining the sovereignty of the states, and their response was appropriately dismissive. “The Senator is going very far when he takes the report of the Civil Rights Commission [,]” said Eastland. “If there ever was something loaded against decent people of this country, it is the Civil Rights Commission.” Holland’s first attempt at a response was then pre-empted by Senator Hill. “I did not think the Senator would deny us our rights based on such a report [,]” said the latter. “The Senator from Florida has now become a working ally of the Civil Rights Commission.” Somewhat uncharacteristically under the circumstances, Holland appeared to make a point of reassuring his fellow Southerners. “The Senator from Florida [,]” he said, “has taken the same position with respect to the creation of the Civil Rights Commission as the Senators from Alabama and Mississippi.” Before the dust had time to settle, however, the Floridian went back on the offensive.

    “I know the Senators do not want these facts in the RECORD [,]” said Holland, referring to the Congressional Record from which this entire exchange has been quoted. The Southerners’ reply to this accusation was characteristically belligerent. “We are going to let the Senator put them in the RECORD,” said Eastland, “but we want the foundation for them.” “We want the RECORD to be a true RECORD [,]” Hill agreed. At this point, Eastland seemed to recall what it was that Holland had just said. “The distinguished Senator has opposed the creation of that Commission [,]” he said. “He has been against it. I would say the facts alleged by this Commission are absolutely unreliable, and I do not believe my friend would say they are reliable.” If this was meant as a “gotcha,” Holland was well prepared. “I stated these figures came originally from the American Heritage Foundation,” he reiterated,

But they were the same facts as set forth by the Civil Rights Commission. If the Senators will take time to read page 475 of the hearings, they will see the sources are stated to be the American Heritage Foundation, the State election officials, and the U.S. Census Bureau. I do not know where the committee could have gone for more authoritative information than those three sources.

Hill and Eastland remained as unimpressed as ever. “But the Senator stated people were disqualified from voting [,]” said the latter by way of a setup. “There is nothing in there to show that people have been disqualified from voting because of the poll tax [,]” said the former by way of a punchline. The Floridian disagreed. “The Senator from Florida thinks the people of Alabama and Mississippi are just as patriotic as are any other people [,]” he began.

He thinks they would vote if there were not something in their way. When he sees these two great States, whose people are friendly to ours and ours are friendly to them, stand at the very bottom of the list of voter participation, the Senator from Florida regrets it and wishes to correct that condition. That is what he is trying to do.

    Evidently, Senator Holland was not prepared to be swayed from his purpose. His fellow Southerners were on the verge of saying some very uncharitable things, having already called him an ally of the Civil Rights Commission, which they actively despised. But while someone else might have faltered, become self-conscious, or given vent to frustration, Holland resolutely plugged away at the same, simple, morally unambiguous assertion. He believed that the citizens of the five relevant states needed help, and he was furthermore convinced that it was his duty to help them. So disarming was this approach – and so stubborn was Holland in carrying it forward – that his opponents seemingly had no choice but to resort to increasingly aggressive, unsociable responses. “We do not need any help from the Senator from Florida [,]” said Hill accordingly. “Now that he is a working ally of the Civil Rights Commission, I would say the people of Alabama would certainly wish no help from the Senator from Florida.” No longer was the senator from Alabama capable of mustering even a superficially reasonable retort, it appeared. Now, it was simply his conviction that the Cotton State didn’t need help from anyone who would voluntarily associate themselves with a particular federal investigative body.

    Yet again, Senator Holland responded with calm deliberation, an approach of which his colleagues were increasingly willing to take advantage.  “I think the Senator [,]” he said,

Has not heard the Senator from Florida state that the three sources for this information, as compiled and reported by the committee which is headed by my distinguished friend, the Senator from Mississippi, are the American Heritage Foundation, the State election officials, and the U.S. Census Bureau—

For the second time in seemingly as many minutes, Holland was cut off before he could finish. “Wait a minute [,]” Eastland demanded. “Let us be fair […] The Senator from Florida is trying to impute that the Senator from Mississippi had something to do with these figures. It was testimony before the subcommittee. Why does not the Senator give the facts about it?” Holland’s response was characteristically straightforward. “The Senator from Florida is trying to [,]” he said simply. But this did not please the likes of Mississippi’s James Eastland. “No [,]” he said. “The Senator is trying to impute that the chairman of the committee had something to do with the authenticity of those figures.”

    The Floridian’s answer to this further accusation was about as heated as Spessard Holland seemed willing to permit himself to get.  “I know perfectly well the Senator from Mississippi had nothing to do with those figures [,]” he said.

I know that for 14 years I have been trying to get this amendment out of the committee which has been headed, at least for the last 6 or 8 years, by the Senator from Mississippi. I know we have been able to get it out of the subcommittee. I think I know why we have not been able to get it out of the full committee. I certainly will not ascribe to my friend from Mississippi any interest in the production of this list or the production of these figures. I want the RECORD to show that.

Here, without saying as much, Holland finally admitted to a degree of irritation. Not only did he pointedly mention the fourteen years it had taken him to get an amendment banning the poll tax onto the floor of the Senate, but he also made reference – albeit obliquely – to his fellow Southerner James Eastland as a partial cause of this drawn-out process. The result was something of a counteraccusation. Whereas Eastland had just expressed annoyance at having been associated with the production of the figures Holland was attempting to quote, Holland was in turn expressing annoyance at Eastland’s role – “at least for the last 6 or 8 years” – in keeping him from submitting his proposed amendment to the Senate at large. “I certainly will not ascribe to my friend from Mississippi any interest in the production of this list or the production of these figures [,]” he concluded by saying. One cannot help, under the circumstances, but read a degree of sarcasm into this promise.

    The degree to which Senator Eastland took umbrage at even the thought of being responsible for the aforementioned figures is noteworthy in itself, of course. These figures had been produced by bodies with which the Mississippian should have had no issue – the American Heritage Foundation, State election officials, and the U.S. Census Bureau – but the fact that they’d been later cited by the Commission on Civil Rights evidently made them more or less radioactive. Such was the nature of the relationship between most Southern Democrats and the contemporary movement for civil rights. These men – Hill, Eastland, Russell, and the like – had been elected by the (white) people of the various Southern states ofttimes for the express purpose of opposing what they perceived to be the intrusive policies of a post-New Deal federal government intent on protecting the essential rights of the poorest and least privileged Americans. And the (white) inhabitants of these states – as made explicit by Senator Hill – did not want any help from those whom they perceived to be outsiders unfamiliar with, or disrespectful of, local conditions, history, and traditions. Being of these people and speaking for these people, it was accordingly only natural for the likes of Hill and Eastland to maintain a keen awareness of anything that might carry the whiff of “federal overreach.” After all, not only did their jobs as public servants functionally depend upon their eagerness in attacking any such reformist or centralizing measures, but it was also essential that they take pains to distance themselves from being even vaguely associated with anything that seemed even remotely to threaten the essential sovereignty of the various states.

    Hill’s response to Holland’s veiled barb would seem to be very much a case in point. “Since the Senator from Florida has proposed his amendment,” he began,

So far as the recollection of the Senator from Alabama serves him, the Senator from Alabama has never had one single word, not one single line, not one single communication, by word of mouth or otherwise, about the proposal of the Senator from Florida. Knowing the people of Alabama and their desire to maintain their rights without outside interference, I know there is not one of them who today would wish the Senator from Florida to deny him his rights, which rights the people have had since the day the Constitution was founded.

Senator Hill, it would seem, was as keen to assure his Senate colleagues – and any members of the press who might have been present – that he had never even heard about Holland’s intention to introduce yet another anti-poll tax amendment as he was to assure Holland that his constituents in Alabama wanted nothing to do with the same. “I know there is not one of them [,]” he said, “who today would wish the Senator from Florida to deny him his rights [.]” Hill was fighting the good fight, or at the least wanted to be perceived as such. Spessard Holland was threatening to deny the people of Alabama their rights, and naturally, their elected senator would not stand for any such thing.

    Not one to let such an opportunity to demonstrate political loyalty go unseized, Senator Eastland then attempted to keep this line of conversation going. “If the distinguished citizens of the State of Alabama thought there was the great problem which the proponents of these measures claim,” he asked his Southern colleague, “would not the Senator from Alabama have received many communications from his own State?” Hill responded plainly in the affirmative. “Certainly [,]” he said.

A Senator always knows that if people are hurting he will hear from them. So far as the Senator from Alabama can recall, in all of the years during which the Senator from Florida has been proposing his amendment, the Senator from Alabama has not received one word, by word of mouth, by line, or by communication in any shape, fashion, or form from a single Alabaman on behalf of the proposed amendment. On the other hand, knowing the people of Alabama as I do, I know they are against the proposed amendment. I would say they even resent the proposed amendment.

Eastland then quickly seconded his colleague’s assertion. “I say the same thing for the State of Mississippi [,]” he declared. “I have not received a single protest about the tax. In fact, every piece of mail I have received from Mississippi in this regard has been in opposition to this proposal.” Evidently, Senator Holland’s concerns were entirely unwarranted. At least, so far as the states of Alabama and Mississippi were concerned.

    Of course – and as previously discussed – this was patently untrue. It may indeed have been the case that Senator J. Lister Hill received very few, if any, complaints from his constituents concerning the undue burdens imposed upon them by the poll tax. But this did not mean that thousands, or tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of people weren’t the victims of disenfranchisement as a direct result of that selfsame policy. Hill represented a state still very much in the grip of the Jim Crow regime of institutionalized racial discrimination. Specific measures had been put in place for the purpose of ensuring that a significant portion of the overall population simply didn’t have a voice in the economic, social, or political life of Alabama, one result of which, among others, was that men like Hill were only made aware of the concerns of part of the community that they claimed to speak for in the halls of power. Consider, to that end, the following figures. In 1960, the Black population of Alabama stood at something like nine hundred and eighty thousand out of a total population of about three and a quarter million. Now, granting that not every Black person otherwise eligible to vote in Alabama would have been automatically disqualified by an inability to pay the poll tax – which is to say that some of them could afford to spare the added expense – the degree to which Black people in the contemporary United States were also subject to severe economic discrimination as well as social and political discrimination more or less ensured that the vast majority of these nearly one million Black Alabamans were disenfranchised by the poll tax on account of being unable to pay.

    And what were they to do about it? What was supposed to be their recourse? They could conceivably have sent letters to either Hill or John Sparkman (1899-1985), his fellow senator from Alabama. And they could have called their constituency offices, and called their offices in Washington, and sent telegrams, and appeared in person, and organized petitions of some form. These are the things good citizens are supposed to do when they have a grievance, after all. And maybe, in spite of the various hardships involved, some of them did do just that. In spite of the time and effort it would take, and the cost of postage, and telegrams, and phone calls, and bus fare, Black Alabamans perhaps tried to make their voices heard. But was there any possibility, once either man found out that the petitioners in question were Black, that their complaints were heard and considered? Would Black people even be allowed to set foot in their offices? Would letters from addresses known to be located in Black neighborhoods even be opened and read rather than summarily discarded? There would seem to be no other reasonable answer to these questions but a flat denial. Of course Senator Hill hadn’t heard any complaints about the poll tax. The was the whole point of Jim Crow. The people who would complain, who had cause to complain, had been systematically suppressed and sidelined so as to be out of sight and out of mind of polite – i.e., white – society. Hill’s assertion, therefore, that he’d, “not received one word, by word of mouth, by line, or by communication in any shape, fashion, or form from a single Alabaman on behalf of the proposed amendment” was entirely meaningless as a point in his favor. He and his fellow Southerners had worked for generations to achieve exactly that specific result. Its existence was not proof that no one in Alabama had a problem with the poll tax. It was proof that those who did have a problem had successfully been silenced.

    Senator Holland, of course, wasn’t about to point this out. Though it had repealed its poll tax in the late 1930s, Florida was at that point as much a Jim Crow state as Alabama or Mississippi. And in any case, Holland’s argument against the poll tax had never been about race. It was a question, he always insisted, of economic discrimination. A person’s ability to cast a ballot should not have been based upon their income, but rather ought to have been extended to all Americans without favor. Such an assertion, to be sure, very conveniently elided the intended purpose of the tax, which was unequivocally to disenfranchise the Black inhabitants of the American South. It was also clearly meant to sidestep any accusations that Holland was in any way associated with the contemporary movement for civil rights. This didn’t work, of course, as the flow of the debate herein cited should make quite clear. His assertions to the contrary notwithstanding, certain of Holland’s fellow Southerners were determined to draw a line between his effort to secure a national ban on poll taxes and the ongoing struggle for the full recognition of Black citizenship. The result was that Holland was at times left in a rather awkward spot. He could not effectively counter Hill’s assertion that no Alabamans had been complaining about the poll tax, for instance, without delving into a subject which he’d made a specific point of avoiding. The very existence of the poll tax was explicitly the result of the racial politics of the post-Civil War South, but the resulting status quo was not something Holland was at all eager to call into question. In consequence, he was forced to occasionally cede ground to the bad faith arguments of his opponents, to the detriment of his stated goal of securing a constitutional amendment.