THE CONGRESS: A Gain for Rights

Remarkably, there was no tension, no electric charge of uncertainty. The House debate on the civil rights bill had ended, the Southern holdouts had accepted the inevitable, the civil rights advocates were quietly confident. On the floor, nobody bothered to keep score. Republican Minority Leader Charles Halleck sat quietly relaxed; Ohio's William McCulloch, the G.O.P. floor manager for the bill, dawdled with his yellow pencil; the South's floor manager, Louisiana's Edwin Willis, scribbled on a note pad; New York's Emanuel Celler, the Democrats' floor manager, even left the chamber during the count. At length, Speaker Sam Rayburn spoke the...

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