Georgia's Richard Russell rose in the crowded Senate chamber last week and surveyed his club with fatherly approval. The Senate, drawled Russell, is "a bulwark against precipitate action inspired by the unthinking passions of a great mob." The "great mob" in this case included the Kennedy Administration, the Senate leadership of both parties, the Civil Rights Commission and most U.S. Senators. They wanted to destroy the literacy test, the South's most effective device for denying the vote to Negroes. And Russell's tightly disciplined team of filibustering Southern Democrats held the bulwark...
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