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In his own mind he mulled over the notions of adding 1) abolition of the poll tax, and 2) a U.S. conciliation service to mediate race disputes, discarded both. But his problem was solved when liberal Democrat Frank Church, Idaho's 33-year-old freshman, volunteered an amendment. Church's suggestion, after some polishing sessions with Washington Democrat Henry Jackson: amend the federal code so that states cannot prescribe qualifications for federal jury duty, e.g., state voting registration, property holding and sex. Under this proposal, the Southern white could have his jury trial, but the Southern Negro might be sitting on the jury. Johnson easily won permission from Wyoming's Joe O'Mahoney and Tennessee's Estes Kefauver to tack the Church rider on their jury-trial amendment. He got a tacit promise from Dick Russell that the South would not object. At Johnson's bidding, Church rounded up eleven additional sponsors before he took the floor to propose the amendment. When he did, a fatigued Senate accepted it, but only a few recognized the rider for what it turned out to be: the breakthrough that swung the odds against Knowland.
The Goon Squad. By next morning Knowland himself began to sense that he and not the South was in trouble. He tapped out a hasty S O S to the White House. By telephone and conference the President tackled a handful of Republicans who were in favor of jury trials, but might be won back, Maryland's John Marshall Butler, South Dakota's Francis Case, et al.
Acting Attorney General William P. Rogers (Attorney General Herbert Brownell was in Europe) hurried to Capitol Hill, closeted himself with Richard Nixon in the Vice President's office off the Senate Chamber. Nixon and Rogers summoned defecting Republicans one by one, pressured them to return to the Knowland fold. Their strongest lecture was reserved for West Virginia's Chapman Revercomb, who had cooled toward Knowland and warmed toward the jury-trial amendment.
Revercomb's reason was significant: the jury-trial amendment would also broaden the use of juries in labor contempt cases (a use sharply limited by the Taft-Hartley Act), and that wild-haired Old Union Boss, the United Mine Workers' John Lewellyn Lewis, had already trumpeted hearty approval. Chappie Revercomb and other pressured Republicans hustled out of Nixon's office unmoved; Democrats gibed at the Vice President's "goon squad." It was soon too clear that the goon squad and Ike himself had failed. Dick Russell announced quietly that he was ready at last to vote.
Inevitable Return. Two days earlier Bill Knowland had been ready to vote, had pressed without success to set a time. Now with the tables turned, Knowland had to stall when Majority Leader Johnson suggested setting a time. As the galleries filled until even the aisles were jammed, he persuaded Johnson to expand a scheduled four-hour prevote debate to six hours, spent the grace period rounding up absent supporters. Into Washington flew an Air Force plane with Maine's ailing (heart attack) Frederick Payne aboard. Missouri's Tom Hennings, convalescing at his Washington home from surgery (gallstones), limped to Capitol Hill. Knowland himself made the concluding speech against the amendment.