1966: United States

A summary of United States political, legislative, and judicial events; social welfare; national defense; and foreign relations is presented below.

Politics

Elections.

Republican candidates scored important victories in every section of the country in 1966, only two years after the party's presidential nominee, Barry Goldwater, had suffered one of the most brutal defeats in history. American voters usually turn against the party of the incumbent president in midterm elections, for a winning presidential candidate carries candidates to victory in districts that normally belong to the opposition; two years later, however, the districts revert to type. Moreover, a president can hardly help looking a bit tarnished after two years in office, and his party suffers for it. Nevertheless, the Republican triumph exceeded the average midterm swing— and the expectations of most astute politicians, including Republicans.

The most dramatic result of the election was the Republicans' gain of 47 seats in the House of Representatives. The GOP now controls 187 seats, to 248 for the Democrats, but the figures are deceiving. Many of the defeated Democrats were liberals. The conservative wing of the party, based in the South, retained its strength. Therefore, it seemed likely that a coalition of conservative Southern Democrats and Republicans would control the House, as it did before the Johnson sweep in 1964.

The most disastrous blow for the Democrats was the defeat of 27 of the 48 freshman congressmen who had won normally Republican seats in 1964. Not only were they removed from Congress, where the party needed both their votes and energy, but from immediate consideration for higher office.

In Senate races Republicans picked up only 3 seats, giving them 36. But they were all impressive victories that strengthened the progressive wing of the party. Charles H. Percy, a young and vigorous businessman, defeated the aging Senator Paul H. Douglas, long a valiant fighter for liberal causes, in Illinois. Mark O. Hatfield, the 44-year-old governor of Oregon, trounced Representative Robert Duncan for the seat vacated by Senator Maurine Neuberger. Howard Baker of Tennessee picked up the third seat by defeating Governor Frank Clement.

Attorney General Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts held a Republican seat and became the first Negro in the Senate since Reconstruction. Senator Robert P. Griffin of Michigan, who had been appointed after the death of Senator Pat McNamara, won his first victory, over G. Mennen 'Soapy' Williams, a Democrat who had served six terms as governor before joining the Kennedy administration as assistant secretary of state in 1961. The other new Republican senator was Clifford P. Hansen, who stepped down as governor of Wyoming to win the seat vacated by Milward Simpson.

Two democrats—William B. Spong of Virginia and Ernest F. Hollings of South Carolina—defeated incumbents in party primaries and went to the Senate for the first time.

Republicans won 10 new governorships (a net gain of eight) and now control the state houses in five of the seven largest states—a remarkable feat for a party whose weakest area is supposed to be the big urban centers. Governor George Romney of Michigan won re-election by 62 percent of the vote and pulled Senator Griffin and five new congressmen in with him. New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller spent $5 million and gained a third term over New York City Council President Frank D. O'Connor. Governor James Rhodes of Ohio cruised in for a second term against a weak Democratic candidate, Frazier Reams, Jr. In Pennsylvania, Lieutenant Governor Raymond P. Shafer succeeded Governor William W. Scranton, who could not run again, by smashing Democrat Milton Shapp. In California, Ronald Reagan, following the advice of an astute political management firm, avoided offending almost everyone and ousted Governor Edmund G. Brown, who was seeking a third term. Democrats captured state houses held by Republicans only in Maine and Kansas. The party also elected a new governor in Alabama, where Mrs. Lurleen Wallace trounced Representative James Martin to succeed her husband, George, who was barred from another term.

The Republicans also increased their control of state legislatures from 6 to 17. Control of 8 state legislatures is divided between Republicans and Democrats.

The scope of the Republican victory was especially surprising because the party had largely failed to provide an effective opposition to the Democrats during the previous two years. Neither the congressional leaders nor the more influential governors had been able to present a coherent alternative to the pre-eminence of Lyndon Baines Johnson and his Great Society.

Several important factors did work for the Republicans. First, candidates did not have Barry Goldwater at the head of the ticket, dragging them down to defeat. Second, the Republicans often presented superior candidates. Third, the Republican organization—which also had a hand in candidate selection—offered strong support and advice to local candidates at a time when President Johnson was reducing the Democratic National Committee to a hollow shell.

Nevertheless, the election was primarily a negative vote against the 'ins,' not a positive vote for Republican policies. In many races Republicans deliberately avoided strong stands on controversial issues and let the voters' disaffection with the Democrats decide the election. This disaffection focused on three issues: inflation, the white backlash, and Vietnam.

After five years of undiminished prosperity consumers throughout the country began to feel the pinch of rising prices—traditionally one of the most potent political issues. Increasing inflation—which began to wane after the election — was fed by huge federal expenditures for the war in Vietnam, a scarcity of such vital materials as copper, and a gradual reduction in unemployment and unused industrial capacity. Interest rates mounted steadily, and the lack of mortgage money crippled the home construction industry.

The second major issue—white backlash—had a spottier effect. It seemed to be strongest in the lower-middle-class suburbs of such large cities as Chicago, where Charles Percy rolled up a big vote against a militant liberal, and New York, where a civilian-dominated police review board was crushed. In the Florida gubernatorial race Claude R. Kirk, Jr., defeated the progressive mayor of Miami, Robert King High, in part because of a strong stand against open housing.

Yet some of the most blatant foes of integration were defeated. Democrat George P. Mahoney ran for governor of Maryland almost entirely on his opposition to open housing and lost to Republican Spiro T. Agnew. In Arkansas, a state with a history of racial strife, segregationist James Johnson lost to moderate Winthrop Rockefeller as the voters seemed almost embarrassed by Johnson.

The shadow of the war in Vietnam darkened the entire campaign. In one sense it was not an issue; not one race was clearly decided on the basis of the candidate's position on the war. But in another sense it was the only issue. The war was at the root of the confusion and uneasiness that simmered during the year and burst in the face of the Democrats on November 8. Some believed the United States was wrong to be in Vietnam and should get out; others felt the United States should use its titanic military strength to win a quick victory. But most people were neither 'hawks' nor 'doves.' They just did not quite understand why the war was being fought and wanted it to end as soon as possible.

Although the election was mainly a sign of dissatisfaction with the 'ins,' it also revealed deeper trends that could permanently alter the course of American politics. The most significant trend was the increasing inability of the Democrats to hold together the coalition of labor, intellectuals, Negroes, and Southerners that was forged by Franklin D. Roosevelt and has kept the party in power 26 of the past 34 years.

The most serious permanent defection was the rank and file of the labor movement. In the thirties and forties the economic issues were clear. Unions strongly advocated the progressive government programs of the Democrats that provided economic security for their members. Today the average unionist lives not in a rotting tenement, but in his own modest home. Much of what he fought for has been achieved, and he is more interested in conserving his gains than improving the lot of others, mainly minority groups, who remain largely untouched by the programs and prosperity of the past three decades. Thus, while labor leaders in California dutifully supported Governor Brown, the workers flocked to conservative Republican Ronald Reagan, who advocated cutbacks in welfare programs and curbs on the rebellious students at Berkeley—students whose militant demands for equal rights sounded, at times, like another generation of trade unionists.

Most of the nation's intellectuals continue to identify with the Democratic Party but clash with Lyndon Johnson on at least three issues. The most important is the war in Vietnam. Many either oppose it outright or feel the United States is not doing enough to end it by negotiations. Second, despite the staggering amount of radical domestic legislation Johnson has piloted through Congress, many intellectuals decry the diversion of federal funds to the war and away from housing, poverty, job training, and similar efforts to improve the lives of the desperately poor. Third, they continue to resent Johnson's unvarnished Texas style.

Negroes, too, resent the imperatives of the Vietnam war. Some of the more militant leaders also criticize the administration for not doing more for the Negro at a time when the legal battle for human rights is almost over and the much more difficult battle for economic and social advances is just beginning. Unrealistic hopes raised by the early successes of the Negro revolution are not being fulfilled. The failures leave a residue not only of frustration but of mistrust that focuses on the established powers, which is in large part the Democratic Party and Lyndon Johnson.

Southerners continue to drift slowly into the nascent Republican Party, which started by preaching segregation and is still searching for a permanent identity. The GOP picked up a Senate seat in Tennessee, held a dubious Senate seat in Texas and a strong one in South Carolina, and won the governorships in Arkansas and Florida. In 13 border and Southern states they made a net gain of 9 House seats.

At the same time Negroes also made a few small gains in the South. Three Negroes became the first members of their race to win seats in the Texas Legislature in 71 years. All ten Negro members of the Georgia General Assembly, including Julian Bond, were re-elected. In Macon County, Ala., which already has some local Negro officials, Lucius Amerson became the only Negro sheriff in the South. But in Lowndes County, where 55 percent of the voters are Negro, the candidates of the all-Negro Black Panther Party were soundly defeated.

Presidency.

Lyndon Johnson's year was again split between directing a war against the Vietcong in South Vietnam and a war against poverty, urban blight, ignorance, and disease at home. But this year the more distant and more violent conflict overshadowed the domestic revolution.

In his State of the Union message the president declared that the nation could have both guns and butter—but it did not quite work out that way. The administration, first of all, could spend less and less time on social legislation. Meanwhile, federal expenditures for Vietnam mounted far faster than anyone expected, contributing to an inflationary spiral that evoked loud demands from the Republicans for reductions in other areas. The 89th Congress, which in its first session passed landmark legislation in civil rights, education, the fight against poverty, Medicare, and housing, began to stiffen.

Administration bills for open housing and repeal of section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act were defeated. Appropriations were slashed for the War on Poverty, rent supplements and the Demonstration Cities Bill, which almost did not pass. In the fall the president cut $5.3 billion from the budget, largely in domestic programs. Although there was more butter than ever before, it was clearly not as much as either the president or his critics would have liked.

The war itself continued to frustrate and irritate the president. The pause in the bombing of North Vietnam, the Honolulu conference with Vietnamese leaders, the continual expansion of American forces—none of these seemed to bring the war closer to a conclusion.

Johnson, in turn, provoked anger and frustration among some political figures who charged that he was too secretive about the war and that when he did speak, he seldom told the whole story. By the end of the year even some of the president's supporters were saying that a 'credibility gap' existed between the president's rhetoric and the real cost of the war in terms of money and human life.

After the election pollsters proclaimed that Johnson's popularity was at an all-time low. His troubles were compounded by the prospect of a 90th Congress that would be less receptive to his progressive programs. For the first time people began thinking that perhaps Johnson was not invincible.

Prospects.

The Republicans emerged from the elections with a host of possible presidential nominees and the encouragement of the opinion polls. The big question was whether the moderate wing of the party could organize itself behind one candidate and thwart the conservatives, who still harbored hopes of recapturing the party leadership. For to most political observers the 1964 elections proved conclusively that to win national elections, a party has to present progressive ideas and forward-looking candidates.

At year's end the leading contender for the nomination was clearly Governor Romney. The big obstacles to his nomination appeared to be his almost total lack of experience in foreign affairs, his often-pompous, moralizing tone, and his religion (Mormonism, which relegates Negroes to an inferior position in the church). Perhaps most important, his failure to support Goldwater was still deeply resented by the conservative wing.

No obvious moderate challenger to Romney had yet emerged. Governor Rockefeller of New York won an impressive third-term victory but had already ruled himself out of the presidential contest. Governor Scranton, who made an abortive challenge to Goldwater in 1964, was retiring from politics. The other moderate hopefuls were attractive but inexperienced.

One new conservative who gained prominence in the 1966 elections was Ronald Reagan, who successfully obscured his previous image and moved toward the political middle during the campaign. But Reagan still had not served a day in office at the end of 1966.

A much more likely nominee with a conservative cast was Richard M. Nixon, the closest thing the party had to an elder statesman. Now a New York lawyer, Nixon campaigned tirelessly for Republican candidates, collecting the political IOU's from party professionals that Goldwater had cashed in for the 1964 nomination. Nixon had close ties with the right wing because of his support of Goldwater and could legitimately present himself as the candidate most acceptable to all factions.

On the Democratic side, it seemed highly unlikely that anyone but Lyndon Johnson would be the nominee. However, the junior senator from New York, Robert F. Kennedy, continued to build a personal following, largely among young people and intellectuals who responded to his combination of pragmatism and idealism—and the legacy of his brother he never failed to invoke.

Another Democrat, former Governor George Wallace of Alabama, threatened to run as a third-party candidate. Few political commentators accorded him a chance to win, but few doubted he would cause a great deal of trouble for both parties, especially if resentment mounted against militant Negroes in the North.

Many Kennedy admirers also once thought Hubert Humphrey was the savior of American liberalism. But Humphrey continued to lose favor in the liberal community as he ardently defended the administration at every turn. The vice-president's political stock also fell as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party he had helped to forge in Minnesota spent itself in internecine wrangling and lost the governorship to a Republican unknown.

Congress

When the 89th Congress struggled to its adjournment on October 22, it was clear that it had earned a place in legislative history. All observers seemed to agree that the 89th would be recorded as one of the most productive congresses yet.

Whatever historians decide, much of the credit undoubtedly will go to the first session of 1965. Fresh from the elections that gave the Democrats better than 2-to-1 margins in both chambers, President Johnson found a remarkably receptive audience for his Great Society programs. The first session approved such legislation as federal aid for elementary and secondary schools, medical care for the aged under Social Security, a new effort to enforce Negro voting rights in the South, and a cabinet-level Department of Housing and Urban Affairs.

The numerical edge over the Republicans continued into the second session in 1966, but the mood and tone of Congress had changed. Before, the concern over the nagging war in Vietnam was muted; now protests were loud and clear. Before, Congress went along with the administration's civil rights bill; now the 1966 Johnson bill ran into decisive opposition, in part because of the disaffection of many white liberals stemming from the emergence of the 'black power' advocates and continuing riots in many cities. Before, there seemed to be relatively little worry over the course of the economy; now there was increasing uneasiness in Congress over the $112.8 billion budget, high interest rates, and other inflationary pressures.

The resulting view of many on Capitol Hill as the 1966 session plodded along was that Congress had begun to strain at the Johnsonian leash. It was trying to assert itself, not only by simply saying No to legislative requests but also by attempting in positive ways to influence the administration on such issues as Vietnam and China policy. Several times it passed bills going beyond the president's requests in an effort to force the administration's hand. Its differences with the Pentagon continued—not over money, but over concepts and strategy. Foreign aid was cut by more than 13 percent, to below $3 billion, one of the smallest amounts provided by Congress since the program began.

Much of the credit for the passage of the heavy package of social welfare legislation in the first session went to the 48 freshman representatives who rode into Washington in 1964 on Johnson's coattails. But now, in 1966, the president was showing a drop in the popularity polls. Congressional elections were coming up in November, and the odds were that once again the party in power would lose House seats. The combination was enough to persuade many Democrats in Congress to look for a more cautious and conservative path. This was a marked change from the tendency to rest on the laurels of the previous year.

The 1966 session did clear several important bills sought by the president: a strong auto safety bill, a higher minimum wage, new aid to education, a cabinet-level Department of Transportation, a demonstration-cities plan to fight urban blight, a truth-in-packaging bill, important new weapons to combat air and water pollution, an enlarged War on Poverty program, and initial funds for the controversial rent-supplements plan.

In a last-minute action it decided to allow taxpayers to check a box in their individual income tax returns if they wanted $1 of their taxes ($2 for joint returns) to go into a presidential election campaign fund. The comptroller general was authorized to draw up the rules and regulations under which disbursements to the major parties would be made. The system goes into effect for 1967 taxes, so money will be available for the 1968 presidential campaign. A more general overhaul of campaign financing suggested by the president was ignored.

For sports fans Congress granted the National and American football leagues immunity from the antitrust laws, clearing the way for their merger into one league and for the champions of both to meet for the first time in January 1967.

And to achieve greater uniformity Congress passed a daylight saving time bill. Daylight saving time is now official throughout 18 states for some part of the year; the remaining states retain standard time all year. The new bill designated a mandatory period of daylight saving time—from the last Sunday in April to the last Sunday in October—in all states that make the time change.

On the No side the 1966 session killed not only the civil rights bill but also proposals to overhaul the Unemployment Compensation Act, to provide East-West trade incentives, to extend terms of members of the House from two years to four, to reform the electoral college system used in presidential elections, and to provide home rule for the District of Columbia.

Congress also killed a proposal sought by organized labor to repeal Section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act, which gives federal sanction to states to enact right-to-work laws. Such laws prohibit making union membership a condition of employment. Nor was action taken to increase Social Security benefits. The president said ten days before Congress adjourned that he would formally ask for the increases next year, and it seemed to be such a good idea that House members tried unsuccessfully to rush the bill through before they went home.

After Congress adjourned, President Johnson repeated what he had said before—that the 89th Congress was the 'best Congress in the history of the nation.' He was, of course, talking about what Congress had done, not what it had said. He made no reference to constant talk reflecting substantial uneasiness over his foreign policy in general and Vietnam in particular. Some observers said after the session that the Senate in 1966 had probably offered the president and the State Department more foreign policy advice than any Senate since World War II.

Senator J. William Fulbright (D, Ark.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, set the tone early in the session: 'Congress as a whole has lost interest in the Great Society; it has become, politically and psychologically, a 'war Congress.''

Congress did provide the billions of dollars the president had requested for the Vietnamese war, but along with it came millions of words on the subject. When Congress convened in January the Christmas bombing truce was still in effect. A group of Democratic senators wrote the president urging prolongation of the pause. This came on the heels of the report on Vietnam by a group of congressmen, led by Senate majority leader Mike Mansfield (D, Mont.), who had visited the war area. The group warned that the military situation there had become 'open-ended' and said that all Southeast Asia could become a battlefield.

When President Johnson sent Congress a $13 billion supplemental money request to help finance the war, Senator Fulbright decided to turn the hearings into a full-scale discussion of the war. Secretary of State Dean Rusk spoke in defense of the policy and ran into sharp questioning by Senator Fulbright, Senator Wayne Morse (D, Ore.), long a vocal critic of the war, and others.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee went on to hold 'educational' hearings on the People's Republic of China, with testimony from scholars on Asian affairs. Senate hearings were also conducted on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), leading to a call on the part of 13 members of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee for a resolution urging a reduction of U.S. troop strength in Europe. Nineteen other senators joined in the call, but no action was taken.

But not all the words heard this year came from the congressional 'doves' worried about escalation of the Vietnamese war. The 'hawks' in Congress were at it, too. They urged an even tougher policy, including the bombing of Hanoi and the mining of the harbor at Haiphong. As for the president, he said he often found the 'hawks' more bothersome than the 'doves.'

In that connection Congress, acting on its own, authorized the president to mobilize some 790,000 members of the ready reserve to meet manpower needs for the Vietnamese war without taking the extraordinary step of declaring a national emergency. He had not sought the authority, which was written into a $58 billion military appropriations bill, and at session's end there was no word from the White House on whether or not he intended to use it.

President Johnson also got some guidance he did not particularly seek when Congress approved a $5 billion, two-year expansion of the Food for Peace program. Two provisions were added to the bill regarding the shipment by third countries of materials to North Vietnam and Cuba. When the president signed the bill he said the added provisions would 'create major difficulties for our foreign policy.'

One provision banned all food shipments under the program to any country selling or transporting any goods, strategic or otherwise, to North Vietnam. The other imposed a similar ban on countries making shipments to Cuba but gave the president authority to waive the ban when the transactions involved certain specified nonmilitary goods, such as medical supplies.

The draft system came under attack as being 'unfair,' particularly with regard to student deferments and the system of choosing from among those eligible to be called. The House Armed Services Committee held a series of hearings and heard some witnesses suggest a lottery-type selection process. The president set up his own panel to make recommendations on the draft system, and no legislation came from Congress.

In the Senate the Select Committee on Standards and Conduct (commonly called the Ethics Committee) found itself embroiled in an investigation of a Senate colleague, Thomas J. Dodd (D, Conn.). The charges, which grew out of columns by syndicated Washington columnists Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson, included allegations that the senator had diverted to his personal use part of the proceeds of four testimonial dinners and cocktail parties between 1961 and 1965. The senator expressed his confidence that the committee's investigation, which continued after adjournment, would vindicate him.

In December a House subcommittee began investigating the official spending of Representative Adam Clayton Powell (D, N.Y.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. The subcommittee was specifically concerned with Powell's authorization of travel expenditures and the salaries paid to his personal staff. Throughout the year House members had been concerned about his activities. In September members of his own committee voted 27 to 1 to curb his authority as chairman. But what most disturbed some members was Powell's conviction for contempt of court for refusing to pay a $164,000 libel judgment made against him in New York. Powell faces jail in this case but has avoided arrest by staying out of New York. In reaction to his conduct a move began in the House to block his seating when the 90th Congress assembles in January. Regardless of the outcome of the Dodd and Powell cases, it is clear that the inquiries raised the question of the need for an effective ethics code for all congressmen.

Civil Rights.

For two consecutive years Congress had gone along with new civil rights legislation, but in 1966 it decided to balk. President Johnson said in his State of the Union message in January that he would be seeking new legislation to ban discrimination in the sale and rental of all housing, to strengthen the criminal laws against harming and intimidating Negroes and civil rights workers, and to provide for racial balance on state and federal juries. Four months later he sent his proposals to Capitol Hill. The opposition, focusing on the open housing provision, was ready. The housing section was watered down in the House to exclude most individual home sales and boarding houses. An amendment to delete the housing section was defeated by a 222-to-190 vote on the House floor before the entire civil rights package was approved there by 259 to 157. The bill then went to the Senate, where it ran into more serious trouble, even though the housing section had been modified.

The impetus that helped put through the 1964 and 1965 bills was not around this time. There were signs of a white backlash fed by the riots in the Negro ghettos during the summer and the implication of militancy in the oft-heard cries from some Negro leaders for 'black power.' Some senators reported that their mail in the election year was running 30 or 40 to 1 against the measure. And Senate minority leader Everett McKinley Dirksen (R, Ill.), who had supported the last two civil rights bills, opposed this one. He called it a 'package of mischief' and claimed that it was unconstitutional. Dirksen declined to help administration forces break a Southern filibuster. Two efforts to shut off the debate failed by ten votes, and the bill was abandoned on September 19. Another factor in its defeat was the opposition of Senator Russell B. Long (D, La.), the Democratic whip in the Senate, who joined in the filibuster.

The session was also marked by an effort to weaken one civil rights law already on the books. The target was the announcement by the Office of Education of broad new guidelines for desegregating schools and hospitals and other medical facilities under the 1964 Civil Rights Act. On October 6, by a vote of 220 to 116, the House approved an amendment to the $6 billion school aid bill requiring that hearings be held before the government could defer funds to any school district suspected of practicing segregation. The Office of Education had called for the suspension of funds, without hearings, while it negotiated with the local school districts. When the bill emerged from the Senate, however, the curbs suggested by the House had been eased. The final bill set a 90-day limit on the deferment of such funds without hearings. A longer period would require hearings and an express finding of noncompliance.

Economy.

In line with its concern over the path of the economy, Congress readily went along with two administration tax bills designed to dampen inflationary pressures. Early in the session it approved a bill providing for accelerated payment of corporate taxes, for restoration of some automobile and telephone excise taxes, and for increases in tax withholding rates for persons in middle- and upper-income brackets. Then, toward the close of the session, it approved the administration's key anti-inflation bill, which suspended through 1967 the existing 7 percent tax credit on purchases of machinery and other equipment. It contained other provisions as well in an effort to persuade businessmen to delay or cut back any expansionary investment plans. The administration contended that the bill would ease the upward pressure on interest rates and thus would make more money available for loans to home buyers.

The president had talked all during the year of a possible need for an increase in individual income taxes to help dampen inflationary fires, but he made no decision during the session. Republicans repeatedly pointed to his handling of the economy, accusing him of not cutting back enough on federal spending.

Congress also enacted a bill aimed at improving the U.S. balance of payments deficit by liberalizing tax treatment of earnings on money invested by foreigners in this country.

Education.

Statistics help illustrate why the 89th Congress may well be known as the 'education Congress.' All 88 congresses that came before it voted a total of $5.8 billion in federal aid to education. The 89th alone voted $9.6 billion. During the first session it made history with its elementary and secondary education aid bill. To keep it going, the second session voted more than $6 billion for the next two years, even more than the president had requested. The bill liberalized requirements for receiving the aid and included provisions for new programs for handicapped children.

Another administration program—the creation of a teachers corps—barely got by. The program was designed to improve elementary education in impoverished areas by financing teams of experienced teachers and teacher-interns. The administration argued for the bill by saying that one fifth of the children in the nation were not receiving adequate education. It said that one reason for this was the teacher shortage, and therefore the corps would send its members into those communities where the need was greatest. Congress had authorized the program in 1965 but had not voted the funds to get it started. In 1966 it approved $7.5 million for the corps, although the president had asked for $32.4 million.

Cities.

President Johnson described his demonstration-cities bill as 'one of the most important pieces of legislation for all mankind.' But the question of whether it would survive the session was open almost until the very end, and it took a major lobbying effort by administration officials to win approval.

This key Great Society proposal was fashioned as an effort to rebuild entire urban centers by coordinating all existing federal aid programs and more into one attack on blighted neighborhoods. Cities selected to participate will receive federal funds for up to 80 percent of the required local share of the effort. The hope, as expressed by administration spokesmen, is that rehabilitation of slum areas will improve social, economic, and educational opportunities in the neglected urban sections.

The president's original request called for a $2.3 billion program spread over five years. As the bill finally emerged (38 to 22 in the Senate and 142 to 126 in the House) it provided for a $1.3 billion program over two years. The differences were less than they seemed. Although Congress rejected the longer-range program, the final bill provided essentially for the same annual level of spending.

Poverty.

Congress voted $1.75 billion for the War on Poverty but for the first time decided on closer supervision of the effort. It earmarked funds for the major programs, a move the administration did not endorse. The effect of the action specifying just how the funds should be spent was to cut into the freedom of action enjoyed by the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) in the past.

The new program put more emphasis on jobs, particularly for the hard-core unemployed and the older unemployed. It added new projects devised by Congress. One major change required a local contribution of 20 percent, instead of 10 percent, toward community action projects. Job Corps center directors were given stronger authority to maintain discipline. And the OEO director was specifically authorized to provide birth control materials as well as information if they are requested by the local community. The bill required that one third of the members of local community action agencies be representatives of the poor. It also contained a provision to cut off antipoverty funds or services to anyone who is convicted on charges of inciting a riot.

In a related action Congress voted $22 million for a rent-supplement program, praised by the president as the 'single most important breakthrough in the history of public housing.' Under the program the government will pay what amounts to a subsidy for poor families to live in decent housing. The tenant must pay 25 percent of his income for rent. The difference between this amount and the economic rent, or what the sponsor needs to pay off his mortgage and meet other expenses, constitutes the rent supplement.

Minimum Wage.

Organized labor was beaten on repeal of the right-to-work proposal, but it won a big victory to increase the minimum wage and extend coverage to about 8 million workers. The bill, sought by the president, provided for an increase in the minimum wage from the present $1.25 an hour to $1.40 on Feb. 1, 1967, and to $1.60 a year later. For the first time the minimum wage was extended to some farm laborers—about 390,000 employees on larger farms and workers on big migratory labor crews. Coverage was also extended to employees who receive tips; employers are required to pay at least 50 percent of the minimum wage on the theory that the other 50 percent would be acquired in tips. The bill was regarded as the most far-reaching in its field since Congress established the Wage and Hour Law in 1938.

Auto Safety.

Automobile safety was not one of the issues uppermost in the minds of congressmen when the session began, and little was expected to come of the campaign by a 32-year-old lawyer named Ralph Nader, who squared off against the mammoth automobile industry in his book Unsafe at Any Speed. But Senator Abraham Ribicoff (D, Conn.) decided to head an inquiry into automobile safety, and before the session was over the Senate had passed a safety bill by a voice vote and the House by a vote of 365 to 0. The bill authorized federal safety standards for motor vehicles, to take effect for 1968 model cars.

The auto makers first opposed any federal standards and said they could police themselves. For a time it looked as if they would have their way, but the Ribicoff inquiry proved decisive. Nader testified that after his book was published he was followed and harassed and that private detectives had questioned acquaintances about his private life. General Motors officials acknowledged there had been 'some harassment' that was 'most unworthy of American business.'

Then the inquiry obtained from the industry examples of unsafe conditions in some of their models. Thousands of cars were recalled for factory-suggested repair of defects. Industry opposition to the legislation began to fade as the inevitability of it became more apparent.

A Highway Safety Act was also passed, establishing a three-year, $322 million program to aid states in devising ways to prevent traffic accidents.

Consumers.

To the delight of housewives, Congress passed a truth-in-packaging bill, requiring more prominent and clearer labeling of some 8,000 items of food, drugs, and cosmetics. It required the labeling of containers so that shoppers can more easily see the weight or volume of the contents and provided for regulation of such meaningless designations as 'giant half-quart' and such promotion devices as 'cents off.'

The Supreme Court

Main Developments.

The Supreme Court of the United States broke new ground during 1966 in the field of juvenile court law and in the law respecting confessions made by a defendant while in the custody of the police. A major change of alignment in the Court was recognized with the increasing tendency of Mr. Justice Black, long known for his liberal views, to side with the Court's more conservative members, John M. Harlan, Tom Clark, Potter Stewart, and Byron R. White.

A Children's Hour.

On March 21, in Kent v. United States, 383 U.S. 541, the Supreme Court addressed itself to some of the legal questions arising from the procedures employed in the courts for children. The first juvenile court act in the United States was passed in the state of Illinois in 1899. Similar laws were soon placed on the statute books of almost every other state. Juvenile courts are designed to rehabilitate an offending youngster rather than to punish him. To assist in the accomplishment of that aim the procedure in juvenile courts is informal rather than rigidly legalistic. Indeed, the proceedings are said to be civil rather than criminal, and hence the procedural protections — such as the right to trial by jury, public trial, and the right to counsel—normally given an accused person are generally not available to those who appear in youth courts.

The question in Kent was whether the juvenile court for the District of Columbia had by a proper procedure transferred Kent, a youth of 16, to a criminal court for trial on charges of rape, housebreaking, and robbery. The judge, in the light of Kent's long record as a juvenile delinquent, decided that Kent could not benefit from the rehabilitative program available to the court. The decision was taken without a hearing, without revealing the 'social report' on Kent to his lawyers, and without giving reasons.

The action of the District of Columbia judge was held improper on the ground that the informal procedure employed was violative of the statute of the District of Columbia. If the Supreme Court's decision had been limited to the affairs of the District of Columbia it would spark little general interest, but the opinion of Mr. Justice Fortas permits no such narrow view of the case.

First, the opinion evidences distrust that promise and performance have been matched in juvenile court establishments. 'There are,' the justice wrote, 'grounds for concern that the child receives the worst of both worlds: that he gets neither the protections accorded to adults nor the solicitous care and regenerative treatment postulated for children.' Justice Fortas warned that the juvenile court's announced purpose of functioning in a 'parental relationship is not an invitation to procedural arbitrariness.' However, the justice did not decide Kent on constitutional grounds but on 'the basis of statutes applicable to the District of Columbia,' although, significantly, the statute was read 'in the context of constitutional principles relating to due process and the assistance of counsel.'

The degree to which constitutional (due process) principles are applicable in state cases was, at year's end, before the Court for decision. In Application of Gault the question whether juveniles are entitled to counsel in the juvenile court is presented. The case, argued December 6, will undoubtedly be a milestone in American legal history.

Voting.

For many years the ability to vote has depended, in some states, upon the payment of a poll tax. In consequence some persons, particularly among the poor and the racial minorities, have failed to exercise the franchise. In Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections, 383 U.S. 363, the Supreme Court held the poll tax to violate the 'equal protection' clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Actually, Harper dealt only with the remaining scraps of the poll tax phenomenon. The Twenty-fourth Amendment had already abolished the head tax as a prerequisite to balloting in federal elections; in 1966 only four states (Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia) continued to impose it. Hence, the main interest in Harper is not that the Court held that the poll tax did not comply with the standard of equal protection but that the opinions illustrate the sharp differences of view that now exist between Mr. Justice Black and Mr. Justice Douglas.

Justice Douglas wrote the majority opinion, which struck down the tax in spite of earlier cases which had held to the contrary. They had to be overruled. 'Wealth or feepaying has, in our view, no relation to voting qualifications; the right to vote is too precious, too fundamental to be so burdened or conditioned.'

Justice Black saw the problem differently. The Constitution does not set down the qualifications for voting in the states. The 'equal protection' clause simply forbids the states to make 'unreasonable,' 'arbitrary,' 'irrelevant,' or 'invidious' discriminations. A poll tax may be defended on rational grounds. The state may simply need the revenue, and to condition the right to vote on the payment of the tax may aid in collection of tax money. The legislators may have felt that if a voter will not spend the small sum involved ($1.50 or $2.00), his interest in good government and sound politics is small.

Justice Douglas affirmed that 'the 'equal protection' clause is not shackled to the political theory of a particular era.' Justice Black responded that when a portion of the Constitution becomes outdated, the judges are without power to change it. The Court ought not to give the 'equal protection' clause new meaning simply because the new departure represents better governmental policy. The amendment process must be used for rebuilding, not the decisions of nine men who are subject to little political control.

In another case the Supreme Court sustained congressional power to set state voting qualifications. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 provides that no person who has completed sixth grade in Puerto Rico shall be denied the right to vote in any election because of his inability to read or write English. There is no congressional power to determine who may vote in state elections, save for the power given in the Fourteenth Amendment to express the standards of the 'equal protection' clause by legislation.

A majority of the Court, in Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U.S. 361, found a justification for federal action. The Voting Rights Act could be viewed as a measure to secure for New York Puerto Ricans 'nondiscriminatory treatment by government—both in the imposition of voting qualifications and the provision or administration of governmental services.' In this case Mr. Justice Black was with the majority. At stake was the power of Congress to pass a law giving life to the Constitution, not, as in Harper, an action of the Supreme Court striking down the act of a state legislature because of its own changed view of the Constitution.

The Morgan decision is one of enormous significance. It recognizes power in Congress to legislate under the Fourteenth Amendment whenever the Congress may judge that a situation needs correction in order that the states fulfill their duties under that amendment. Mr. Archibald Cox, until recently solicitor general of the United States, has written: 'The Morgan case . . . clears the way for a vast expansion of congressional legislation promoting civil rights.' The case permits the torch of leadership in this field to pass from the Court to the Congress.

Cardona v. Power, 384 U.S. 672, presented the question whether New York must permit a Spanish-speaking person to vote without showing evidence of either a sixth-grade education or proficiency in English. While the case was returned to the lower courts for further information, it too illustrates the ideological debate on the Court. Justices Douglas and Fortas, dissenting, found that the Constitution itself forbids a literacy test, at least in places where public discussion in the foreign language is readily available. Justice Black voted with the majority of the Court.

In South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301, the Court sustained all the provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Never before has such broad federal power been asserted over state elections. The act provides, among other things, that literacy tests may not be employed to bar voting by those who have completed the sixth grade, that the states may not set up new voting 'tests' or 'devices' until they have been reviewed by federal authorities, and that federal examiners be empowered to register voters in those areas where less than 50 percent of persons of voting age registered or voted in the 1964 presidential election and where the exercise of the franchise is restricted by a 'test or device,' i.e., some demonstration of fitness to vote other than citizenship, residency, and age. 'Hopefully,' said Mr. Chief Justice Warren, 'millions of nonwhite Americans will now be able to participate for the first time on an equal basis in the government under which they live.'

Criminal Law.

American prosecutors and policemen have believed that effective law enforcement in serious cases requires that confessions be sought from suspects. The ease of obtaining confessions has now apparently been hampered by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436. Miranda provides that, before questioning a suspect who is in the custody of the police, the authorities must inform him that he has the right to remain silent, that anything he may say may be used against him, that he has a right to have his lawyer present, and that, if he cannot afford a lawyer prior to questioning, he may obtain one from the courts upon his request. These protections are said to be required by the privilege against self-incrimination granted by the Fifth Amendment.