Dear Bob:1 The occasion for this note is merely the fact that I have not seen you for so long I am beginning to wonder whether you are concealing something from me regarding your own physical condition. I learned--I think from Mrs. Whitman--that you had to have some teeth out, but that alone should not keep you out of circulation for a number of weeks. Do let me know how you are getting along.2
The week has been a depressing one. I think the country took an awful beating in the second defeat that the civil rights bill took in the Senate.3 In the interests of gradual education and progress, I had no objection to the elimination of Section III from the bill. Moreover, the deletion of that Section seemed to me to make a stronger case for the enactment of Section I, which was directed exclusively to the right to vote. The distorted pictures that were presented concerning jury trials in actions rising out of injunctions to prevent interference with voting right--particularly distortions by some of the so-called liberals--were such as to confuse both the people and some members of the Congress. Add to this a lot of political log rolling, and it is no wonder that confusion and misunderstanding resulted.
No one has been more anxious than I to avoid the imposition of unfair legal requirements upon the people in any section of the country, particularly where such legal requirements would occasion dislocations in existing social systems. But in this day and time to assert that the entire area of judicial practices in cases of contempt where the United States is a party to the suit should have to be altered in order to avoid injustice to some possible offender is utterly absurd. A picture was painted of wholesale arrests and punishments. But no one stopped to think that there could be no arrest or punishment whatsoever unless some one did, without justification or wrongly, interfere with the voting rights of a citizen after the orders of a Federal judge had been issued to the contrary.
I am told that the list of laws in which no jury trial is required numbers about forty. These include laws in the antitrust field, labor disputes and so on. In this case, I am sure that you, for example, did not find in the proposed legislation regarding interference with the voting right, any cause for alarm with respect to your personal security in your own rights. Yet it would be made to appear that the whole country would have to stand in fear and trembling of an intemperate and prejudiced judiciary.
On top of all this, I am told that the Appropriation Committees, especially the one in the House of Representatives, are determined to slash our mutual security funds and that they will probably not allow us the requested authority for development loans on a three year basis.4 Here again it is the country that will suffer. If this were nothing more than what some of the papers try to make it--a quarrel between the Executive and the Congress--I could take whatever defeats come my way with a very great deal of equanimity. But the present struggle is not that at all, except in the minds of some unthinking Congressmen--far from all of them. This is a struggle between enlightened self-interest and sheer ignorance, or possibly one should say between good sense and blind prejudice. Some people are still stupid enough to believe in the concept of "Fortress America."
Then comes the news of the death of Senator George. For some days I have understood that recovery was not to be expected--that his case was really hopeless. Yet it is too bad that a man who exhibited such a high average of understanding in the whole field of foreign relations should have to leave the Senate and pass from the scene of this world's struggles while all around us are these people whose actions, if they should succeed in influencing the majority of our people, would certainly lead us closer and closer to the destruction of all that we hold most dear in this world.5
I find that much as I have always loved a fight, it is difficult for me to keep my temper when I find that upon the outcome of this kind of struggle depends the future of the country itself, and those that I should have a right to think of as understanding allies are, on the contrary, prejudiced antagonists.
At least you can be sure of this: on this issue I shall never cease striving. If the result is bad this year, it will be because my most earnest efforts have not succeeded. Moreover, in that event I shall again begin the battle as quickly as the voting is over and continue it as long as I am in this office.
Coming now to a great anti-climax, but still a matter of interest to you and me, I learn that Ed Dudley is leaving us to go to a permanent job in Puerto Rico.6 I am delighted for him, because he assures me that this will give him financial security for his old age. But for people like us who love to go to the Augusta National--one of the reasons for which is the opportunity to discuss our so-called golf with Ed--his departure will leave a definite void. I am already trying to figure out an excuse to make a winter trip to Puerto Rico, but I doubt if I shall be able to pull it off as long as I am in this job.
Let me say again that I am concerned about your health and I do pray that you are well on the road to recovery of your normal strength and vigor.
Give my love to your charming Nell and, of course, all the best to yourself.7 As ever
