October 1, 1971
Page 34518
TRUTH COULD COST MUSKIE DEARLY
HON. DONALD W. RIEGLE, JR. OF MICHIGAN IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Thursday, September 30, 1971
Mr. RIEGLE. Mr. Speaker, the following column by Paul Hope published in the Evening Star September 27 is worth reading. I am pleased to insert it in the RECORD
TRUTH COULD COST MUSKIE DEARLY
(By Paul Hope)
If it is true – as every politician, including President Nixon, is wont to say – that politics is the art of the possible, then why all the hullabaloo over Sen. Edmund S. Muskie's statement that he couldn't be elected president with a Negro on the ticket?
The way the Republicans and a number of Democrats are carrying on, one would think that maybe politics has been redefined as the art of lying.
If it has, then Muskie comes up short. Whatever else may be said about him – that he sometimes seems overly cautious, that he has a temper, that he has demonstrated some ineptness as a political organizer – it can't be said that he is untruthful.
Muskie's comment is being equated by some with George Romney's remark in 1967 that he was "brainwashed" by American officials when he visited Vietnam. Romney was crucified for it, and the remark turned out to be a major factor in scuttling his race for the 1968 Republican nomination before it even got under way.
A very high-ranking official of the Johnson administration remarked not long ago in an off-the- record discussion that Romney was absolutely right – that he had indeed been brainwashed. "They brainwashed me, too, not once but twice – and I swore, by God, they would never do it again," he said.
If the time is at hand that a candidate for elective office can't tell the truth as he sees it without wrecking his future, then politics really has reached a low state.
What Muskie did was to tell a group of black leaders that in his judgment it would be a futile gesture to put a black on his ticket. More than that, it would be a setback to efforts to implement his and their commitment to equality for blacks, because one first has to be elected to be able to do much about the problem.
That is practicing the art of the possible. Now comes the Republican National Committee's newsletter with a long and pious article accusing Muskie of shifting "rightward on the civil rights issue" and of making blacks "second class citizens" in the Democratic party.
"The remark," said the GOP newsletter, "made it plain – if Muskie is in the driver's seat at the Miami Beach convention, black Democrats will ride in the back of the bus." Considering that the Republican National Committee at a recent meeting in Denver thought the subject of how much black participation there should be at the Republican convention was too touchy to handle, one might ask if very many blacks will get on the bus at all when the GOP gathers at San Diego next year.
The newsletter makes a lot of to-do about criticism of Muskie's statement from three black Democratic House members. One can understand their "exasperation and rage," said the newsletter. It might be stated here that at least the Democratic party has some black House members. There are no black Republicans in the house to express exasperation and rage about anything.
The GOP newsletter's solicitude for blacks would be touching were it not for reminders from Republicans such as Michigan Gov. William Milliken, and Virginia Gov. Linwood Bolton that the Republican party's arms aren't exactly thrown wide open to blacks.
Then comes President Nixon, vowing not to talk about politics, but accusing Muskie of a "libel on the American people" for suggesting that they would not approve a Negro nominee for vice president – and declaring that it is "very important for those of us in positions of leadership not to tell a large number of people in America . . that because of the accident of their birth they don't have a chance to go to the top."
No one asked Nixon, when the subject came up at his press conference, whether he would take a black on his own ticket next year.
Says the GOP newsletter: "Perhaps more important than the political issue is the moral issue. Sen. Muskie has said, in effect, to every Negro – ‘You have no chance to participate equally in the white community.' "
Well, let's wait until August and see if Nixon puts a sign in the convention window at San Diego: "Help Wanted: Candidate for Vice President. Equal Opportunity Employer."