Every piece of legislation introduced into the Senate of the United States which might affect the future of our Republic, or any sovereign State of that Republic, should be thoroughly examined openly before the people with no restriction placed upon that examination; for, after it is passed, by simple majority vote, it may prove far more difficult to undo, if harmful effects should result from the same when it becomes law.

We are in too much of a rush today to get things done. In this pushbutton, streamlined, jet age we scarcely take time to live any more let alone examine measures thoroughly which may affect the last semblance of freedom on the face of the earth. We need to slow down and reexamine whither we are bound.

This representative Government of ours is being pressurized by highly vocal and well-financed minority groups to change its methods of doing things-methods which have proved themselves to be in the best interests of the Nation as a whole through many decades of trial; and experiments.

Year after year, since the first Senate met in 1789, individuals in this body have tried to introduce changes in Senate rules to limit full and free discussion, oftentimes in the form of gag rules. But, our Senators have steadfastly refused to adopt such restrictive measures with the exception of the present required two-thirds cloture rule passed in 1917. Why, might we ask, a two-thirds rule? Perhaps this can best be answered by stating that history proves that the majority is not always in the right.

We hear a lot of arguments advanced to the effect that small minorities in the Senate can obstruct the will of the majority, and that therefore this right of the minority must be taken away. This is contrary to the United States Constitution itself. Our form of government was never set up on the basis of stifling the expression of minorities, even by a majority of one.

If we consult the proceedings of the United States Senate, as a continuing body from 1789 until the present day, we will find that the only time the filibuster was used was on some measure against which there was strong minority opinion and a definite basis for opposition. Out of a total of 36 measures against which the filibuster was used, only 11 failed of passage (some of these were the same bills or similar ones introduced over a period of time) and the other 25 were eventually passed, usually after being modified by the elimination of potentially dangerous provisions, or by adding to them features which would benefit particular States or areas of the Nation. That is a pretty good record in the history of American legislation.

Granted that there may have been some inequities resulting from the use of the filibuster in conectionn with the 11 bills which did not pass, is that any reason to burn the proverbial "house" down in order to destroy a few "rats" in the basement?

It is amazing, to say the least, how opponents of the present twothirds cloture rule, while demanding a change from two-thirds to a simple majority, conveniently ignore the fact a two-thirds vote of both Houses of the Congress is required to override a minority of one; namely, the veto of the President of the United States; and, a threequarter vote of all the sovereign States is required to ratify a constitutional amendment.

If the basis for the arguments presented over a period of years by those in favor of a simple majority as a means for closing debate is followed to its logical conclusion, then the President of the United States could be classified as an obstructionist to the will of the majority, and at least one-fourth of the States also constituted an obstruction to the will of the majority. These exponents of majority rule, in order to be consistent in their thinking, should ask that a Presidential veto be overridden by a simple majority of both Houses, and that a constitutional amendment be ratified by 25 States instead of by 36.

It would be well to recall at this point the words of the distinguished Senator John C. Calhoun, when on July 12, 1848, he stated concerning Senator Clay's proposal to introduce the "previous question" in order to limit debate, as follows:

There never had been a body in this, or any other country, in which, for such a length of time, so much dignity and decorum of debate had been maintained. Despite the fact that there have been what might be classified as exceptions to the usual decorous procedure of the Senate at times in the life of this body, Senator Calhoun's statement is certainly applicable to the years since 1848 as much as to those prior to that date.

Again, in 1881, when a resolution was introduced to amend the Anthony rule and was objected to on the grounds that it was actually a form of introducing the use of "the previous question," Senator Edmunds made a profound observation which could well be taken to heart today by those who propose to stifle unlimited and free debate. by changing Senate rule XXII:

I would rather not a single bill shall pass between now and the 4th of March than to introduce into this body, which is the only one where there is free debate, and the only one which can under its rules discuss fully. I think it is of greater importance to the public interest in the long run and in the short run that every bill on your calendar should fail than that any Senator should be cut off from the right of expressing his opinion upon every measure that is to be voted upon here. I, for one, as an American citizen, and an intelligence officer in the United States Air Force Reserve, who have seen with my own eyes the suppression of free discussion in Juan Peron's Argentina-and Mr. Chairman, I could go into that at length if we had the time, when I saw how he packed his own people in the Senate, put his own people in the court, and the common people had no recourse whatsoever, and only through violent revolution was that overcome-in Communist China when I served with General Chenault's 14th Air Force, and in Europe, agree with Senator Edmunds' statement wholeheartedly.

If minority rights are to be preserved, they should be preserved in the Senate of the United States first of all, as such minorities consist of men and women who are duly elected to this august body by majorities in their own sovereign States. They are directly responsible to the will of these people.

It would be a direct slap in the face to these majorities in the States to tell their elected representatives in the Senate that they will not be permited to speak as long as they desire on any given measure. If these particular Senators are in the wrong, then it is up to the people who send them to Washington to correct that wrong, and it is not up to the Senators from other States to draw such a conclusion. The ballot box is the finest free weapon we have left for correcting any abuse of senatorial privileges.

It is interesting to note that, since the first motion to invoke the cloture rule was introduced in the United States Senate on November 15, 1919, the Senate itself voted in favor of that motion only 4 times out of a total of 22 times that it was made.

This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Senate itself, by substantial vote margins, was in favor of unlimited debate on 18 of the 22 measures before it. In each of the 18 instances a substantial number ranging from 27 to 77 opposed the limitation of debate.

In the light of these historical facts, we can only ask: Why are these proposals to limit debate continually presented before the Senate Rules Committee and its subcommittees? History is continually repeating itself, but the tragedy is that we do not seem to learn the lesson of history until it is too late. It is my opinion, after having examined the influences brought to bear on once-free nations in the process of turning them over to totalitarian regimes, that freedom of expression, whether oral or written, has always been stifled first before the country was captured by a dictator or totalitarian regime.

It is a singular fact that the Senate of the United States has passed a higher percentage of bills since its inception, without majority cloture, than the House of Representatives has passed with such a cloture rule.

The Senate is known to be the more deliberative of the two bodies of the Congress. I do not believe that the American people want this change through a speedup campaign, which would surely result if the present Senate rule XXII were changed from two-thirds to a chance majority.

Some have advanced the idea that the filibuster as used in the United States Senate causes adverse criticism of our Government in foreign countries-I think Mr. Reuther tried to make quite a point of that this morning especially on the part of foreign governmental assemblies.

I think it is about time that we stop paying attention to the criticisms of people who have been receiving continuous handouts from the American taxpayers for lo, these many years, and from governments which have various conceptions of justice and freedom which are alien to traditional American constitutional concepts.

I have traveled on every continent in this world. I have served this Government on every continent of this world. And, if I were to take the time, Senator Talmadge, this morning to refute the statements which Mr. Reuther made in regard to India and other places that he has visited, we would be here for many days to come.

I, too, have talked to thousands of these people. I have talked to the leaders of these countries, and I can say that the worst discrimination of any kind in the world and the greatest inequalities are found in the very countries which Mr. Reuther mentioned here this morning as criticizing the Government of the United States, and, with all of our handouts we have made to these countries, these countries have not improved the social conditions there.

They have the extreme rich and the extreme poor, and a far greater differentiation between classes in those countries than we have in the United States of America.

Our country has existed as a free republic because our people have enjoyed the freedoms guaranteed to them in the great documents written by wise Founding Fathers. Let us not send this Nation down the road which decadent foreign nations have already traveled by re

stricting full and free debate on the part of our United States Senators, whom we send to Washington for the purpose of representing us and maintaining a position on any measure which is in accordance with the views of the constituency they are representing.

Thank you very much for this opportunity of presenting these views to the special subcommittee of the Committee on Rules and Administration.

Senator JAVITS. Thank you, Mr. Bundy.

Senator TALMADGE. Mr. Bundy, we appreciate your very fine state

ment.

The next hearing will be July 2, at 10 a. m.

There are a number of insertions for the record.

The first one is for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, Mr. Biemiller, furnishing certain information I requested.

(Inserted in the testimony of June 24, 1957, at p. 80.)

Senator TALMADGE. The second is a petition from St. Louis, Mo. (See appendix, exhibit 4.)

Senator TALMADGE. The third is a letter from the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War.

(See appendix, exhibit 2.)

Senator TALMADGE. Here is an individual letter from Wheeling, W. Va.

(See appendix, exhibit 3.)

Senator TALMADGE. Next is a letter from the Banner Council, No. 67, of the Sons and Daughters of Liberty, Inwood, Long Island, Ñ. Y. (See appendix, exhibit 2.)

Senator TALMADGE. We also have a statement to be printed in the record from Dean Clarence Manion of South Bend, Ind.

(See appendix, exhibit 2.)

Senator TALMADGE. That is all the insertions at this time.

I believe that completes the hearing at this point. If you do not have anything to place in the record, we stand in adjournment until July 2, at 10 a. m.

(Whereupon, at 1:25 p. m., the hearing adjourned, to reconvene on Tuesday, July 2, 1957, at 10 a. m.)