Civil Rights
Cry Wolf Quotes
This bill, by vesting the power to withhold or terminate Federal funds, creates a concentration of power of economic coercion unequaled in the history of governments—a power concentration which defies the experience of mankind with the temptation of power to corrupt.
The power granted the Attorney General to intervene in all equal-protection-of-the-law cases is extremely broad and dangerous. Choices made by the Attorney General could follow a political and selected pattern.
This bill would renounce the safe, proper, and acceptable role for Government as a referee of disputes between the governed. It would interpose the Government as a biased protagonist, armed with the awesome authority of the Federal Government, in addition to rulemaking and umpire powers. The broad grants of power to the Attorney General to initiate and intervene in civil actions would go far toward transforming him into George Orwell’s ‘Big Brother’ of ‘1984,’ in the year 1964.
Mr. President, passage of this bill will visit the heel of oppression on all the people, vitiate their constitutional shield against tyranny, and materially hasten the destruction of the best design for self-government yet devised by the minds of men. Its passage will mark one of the darkest days in history
