The Place to Be

A name I remember. Roger Mudd was part of the CBS News that I grew up with: in my teens I became fixated on politics and world affairs, and it was CBS that I watched. Edward R. Murrow I think I saw in his program (perhaps Face-to-Face); it's a dim memory. But the News team of Cronkite, Mudd, Schorr, Rather, yes, I know I watched them.

This picture is fascinating, for its low tech (notice the Ys and Ns in the middle column veer right as the move down), and,most, for the names on it. Difficult as it is to see, the names Church, Gore and Fulbright have Ns next to them; just as surprisingly, Dirksen has a Y. The first three were Democrats, the last one a Republican - and this was a vote on "a key Senate vote on the Civil Rights Act" on June 10, 1964.


Roger Mudd, a correspondent for CBS News, reports
from Washington on June 10, 1964. The board tracks
a key Senate vote on the Civil Rights Act.

To think of Gore as voting against a Civil Rights Act component, while the Republican Minority Leader Dirksen voted for it, is to realize how strange politics can be, and how wrong stereotypes can be.