POLITICAL LYNCHING OF ADAM CLAYTON POWELL
Resentment is running high among black Americans over the "recommendations" of a select committee of the U.S. House of Representatives to punish Adam Clayton Powell for alleged "gross misconduct." The penalties are considered to be the severest in the history of Congress. They include a fine of $40,000, the first time the body has ever levied such a punishment. In addition, the committee recommended a public’ censure, the loss of all seniority, the removal’of 4 woman secretary, Corrine Huff, from the House:payroll, and the submission of all the committee's reports and records to the Justice Department "for prompt and-appropriate action."* , ‘ 4
Powell was charged with improperly placing various persons on the House payroll, the main one being his wife, Y. Marjorie Flores; from whom ‘he is separated. The committee sought to prove that Mrs. Powell did not perform any official duties and in fact: did not actually receive .a good part of the money paid’ out in her name. .
The anger in the Negro community arises from the fact that reprehensible-as | Powell's conduct may have been, the practice of putting relatives-on the congressional payroll is quite common. There are at present forty-one members of Congress who have relatives on the payroll, some at salaries topping $20,000 a year. A list compiled by Associated Press and released February 20 showed "fifteen other wives, two daughters, four sons, four brothers, nine sisters, one niece, one grandnephew, one cousin, one uncle, one aunt, one granddaughter, one father, two sisters-in-law, two brothers-—in-law, one son-in-law, two mothers-in-law and one brother-in-law's wife"'either still on the congressional payroll or on it during some time in the past year.
‘ The action of the committee, which is headed: by the well-known liberal Emmanuel Celler, was clearly designed to destroy Adam Clayton Powell politically. The Harlem congressman may find it difficult to meet the fine even though the proposed procedure is to subtract it from his $30,000 a year salary at the rate of $1,000 a month. He has long been in hot water due to a huge slander suit. If he should refuse to take the oath of office, thereby making it possible for a new election to be held in his district, which he would in all likelihood win by a big majority, the committee's recommendations would still hold, according to-Celler. In addition, a move may now be under way to bring criminal charges against Powell. This is the obvious meaning of the committee's turning its records ‘over to the Justice Department and demanding "prompt and appropriate action."
“In the Negro community even the most conservative sectors filed protests. Whitney M. Young, executive director of the Urban League, told a news conference, "In this nation you can be white and wrong and make it. You can be black and right and perhaps be ‘successful, but it is obvious that you cannot be both black and wrong."
Martin Iuther King reiterated his stand that "the Negro community will interpret it as an attempt to take reprisals against a Negro who has risen to'a position of political power."
Floyd McKissick, executive director of the Congress of Racial Equality, said the committee's ruling amounted to “political castration of both Mr. Powell and of all black people, for Adam has been the only voice black people had in Congress since Reconstruction." Powell “was not perfect, but the best we had to address himself to the solution of our problems."
The American Civil Liberties Union denounced the recommendations and stated that the constitution limited qualifications for membership in Congress to age, citizenship and residence.