Dems fighting for the rights of the disenfranchised

would be getting rid of child labor.

Farm groups fought him fiercely. So did the Catholic Church, declaring any new restrictions an infringement on parents’ rights. Apart from the Daily News, the state’s other major papers opposed reform, too, for their own reasons.

“When our fellow publishers talk about freedom of the press,” a News editorial wryly observed, “they mean freedom to hire children to deliver newspapers before light on winter mornings because children are cheaper.”

Lehman won that liberal battle, too. But by the time he reached the Senate in 1949, at the age of 70, the fight seemed to have gone out of him.

His tireless push for civil rights legislation only earned him the enmity of LBJ, then a cautious Senate majority leader. A dramatic stand against Sen. McCarthy (RWisc.) fizzled after Lehman walked over to the red-baiter’s desk to confront him. “Go back to your seat, old man,” McCarthy growled. Shaken, Lehman went.

Perhaps it’s more important, Brown suggests, to remember Lehman for all he accomplished before he arrived in the Senate. His years at Desk 88 may not have been mythic. But he had established his legend long before that. And, his progressivism was unwavering.

So was Sen. George McGovimmediately ern’s (D-SD).

In 1962, after winning the election in South Dakota by a scant 597 votes, McGovern went to work in Washington. Garnering support from Sen. Bob Dole (RKan.), McGovern established the nation’s food stamp program. Free and reduced-price school lunches came next.

By 1968, McGovern was one of the leading critics of the Vietnam War. By 1972, he was the Democratic candidate for president.

Of course, the campaign was a catastrophe, with Nixon winning in a landslide. But the dry McGovern kept his sense of humor. “Ever since I was a young man, I wanted to run for the presidency in the worst possible way,” he said. “And I did.”

It’s a good line, but the best one in the book goes to someopposition’s one who never sat at the fabled desk, John Pastore of Rhode Island. Little remembered today, he was the first Italian-American governor in the United States. He went to Washington in 1950 to serve with the then-current occupant of Desk 88, Sen. Theodore F. Green (D-RI).

A skilled orator, Pastore’s impassioned speeches began to draw tourists. Colleagues going up against him knew to be prepared for fireworks.

So, in 1964, the Senate gallery was crowded as debate drew to a close on the Civil Rights Act. Concluding the case. Sen. Russell Long of Louisiana rose to speak. For a quarter of an hour, he eulogized the South’s elegant old way of life. Long talked about taboos and tradition, rebels, and respect. He painted a flowery, magnoliascented portrait of Dixie as it was, and always should be.

Finally, he took his seat and yielded the floor to Pastore.

Senators and spectators alike braced themselves for the inevitable explosion. Pastore slowly drew himself up to his full 5 feet, 4 inches. Everyone held their breath, waiting for his response.

“So what?” he said. Then he sat down and called for the vote.

The measure passed, 73-27.