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Show Kennedy Moves 'Other America' Editor's note: Jack Newfield, who is editor of the "Village Voice" and author of "The Prophetic Minority," Min-ority," has written articles on Senator Kennedy for "Life" magazine. Here he gives his opinion on why Kennedy will get his vote over Senator Eugene McCarthy, Mc-Carthy, another presidential hopeful. By JACK NEWFIELD For a radical democrat like myself, the choice between Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy is certainly not a simple one. On some issues, like the draft, the CIA, and the security complex in general, Senator McCarthy is clearly more enlightened. On issues like the decentralization of bureaucracy and reforming re-forming the demeaning welfare structure, Senator Kennedy is by far more progressive. Finally, however, I chose Senator Kennedy for two reasons: poverty and history. I believe Kennedy, for the last four years, has been the single best Senator on the gut issues of the cities, race, and poverty; he has been the representative of all the unrepresented of America. And by history, I mean only Kennedy, because of his ability to reach and stir the Black underclass, un-derclass, can possibly reconcile America once the Vietnam war is over. A Matter of Record Citing old voting records can be a cheap way to score debate points. But I believe Eugene McCarthy's Senate voting record since 1960 reveals a pattern of psychic distance from the poor. He is certainly not anti-Negro or corrupt; he is just not very interested in the other America. In 1960, he voted against bringing thousands of laundry workers and car washers under minimum wage coverage. In 1964 he voted against cutting the oil depletion allowance, something his Minnesota constituency surely did not insist on. In 1965, it was his vote which caused the defeat of the anti poll-tax amendment, sponsored by Edward Kennedy. Ken-nedy. In 1967, the ADA gave McCarthy a 62 per cent rating, Robert Kennedy was one of two Senators to receive 100 per cent. But Kennedy has done more than vote right. He made the insurgent cause of the migrant farm workers his own, even though few migrant workers are registered reg-istered to vote, and many of the growers are rich and influential. Kennedy also has begun a pioneering anti-slum anti-slum project in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant ghetto that is based on the notions of Black control and participatory par-ticipatory democracy. Further, Kennedy did not have to go to South Africa to address an anti-Apartheid student organization, organiza-tion, or to convince the Senate to create a new subcommittee sub-committee on Indian Affairs that he could head. The night Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated, Kennedy Ken-nedy and John Lindsay were the only two White politicians poli-ticians in America who went into the ghetto because they were the only two who could. I will always respect Senator McCarthy for entering the New Hampshire primary and resent Kennedy's decision not to run until after McCarthy's victory. But McCarthy had nothing to lose by running in New Hampshire, and Kennedy did. A Lousy Reason McCarthy's act had purity, but it does not mean he will be a great President. To support McCarthy for President just because he was first to announce, is, I feel, a White, middle class indulgence, when measured against his. record and Kennedy's record on the poor, marginal, and unrepresented. It is indicative that former SNCC chairman John Lewis is working for Kennedy, and that Cesar Chavez is running as a Kennedy delegate, while McCarthy lost the Black districts of Milwaukee 2 to 1 to Lyndon Johnson in the April 2nd primary. Only through Kennedy Ken-nedy can political insurgents and the Black poor be united. American politics over the next five years will be framed and dominated by the Lost Generation of the "rusT ifgthf'-Whf 6 PreSid6nt mUSt have the .rust f the White racism" the riot commission spoke of is to be confronted and eradicated We are entering the Long, Hot Decade and onlv Robert Kennedy has a chance - and it ls a smaX chance - to quench the fires this time YnH h,f new coalition of the young the poor sSthJ "nd build a (D . , , . jung, me poor, and the concerned (Reprinted from the Oregon Daily Emerald) |
