i
 

^^ "Remarks By Senator
Herbert Iri. Lehman on
Receiving the 'Franklin
D. Roosevelt Four
Freedoms Award,'"
December 13, 1954,
Lehman Papers, Special
Files, Legal Size, Frank
Altschul.
 

^^ Eleanor Roosevelt to
Lehman, January 16,
1962, Lehman Papers,
Special File, Eleanor
Roosevelt; Lyndon
Johnson ro Lehman,
August 27,1956,
Lehman Papers, Special
File, Lyndon Johnson.
 

^^ 101 Cong. Rec. 992
(January 28, 1955).
 

Lehman rejoiced when the Senate finally voted to censure McCarthy in
December 1954, but he warned that "the forces of fear," the "anti-Commu¬
nist vigilantes of the present day," still posed a grave danger to "our liberties,
our traditions, and our way of life," and that the struggle must continue to
safeguard "freedom, our civil liberties, and the principles of justice, of
decency, and morality." ^^

It was not just Lehman's defense of civil liberties and his opposition
to McCarthyism that led Eleanor Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and others
to refer to him as "the conscience of the Senate." ^^ Lehman's experience
as Director General of UNRRA gave him first-hand knowledge of the
widespread suffering in Europe caused by World War II, and as a
Senator Lehman fought to allow more European refugees and Displaced
Persons to enter the United States- Lehman sought to repeal the restric¬
tions on immigration that had been included in the Internal Security
Act, sponsored legislation to revise the quota system, and bitterly
opposed the McCarran-Walter Act which imposed even more stringent
restrictions on immigration, but he was on the losing side in each of these
battles, (See cartoons 20 and 21) Lehman also led the unsuccessful fight in
the Senate year after year to change the infamous Rule 22 which made it
virtually impossible to invoke cloture to cut off filibusters by Southern
Senators that prevented a vote on legislation to require fair employment
practices, make lynching a federal crime, prohibit poll taxes, or extend
and protect voting rights. And Lehman was one of only three Senators to
vote against the Formosa Resolution in 1955, warning that authorizing
the President to use the armed forces as he deemed necessary to protect
Formosa and the surrounding islands against armed attack was tanta¬
mount to giving him "a blank check of dangerous authority - authority
which can be used, or which might be used, to involve us in a war which
we did not want and which the free world does not want, and indeed
greatly fears." ^''
 

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