For the last three weeks, twenty liberal Senators have been filling the halls of their chamber with attacks on the tidelands oil bill. After something like four hundred hours of debate, what started as an "educational effort" has slid over into the classification of a filibuster.

The Senators did not plan it that way. They hoped the press and radio would communicate their case to the public. Then voters realizing what a titanic grab the bill is, would change some other Senators' minds. But the bulk of the stories in the press and air concern only cloture plans, baggy-cyed Senators, and plans to set up cots in the cloakroom. The only publications carrying the speeches are the Congressional Record, and the Democratic newspapers. The first is hardly a mass medium, and readers of the second are already convinced.

For this reason, the debate is serving none but an obstructive purpose. If they persist in it, the Senators will weaken their strong moral case against anti-civil rights filibusters by turning themselves into the pots which call the kettle black. The Senators should let the tidelands bill pass, knowing that as soon as the electorate wakes up there will be votes enough to repeal it. If they stop now, they can then continue their fight to end the archaic institution of the filibuster without the tinge of political hypocrisy.