1. Negative blue slips during this period still carried weight but did not prevent a nominee from going to the Senate floor. For instance, in 1917 Senator Thomas W. Hardwick's objected to U.V. Whipple's nomination to the Southern District of Georgia as "personally offensive and objectionable," and although Whipple made it out of committee, he was voted down in the Senate;J Barry;The Blue Slip-Process for U.S. Circuit and District Court Nominations,2017
2. First, leading civil rights groups, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) both directly petitioned then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson to abandon the seniority rule that gave Eastland control of the committee after the death its previous chair;Senator Robert Kilgore;Id. at,1954