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TEXAS AT LARGE 1 17 ime to Leave the Funeral t ft c tnose jtatter who fear, it is not an American art. JEFFERSON A collect Wire The struck merchants in Port Arthur are in an impossible losition. Even their friends until now, Allan Shivers and John Ben Shepperd, have abandoned them. Mr. Shepperd has said that communism is no longer an suein the strike, and both men have offered their good ,ffices in its settlement. Shall we sit down and talk it over ? Mr. Shepperd asked he merchants. No : Never, they replied. Communism should never have been an issue in Port Arthur. The severely anti-communist CIO has at all times ‘asked the strike and the unions involved completely. The eason for the strike is the low pay and long hours in the etail trades. This is the Christmas time. This is the time when hearts ,hould open and brothers love. Yet these few men responded o a request for a meeting by wiring their refusal collect. They are holding out against the right of their fellow ownsmen to organize for their own welfare, just as other itizens do. They are holding out for job insecurity, for holidays with out pay, for meals deducted from skinny paychecks. They are holding out for profits higher than they should , hours longer than they should be, wages lower than they hould be, and hearts stingier than they should be. Let the union be recognized, the strike ended, and the cood will that has marked labor-management relations all ver the United States be restored in Port Arthur. tiling eath The two highest officials in the State, at least twelve i. ambers of the senior chamber of the Legislature, and several other state officials spent last Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday partaking of the solids and fluids of the celebrative ife, boating down the Nueces River on the Texas Corniunting reserves of the Port Arthur Hunting Club. Such soirees are next to commonplace among Texas poliicians. This dangling weekend, paid for by business and ndustrial interests in the Jefferson-Orange County area, vas publicized locally with a shameless candor that speaks ;loquently of the insensitive condition of public morality n Texas. Discussing the matter with friends within the humble confines of our new office, we have been told that there is lathing wrong with a cruise and a hunting trip if the businessmen of an area want to give the legislators a good time. 3ut we cannot forget the rigor with which Senator Paul Douglas has refused any gifts exceeding a small cash-limit value. Many of us would rejoice in our legislators’ good fortune, Lnd, indeed, would not be adverse to sharing it, under somewhat different circumstances. But let the people think upon li.e subtle dangers of such behavior. \(There are others not TOU were a senator and spent a joyous three days cruising, :easting, and hunting as the guest of various business inerests, including oil companies, banks, a hotel, and rubber, emical, and shipbuilding companies. Two months later le same pleasant and intelligent but ubiquitous gentlemen would re-appear to discuss with you, man to main, pending legislation regulating oil allowables, or revising Texas anti-trust law, or taxing industrial corporations. We do not know what would go on in your mind, but it is a question worth asking of yourself. Many are the joys of lunch-time caucuses and cocktail parties, and far be it from us to cast a baleful Victorian eye ,n good clean fun. We only wish to express our hope that he marksmen of the intracoastal marshes can share with Thomas Jefferson his contentment when he wrote, in a somewhat different connection: ft. . . I have in multiplied instances found myself happy in being able to decide and to act as a public servant, clear Dr all interest, in the multiform questions that have arisen, wherein I have seen others embarrassed and biased by having got themselves into a more interested situation.” Olp Orxas Obrrurr Incorporating The State Observer, combined with the East Texas Democrat December 20, 1954 Published once a week from Austin, Texas. Delivered postage prepaid $4 per annum. advertising rates available on request. Extra copies 5c each. Quantity orders available.. Entered as second-class matter April 26, 1937, at the Post Office at Austin, Texas, der the act of March 8, 1879. ,ILING ADDRESS: Drawer F, Capitol Station, Austin, Texas. FICE OF PrBLICATION: 604 W. 24th St., Austin, Texas. Phone: 70746. Ronnie Dugger cq-iik. 3 Dell Sackett Ed itor Business Maanger e will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and ‘ v’e see it. We are dedicated to the whole truth, to human values above all ‘-1its of man as the foundation of democracy ; we will take orde”s –:.nee, and never will we overlook or misrepresent the – r to th e ignooie Rayburn Celebrates; Butler Hums Dixie_ The power of Texans in the new Congress will be unprecedented. The new national chairman, Paul Butler of Indiana, will leave Con gressional policy matters to the leaders on Capitol Hill. These include Speaker Sam Rayburn and Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson. Rep. Olin Teague of the CorsicanaBryan district will be chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Cornmittee, and Rep.’ Omar Burleson of Anson-Abilene will be at the head of the House Administration Cornmittee. Other powerful Texans on the House committees are Reps. George Mahon, Lubbock, appropriations; W. R. Poage, Waco, agriculture; Paul Kilday, San Antonio, armed services; and Wright Patman, Texarkana, banking and currency. Speaker Rayburn is backing Rep. Thornberry of Austin for a spot on the House Rules Committee. . . . Butler also let it be known that he is ready to “receive” Southern conservatives who bolted the Democratic Party for Eisenhower in 1956. Texas Democrats in New Orleans thought they sensed that he was not as adamant as Mitchell on the matter. He told the press he had talked to Southern leaders and they “accepted my views.” . . . Senator Price Daniel fought hard to remove the count against General Zwicker from the McCarthy censure resolution. Upon his success, he boasted that the censure resolution contained nothing even remotely connected with communism. Lyndon Johnson finally joined, him against the Zwicker count. . . . The recent Shivers-Byrnes snafu over Johnson for President was all an accident. The Governor had no intention of sending up a trial balloon via a news leak. Sam Wood of the Waco Tribune and Bill Henry of INS just happened to be in the hotel room next door when Shivers and Byrnes were discussing Johnson, and Wood listened “through the transom.” That’s why Shivers could say no one else was in the room, but Wood could reply he heard it “with my own ears.” Shivers’s endorsement doubtless hurts Johnson with national Party leaders. . . . One Shivers quote that got lost in the confusion surrounding the Boca Raton story may be im portant: he told Byrnes in the private conference that the only place he was running for was home. . . . The opinion is strengthening that Ralph Yarborough may be a candidate again. Price Daniel’s suggestion that he be drafted to leave the Senate two years before his term ends and run for Governor has met lukewarm response; the Austin-American, for example, said he was serving the State best in the Senate. John White, the Agriculture Commissioner, seems to be making his bid this time. Will Wilson of the Supreme Court is thinking about the angles. There is little doubt that John Ben Shepperd is a candidate. Liberals feel his recent statement that the Po.L Arthur strike no longer involves communism may be an effort to wriggle off the hook with labor and the liberals. . . . New Orleans aftermath: Kathleen Voigt of San Antonio called Sam Rayburn the Saturday of the big Democratic weekend and invited him to tour the French Quarter with some Texans that evening. At first he said he was too old but then he relented. The Texas group, which swelled at each street corner, celebrated at the Court of Three Sisters and LaFitte in Exile, then wound up at Pat O’Brien’s, where about 200 New Orleanians sang Rayburn’s favorite songs, made up one predicting a Democratic victory. One fellow gave Rayburn a check for $50 for the Democrats. Early in the evening the discussion centered around the first constitutional convention; by 3 a.m. Rayburn said “One more drink and I’ll tell you a good joke!” Next morning Stephen Mitchell rode the Texans for taking out “the second most important man in the world” and, he mocked, jeopardizing the security of the United States. . . . Jack Porter, the Republican national committeeman, predicts in Dallas that Eisenhower will carry Texas in 1956 by a large majority. … A special study by Democrats in Dallas shows that in ten GOP precincts, of 18,400 persons of voting age, 17,008 had poll tax receipts or exemptions and 15,965 voted; but in ten Democratic precincts with 43,400 persons of voting age, only 11,103 had poll tax receipts or exemptions and only 8,622 voted. . . . Secretary of Labor James Mitchell, whose statement against the so-called right-to-work laws was disclaimed by Eisenhower, writes in The American Weekly that child labor is still a national problem. He relates that in Tyler, Texas, a pipe foundry was discovered working 19 children under 14 as early as 3 a.m. . . . Billy Graham, the evangelist, interviewed at Carter Field last weekend, stepped into politics with the charge that the U. S. Government was “fiddling around with little matters” while the Chinese Communists were “brutally imprisoning our flyers,” the Dallas Times-Herald reports. . . . The Hi-Y Legislature, meeting in Austin, endorsed the end of school segregation within seven years and appropriations of $15,000,000 to improve the mental institutions of the State; wanted lie detector results admissible in court evidence; and asked for a year’s waiting period before divorces become final. A Port Arthur youth delegation got through its proposal to restrict picketing to “bona fide” employees of a struck firm. . . . Texas Electric Cooperatives, Inc., is aroused by the Upshur Rural Electric Cooperative case. State officials are arguing that coop members drawn into a city by an ordinance should no longer get rural co-op service. The co-op people retort that this would keep coops miles away from the cities. Drew Pearson reports that the Federal Power Commission is “stalling” on regulating natural gas companies until Lyndon Johr.sor, whom Pearson calls “the chain] of the oil and gas industry,” get a bill through Congress cul off FPC’s regulatory power.