ustxtxb_obs_1955_05_30_50_00002-00000_000.pdf

“What’s the Matter, Don’t You Like The Two-Party Party?” LYNDOW’ ,,Atrt e r I LIKE h.? ? 1111111111111111″‘ .4.”;.* tt% Bartlett appears exclusively in The Texas Observer TEXAS AT LARGE Rumbles About Briscoe and Ben_ The most startling rumor making the rounds in Austin is that Judge James Hart, former associate justice of the Texas Supreme Court and until a few years back chancellor of The University of Texas, is thinking about making the race for Governor in 1956. Hart has been unwilling to consider the race for years, though he has often been urged to run by his friends. He has acknowledged to at least two personal friends that he is turning it over in his mind. …. Another surrpising report that Lieutenant Governor B e n Ramsey may run for Attorney General has a lot of substance. His backers, the most important of whom is Herman Brown, have decided Ramsey probably could not win a tough campaign for Governor, this report says. Sen. Jarrard Secrest is talking very seriously of running for Attorney General, too. But if Ramsey runs, a lot of potential candidates will eye other races. Ramsey’s candidacy would be significant in light of the rumored intention of Attorney General John Ben Shepperd of running for reelection. He probably realizes his chances for higher office would not be good in 1956. …. Rep. Dolph Briscoe, the quiet, patrician legislator f r o m Uvalde, is said to be thinking about the lieutenant governorship. Sponsor of the still-stalled House resolution to establish a permanent investigating committee to check up on corruption in State Government, Briscoe has had good publicity breaks this session. …. State hospitals and special school have gotten just about what they asked for from the Texas Legislature this session, but there are two big exceptions that are still bothering the hospital boosters including Governor Shivers. A bill which would authorize the Hospital Board to provide suitable teaching, training, and research facilities is still resting in the House appropriations committee. Backers of the measure can’t figure why it was ever put in appropriations, anyway, because it’s an enabling bill. There would be no new money needed. Max Smith, chairman of the committee, is against the measure for some unknown reason. Backers call it a basic measure for state hospital reform. Another measure, now pending in the Senate, has the support of Gov. Shivers, but things don’t look too good for it. This is the measure which makes the sanity trial by jury optional instead of mandatory. Shivers says a mandatory jury sanity trial for citizens who need to be hospitalized for such reasons as old age or sickness is a disgrace. …. Puzzling straws in the Galveston wind: the n e w Mayor Clough is for an open town but emphatically against graft. He proposes to clean up the payoff sys AUSTIN The student Great Issues Committee of the University of Texas decided to invite Adlai Stevenson to speak on their program recently after Dr. Logan Wilson, University President, approved the invitation. Carol Hamilton, chairman of the committee, said Stevenson was first disapproved at a meeting between Wilson, a faculty adviser, and Miss Hamilton at which Wilson reiterated the point that political candidates could not be invited. Reps. Bob Wheeler, D. B. Hardeman, and Zeke Zbranek visited Wilson after reading this newspaper’s account of the rejection of Stevenson, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt as Great Issues speakers. Wheeler told Wilson he was “utterly enraged one else could blackball Adlai Stevenson.” Wilson said that Great Issues speakers are not submitted to Regents for approval, contrary to a report in the Observer. This newspaper quoted a member of the cornmittee so stating and erred in not tern, let the prostitutes and gamblers run like any other business, sans protection. The reformers in Galveston are divided. Bill Kugle, the reform leader, has tried to convince Clough you can’t have a araftless open town, but Clough isn’t convinced. So the prospect is for a reopened Balinese Room, a reinstated Post Office district, wideopen gamblingand an officialdom deprived of the usual emoluments of such a system. If it works, the reformers who say they are not against a man taking a fling but are against corruption in government will be put to the acid test. …. Watch for some party politics in-fighting before Paul Butler arrives in Texas June 14and in the Legislature, before it adjourns, over corruption in Austin. cross-checking. Miss Hamilton said last week that the students clear matters of policy, including the selection of speakers, with the Administration, specifically Wilson, but so far as she knows, she said, that does not include the Regents. Zbranek made the point to Wilson that the 1955-56 school year is not an election year. Wilson said that had not occurred to him and withdrew his objections to Stevenson. Zbranek said later he was “gratified” and said he was satisfied with Wilson’s answer that the Regents are not blacklisting speakers. Mrs. Roosevelt was turned down as a Great Issues speaker a few years ago after a Regent protested to Wilson. Further accounts of this incident and Oppenheimer’s rejection circulated on the campus recently and were aired in the Daily Texan. Oppenheimer’s name was stricken from the invitation list at a meeting between Wilson and committee members by mutual consent a day after the recent security storm broke around Oppenheimer, one account indicated. Students Invite Stevenson Let those flatter who fear, it is not an American art. JEFFERSON Paul Butler, the national chairman of the Democrats, is always welcome to Texas ; but before he checks into Lubbock June 14, we hope somebody explains to him that the Texas Democrats who have stood by, the national party through thick and thin want nothing, but nothing more to do with Governor Shivers. The only job he should get in a Democratic kitchen is peeling potatoeswith a very, very blunt knife. Adlai and Alian Ouah Govenuh says that Adlai Stevenson isn’t good enough to be President. Out in California, the Student Senate of the University of Southern California unanimously votes that Shivers should be replaced as their graduation speaker because he lacks “tolerance, integrity, and intelligence.” Adlai Stevenson may not be acceptable to Shivers, but Harvard University found him acceptable to give their Godkin lectures, and the students didn’t protestthey cheered. Take your choice. Anzetuorh Liberals in the Legislature should form a legislative policy study committee before they go home. The lesson of the session now closing is that the liberals were not prepared with either policies or strategy. Though they fought hard, they lost most of the major battles. We believe the interim committee should consist of legislators and professors and other advisers the legislators select. They should start research at once on such major state problems as taxation, water resources, labor laws, proper care of the unfortunate, control of lobbyists, and legislative policy on desegregation. They should meet regularly to discuss the course of the research and draft the legislation behind which they can unite.. This would contribute to constructive thinking, not only in the next legislative session, but in the summer campaigns next year. Such research and study is the constructive duty of the opposition, and the liberals will have no excuse for failure until they haze performed it. One-511/0-5hree Members of. the House of Representatives, weary and broke, will probably accept the Senate’s “one-one-one” tax billan added penny tax on every gallon of gasoline, pack of cigarettes, and bottle of beer Texans consume. How can a Legislature supposedly representing the people pass plain and simple sales taxes ? It is an obvious law of taxation that such taxes bear heaviest on the poorest, lightest on the richest. How can legislators ignore it ? The time is long, long overdue for an overhaul of Texas tax law, repeal of the onerous sales taxes now in effect, and an intelligent redistribution of the tax burden on the sound American principle of ability to pay. It would be better for the House to kill the Senate tax bill and come back in special session than to adopt this “one-two-three” count on the first principle of just taxation. 5iroi 5hin v 5iroi Speaker Jim Lindsey of the Texas House presents a bill to the House out of the regular order if he thinks it is “important.” Rep. Maury Maverick has been trying to bring up his lobbyist control bill for some time. The other day, Maverick renewed the effort, but Lindsey wouldn’t have it. Instead, Lindsey presented the House with a bill for the control of mosquitoes. Maverick asked the Speaker if he thinks controlling mosquitoes is more important than controlling lobbyists. The Speaker didn’t answer, exactly. Trxas Mhstrurr Incorporating The Stat. Observer, combined with the East Texas Democrat MAY 30, 1955 `OM* 3 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, under the act of March 3, 1879. MAILING ADDRESS : Drawer F, Capitol Station, Austin, Texas. OFFICE OF PUBLICATION : 504 W. 24th St., Austin, Texas. Phone : 70746. Editor and General Manager Associate Editor Ronnie Dugger Bill Briimmer Office Manager Circulation Manager Sarah Payne Jim Dyer We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are dedicated to the whole truth, to human values above all interests, to the rights of man as the foundation of democracy : we will take orders from none but our own conscience, and never will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the powerful or cater to the ignoble in the human spirit