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Bartlett Appears Exclusively in The Texas Observer THE LIBERAL’S DILEMMA Let those flatter who fear, it is not an American art. JEFFERSON Shivers: ‘1 Wouldn’t Touch Him With a Ten-Foot Pole’ ,JAIJ ,Aroic? John Ben Shepperd’s statement that the Ku Klux Klan is active in 24 East Texas communities is either alarming or alarmist. FBI and district la w enforcement agencies say there is nothing to it. It is a very serious thing he has said. If he is fighting the Klan, we join him in that. But his statement was privately opposed within his own office. If he is trying to appear to be a hero against the Klan while also eating his sorry political piei.e., supporting the pro-segregation Citizens’ Councilshe should remember that this is not one of those matters that will end with a press release. We want to know who, and what, and where; we want to know what meetings, and when; we want indictments. The people will not for a moment tolerate the existence of a Klan, as the Attor llow t o St eal The lawyers tell us it was “smart” for the San Antonio D.A. to accept the six-year maximum penalty on Bascom Giles’s plea of guilty of agreeing to take a $35,000 bribe. The public has a right to know how it all happened. Who is being shielded? Nor did Giles plead guilty to taking the bribe; the public has a right to hear a jury verdict an that crucial issue. They act as though it’s all right for a former high state official to say, “Well, yes, I did agree to take the money,” and then give him a mild sentence. But what about others involved? Those who offered him the money? Those who handled it ? Other officials who may have been complicitous? Furthermore, . how dare attorneys for Giles argue that he , deserves a lighter sentence because, as a man of status, it hurts him more to be punished ? The larger the crime, and the bigger the man the smaller the penalty ? What double-talk is this ? Shades of Les Miserables. Woe unto the hungry who pilfer bread, but pity on the mighty who steal kingdoms! LuA y not Wait? It’s probably a useless question, but why shouldn’t the State Democratic Executive Committee wait for the May Democratic convention to select the new Texas national committeeman to replace AUGUST 24, 1955 Incorporating The State Observer, combined with The East Texas Democrat Ronnie Dugger, Editor and General Manager Bill Brammer, Associate Editor Sarah Payne, Office Manager Published once a week from Austin, Texas. Delivered postage prepaid $4 per annum. Advertising rates available on request Extra copies 10e each. Quantity orders available. Entered as second-class matter April 26, 1937. at the Post Office at Austin, Texas, under the net of March 3. 1879. 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. ney General says. And they will not for a moment tolerate an Attorney General who plays makebelieve with such a vicious organization because he needs a heroic this week. s , On the matter of the Big Spring suit against state money for integrated schools, it is Shepperd’s clear duty as the State’s legal officer to defend the position of the State Board of Education, a duty he is now preparing to evade by misconstruing that position. The Board stated on July 4 that the Supreme Court “has declared the principle of racial segregation in the public schools to be unconstitutional.” Believing in local problem-solving, the board instructed the Commissioner of Education to distribute the school funds to the local districts regardless of their position on integration. Wright Morrow ? Any committeeman chosen now will have the Shivers whammy on him and will not be related to Texas democracy in any discernible way; a man selected at the state convention, be he conservative or liberal, could claim to be a real representative. But we suspect the Shivers machine has already been fed its prepunched tape, and it’s now -just a question of time. ?W Anthony Fertitta, the Galveston gambler, slugged a Life reporter and was fined $25 for it. “Why diden ya tell me who ya were ?” he asked of the reporter after he had slugged him. To its long list of attractions, the Galveston Chamber of Coriamerce may now add : “Selective Slugging. Newsmen apply to City Hall for their badges. All others eligible.” tgranto The death of one Mexican and the injury of 24 others in another of the frequent South Texas mishaps involving braceros being transported from one job to the next like cattle illustrates the urgent need for minimum legal requirements for such transportation. The American GI Forum’s program for this reform is commendable and should command legislative attention. Staff Correspondents: Bob Bray, Galveston; Anne Chambers, Corpus Christi ; Ramon Garces, Laredo ; Clyde Johnson, Corsicana ; Mike Mistovich, Bryan : Jack Morgan, Port Arthur ; and reporters in Dallas. Houston, Beaumont, El Paso, Crystal City, and Big Spring . Staff Contributors : Leonard Burress, Deep East Texas ; ginnie Fisher Cunningham, New Waverley, Bruce Cutler, Austin ; Edwin Sue Goree, Burnet; John Igo, San Antonio; Franklin Jones, Marshall : George Jones, Washington, D.C. J. Henry Martindale, Lockhart ; Dan Strawn, Kenedy ; Jack Sumffierfield, Austin ; and others. Staff cartoonist: Don Bartlett, Austin. Cartoonists: Neil Caldwell, Austin ; Bob Eckhardt, Houston ; Etta Hulme, Austin. MAILING A.,DDRESS : Drawer F, Capitol Station, Austin, Texas. EDITORIAL AND BUSINESS OFFICE: 504 West 24th St., Austin, Texas. Phone 7-0746. HOUSTON OFFICE: 2601 Crawford St., Houston, Texas \(Mrs. R. D. Randolph, director, subWASHINGTON, D.C. THE SOVEREIGN state of Kentucky has one of the three or four best newspapers in the country, the Louisville Couriev-Journal. It has two strongly liberal U.S. senatorsone of the few states, along with Washington, Missouri, Montana, Rhode Island, West Virginia, and Oregon, that can make that . claim. One senatorBarkleyis indisputably great; the otherClements-7is mediocre. It was one of the nine states that went for Adlai Stevenson in 1952 albeit by only 700 votes. It has produced one Presidenta certain A. Lincolnwho will probably rate somewhat higher in history than Texas’s Dwight Eisenhower. And it has produced a Supreme Court Justicethe elder John Marshall Harlanwho originated the novel idea that the Constitution is color blind, and who will probably weigh somewhat more in the scales of history than Texas’s Tom Clark. Not even to mention Henry Cray. All of which is to say that Kentucky has done a number of things Texas would be proud to lay claim to, but Can’t. Which is why I expected better of Kentucky last August 6. Because you see if it had been Texas Democrats who were balloting to nominate their candidate for governor August 6, I would have known exactly what to expect. Let’s suppose the wildly -improbable for the moment and assume that Texas had, as Kentucky has, a clean, honest, liberal state administration. Assume that the administration’s candidate for governor is a serious, able young man, a judge with a good record, who confines his campaign to a calm and adult discussion of the issues. Then assume that the judge’s opponent is an avidly ambitious political has-been who resigned from the Senate of the United States in order to accept a job as baseball-commissioner, a job from which he was later fired. Assume that the opponent’s right to call himself a Democrat is in considerable doubt \(this gets less imsince he was an active Dixiecrat in 1948. Assume that the opponent’s campaign is composed of one part vituperation and three parts hillbilly singing. Then try to figure how Texas would vote. Shucks, no problem; remember the Fergusons? Pappy O’Daniel? Remember, for that matter, a certain judge and a certain vituperative candidate of doubt r. ful party loyalty in 1954. If Happy Chandler had been running in the Lone Star State, he wouldn’t have had to run near so, hard. B m ut y gosh. Kentucky! The administrationwhich after all the people once electedagainst Chandler; the magic personality of Alben Barkley against him; the Louisville Courier-Journal against him. But another chorus of “There’s a Gold Mine in the Sky,” Happy’s campaign song, and bingo, Happy Chandler had won the Democratic nomination for governor. THIS whole problem is neither new nor peculiar to the South. But it seems that in the -next few years, the Southern liberal in particular will be faced with this problem. What, for example, is the Southern liberal politician supposed to do when his opponent promises to maintain segregation to his dying gasp? The liberal knows that segregation is on its way out, not just in schools, but in all walks of life. What’s more, he knows that his opponent knows it too. But the liberal also knows that his opponent’s irresponsible pledge will get votes. How far should he compromise’ his own principles to win? In Texas next year it will be terribly important to a lot of people to get a liberal reform administration into office. Is .it so important that conscience must go by the board? For that may be necessary, if liberals are to win. Chart on a map sometime the counties which ‘supported Yarborough and Shivers in 1954. West Texas went for Shivers; East Texas for Yarborough. In 1956, West Texas schools will be integrated; pledges on segregation one -way or the other won’t matter to the core of Shivers’s support. But in the area which provides the indispensable core of Yarborough’s support, segregation will be a crucial issue. The people who vote Democratic time after time automatically; who violently distrust those who bolt the party; who are habitually suspicious of Wall Street and who view Dixon-Yates as the rankest poisonthese are in large measure the very people who are most rabid on the subject of segregation. Time, of course, heals all things when properly assisted by people who don’t believe in waiting for time to do the job. The generation which, their parents ilk-, ing it or not, attends integrated schools will pose far fewer problems for the politician of liberality than the generations previous. Or perhaps it would be more realistic to say that they will at least provide problems of a different kind. G.F.J. &xas Obstrurr