ustxtxb_obs_1955_08_24_50_00003-00000_000.pdf

WHAT DOES TEXAS WANT? BY A DISTINGUISHED TEXAN To the Editor: I hope the current pressure being put on the people of Galveston will bring re form. The lampooning … in Life … may turn the trick. Actually the bulk of the city, including myself, never see the dirty side of the city, since we go between home and work and never touch the V gambling joints, hotels, and taverns. These ulcerated areas are seen when you look for them but are not otherwise obvious. \(A distinguished Texanwho, for professional reasons, prefers to remain anonymoussent this over to us. We think it reminiscent of William Allen White’s “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” and are proud to publish it as an individual’s inquiry AUSTIN may be compared these days to a sort of watch tower occupied successively by a miscellaneous assortment of dissimilar characters whose one ambition is to be the next governor of Texas, and that is about all they have in common. They come from different parts of the state, but regardless of where they have their residence, they appear often in the capital city. They may be seen in the clubs, in private rooms at the hotels, and in the lobbies as well as in the banquet rooms. Each of these ambitious ones is trying to look like a statesman, to remember the names of all the people he meets, and to locate some friendly supporter who is willing and able to pick up the campaign checks. This scene, with little variation, is enacted every two years. The detached observer of this conventional drama wonders just how much the people have to do with it, how much they have to say about the outcome. He knows that campaigns will be launched, extravagant claims and bitter accusations made, and that out of the snarling confusion and unseemly excitementlike Int erp retiv e THE TEXAS OBSERVER Page 3 August 24, 1955 a dog with a bonewill emerge the victor, a holy man now, clothed with the sanctity of public trust. This same game is played for other high offices on a smaller scale, and thus it turns out that a group of men who were quite ordinary and undistinguished yesterday may become rulers tomorrow. \(We call it the maintain itself, and its members form all sorts of interrelations. They tend to forget the public trust, and look on the offices as a semi-private domain. If they can not perpetuate themselves in these offices, they want to become king-makers and perpetuate their kind. They select boards, create committees, exchange favors, and build up political machines. They become so involved that the innocent ones do not or cannot afford to report on the outright criminal in their midst. He has to be uncovered, not in the center but far from it by some obscure district attorney or an equally obscure country newspaper reporter. The people are patient and they make many allowances for their public servants. They hear so much that they do not believe it all, and occasionally they refuse to believe, for a time, that which is true. Eventually, however, they become convinced that their trust has been violated, that they have been bamboozled., and betrayed, and that the money extracted from them in taxes has either been wasted or stolen. Then they are ready to make democracy work, ready for the breaking open of a clean deck, ready to effect a revolution. This is as it should be, and goes far to explain why democracy works as well as it does. It is an awkward mechanism, slow and clumsy as a raftand just as hard to sink, for it has away of righting itself. . When democracy rights itself, it is likely to do it with its customary clumsiness. It may not make fine distinctions and it may let some good tails go with the bad hides as it discharges its corrupt cargo for a cleaner one. It would seem to the detached observer that we may be approaching the year for such a political cleanup. The past years have been filled with inner confusion and there has erupted from time to time rather . foul odors of corruption, odors creeping out from more than a few places. Many of the office holders have been uncertain even as to their own political principles, and some of them have betrayed both parties, claiming that they have been true to their own natures. The people should be willing to believe that and let conscience guide them. LET US SUPPOSE that such a revolution is at hand, that the ship is to be cleansed and provided with a new crew. The first responsibility of the people is to provide the right Captain to command. What sort of man does Texas want to head up its government for the next two or four years is the most important question that the people could ask themselves. Are they going to profit by past experience? Are they going to repeat the old mistakes or are they going to try something different, something that may not turn out better, but could hardly turn out worse.? It should be remembered that the Captain is the most important member of the crew. If he is right, much else trill be right. He The Galveston News erred in predicting that Jimmy Phillips will announce for Governor at his Sept. 1 fish fry in Galveston. The event will be televised over KGUL for half an hour and the prospect of a political gathering almost snarled the television part of the shindig. It will be sponsored by about 50 of Phillips’s Galveston friends. Phillips scotches reports he is running for something less than governor attorney general or lieutenant governor. His press release last week blasting Attorney General Shepperd was planned and executed by Jimmy Banks, his press secretary now , in PR work in Austin.. He has been to see Herman Brown recently several times. Brown is Ben Ramsey’s chief supporter, and Ramsey may run for re-election as Lieutenant Governor or for governor. Phillips says he just saw Brown to wish him swift recovery from his recent serious illness. …. Rep. Jamie Clements of Crockett goes to the Marine Corps Jan. 2, plans to stand for re-election while in the service and return to the 55th Legislature in January, 1957. He’s finishing UT Law School this summer. Test-tube Politics? To the Editor: On reading your interview with Judge Hart, I gained the distinct impression that a campaign run along the lines he suggests would present all of the excitement and fire of an orgy of artificial insemination. FRANKLIN JONES Marshall White for Governor To the Editor: This is just a few reasons why I would like to have John C. White the governor of our great state: First, I know John personally and officially. Second, John is a young man, honest, honorable, qualified, and a Democrat. JESS J. HALEY Center Ulcerated Areas J. S. SINCLAIR Galveston Very Liberal To the Editor: I think your paper is very liberal and a good source of information for the voter in an election year …. L. S. ROSAS Westbrook sets the tone and maintains moral order. He should have the nose to smell out rottenness, the intelligence to recognize it under his nostrils, and the courage to expose and remove it. What sort of man does Texas want? He should first of all be a moral man, more remarkable for character than for cunning. He should be the sort of man whose face reflects his honesty just as Abe Lincoln’s did. He should be as considerate of the people as Robert E. Lee was of his own soldiers. He should have a judicial mind instead of a political mind, and should know more about candor than about deception. He should know that Texas is on the threshold of great economic development, and should be able Texas-at-Large Reuben Senterfitt had a soiree for the press at the Austin \(Rooms 1501people, many from San Saba, were there. In Fort Worth, Senator Doyle Willis apparently will draw two opponents in 1956Reps. Scott Sayers and Joe Pyle. Sayers says he is definitely running. …. Three-fourths of the $30,000 the Democratic Advisory Council leaders turned over to the national Democratic National Committee is scheduled for return to Texas. …. James P. Hart speaks to East Texas Democrats at Henderson ballpark Aug. 26 at 7 p.m. on “What Texas Needs.” Dr. Howard Bryant, chairman of the East Texas Democrats, says this may be the first of a series of non-partisan educational talks on state politics. The meeting will be for all Democrats,. Bryant says. Obie Jones, the representative from Austin, is considering running against Jesse James, the State Treasurer, next year. … John Simmons, Corpus labor leader and an active friend of the Observer, said that the day after the Supreme Court decision on implementing integration, he went out to the factory and circulated to hear what workers were saying about it. He heard not a single comment. Then he asked a lot of them and the concensus was that it was coming; it was not a question of what, but when. He says that to all appearances integration will be complete in September in Corpus. A European touch in front of a Beeville hotel: tables and chairs under umbrellas on the sidewalk. to engage the new industrial forces of the state to work in the interest of the state and of its people. He should be no partisan of either labor or capital, but should be able to see that their interests are one, and to lead both to realize that that view only is tenable. He should be more of a statesman and less of a politician, old enough for wisdom and young enough for vigor. He should have a natural dignity which comes from inner decency. He would not carry on a campaign. of personalities, but a campaign of reason which would clarify and explain issues rather than fog them up. Such a mart would make a better governor than he would a candidate. He could not be elected in ordinary times, but in time of crisis like this he might be chosen really sought outby the people if they could discover him and lift him up above the ruck of men more ambitious than able who are bending cauliflower ears listening for the call of destiny. What does Texas want?. …. John White, the Commissioner of Agriculture, is said to be considering making a rather dramatic proposal soon to call a special legislative session and establish, for 1956, a Texas Democratic presidential preference election. This would end the phenomenon of competing Texas delegations at the national conventions, but it might not sit well with many people. White speaks in Galveston Aug. 26 and Plainview Sept. 1. Glenn H. Kothmann of San Antonio is considering an early statement intimating or announcing that he will be a candidate for Secretary of Agriculture next year if John White seeks higher office. Kothmann is in the livestock marketing business. Herbert Bayard Swope, former executive editor of the New York World and “an Independent Democrat,” is mailing out of New York copies of a New York Times editorial lauding Lyndon Johnson for “a first-class job of legislative leadership.” Swope says he writes as a friend of Johnson. Johnson’s office has also mailed out copies of a Florida newspaper’s endorseftent of Johnson for President. …. Speaker Sam Rayburn will make a major address at a North Texas Labor Day celebration at Denison Dam. It will be sponsored by AFL and CIO unions in Rayburn’s fourth congressional district. Jerry Holleman of the State Federation and Fred Schmidt of Texas CIO say they will spotlight the North Texas celebration as a statewide Labor Day affair. Rep. Joe Burkett, Kerrville, foresees economic pressure that will prevent desegregation of the East Texas schools for at least 25 years. “It Just ain’t gonna be,” he says. “They’re not gonna have jobs, they can’t get a loan at the bank they’ll have to move to the North, where they’ll be worse off than they were.” By Etta Trillme for The Texas Observer A Continental Touch in Beeville Planning the Case vAtik 1-1101.1D invkiEVE -ivymiNsc TIELE.IEVIIIDENIC VAt\(AN AU. MEN ARE C.RERTED EQUAL, 11-191 IVEY \(EIRE EHTOVIIIEIP 1XWAkE CRI\(PtIOR W CtEISTAIMI ItIMAIMEWPR IVE 141rfc, Tmt -RI WON e cENIRE tu t 1C 4 5-“kv i PttlIRSC “ir et. F IL I DI 047