ustxtxb_obs_1956_06_13_50_00002-00000_000.pdf

\(As a Texas weekly, we could not, physically or logically, publish. the columns of Drew Pearson in their entirety. From time to time, however, we are privileged to .present selected excerpts as they pertain to Texas or to WASHINGTON Fred Seaton’s appointment as Secretary of the Interior may mean a complete criange in the Eisenhower policy on natural resources. Privately tempers sizzled a bit among Old Guard Republicans when his appointment was sent to ‘the Senate. The opposition was not personal. It went much deeper and embraces the entire Eisenhower policy on ‘tidelands oil, public power, natural gas, Drew Pearson Let those flatter who fe r, it is not an American art. JEFFERSON Siamese Twins Joined at the Pocketbook 5h e Corporate Candidate. Incorporating The State Observer, combined with The East Texas Oemocrat JUNE 13, 1956 Ronnie Dugger, Editor and General Manager Bob Bray, 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 act 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. around the symbol s, “A D. A,” “CIO,” and “NAACP.” He knows these are the scare words Governor Shivers used ; he also knows that these groups, to the extent they are active in Texas, merely represent the interests of their members, as is their right. .Stich symbol abuse is consciously misleading. Senatbr .Daniel is,’ of course, the corporate candidate. The big interests are financing his campaign, just as they supported Governor Shiv-. ers. We welcome the senator’s con. tersion. to federal aid for water conservation and his commitments to specific cleanup programs ‘for the state government. But it is true now even more than it was when Jim Hogg first said it, that the real issue for the people is : “Shall the corporations or the state control ? Daniel’s election would perpetuate the philosophical corruption Of the,.inde pendence of our goVernment by the state’s dominant economic interests which made possible, even inevitable, the appalling but episodic scandals that have been so widely noted. We have been_ thinking about this “credit insurance” racket. As we have repeatedly pointed out, this is the device which the Legislature legalized to permit loan sharks to extract usurious profits. out of the poor and needy people who have to make small loans. So far as we are . concerned, the Legislature should abolish this racket by abolishing its dodge. Credit insurance on small loans has’ no place in Texas. Either the state legalizes usury, or it prohibits it. We are for prohiBition. a erJi g ht Historian J. Evetts Haley, running for governor, says he’ll send the Texas Rangers to the Red River if those federals get ‘smart with us. Apparently he can see it now : a brave band of sturdy horsemen, deployed along the riverbank, ready to outfight their hated countrymen just as they did the Karankawas, the Mexicans, the train robbers,’ and the male thieves. He neglected to bring his image up to date, however. They’d get the hell bombed out of them. Staff correspondents: Bob Bray, Gulf Coast ; Ramon Garces, Laredo ; Clyde Johnson, Corsi. cana ; Mike Mistovich, Bryan ; Jules Loh, Central Texas ; Jack Morgan, Port Arthur ; Dan Strawn, Kenedy ; and reporters in San Antonio, Dallas. El Paso. and Big Spring. Staff contributors: Franklin Jones, Marshall ; Minnie Fisher Cunningham, New Waverly ; Robert G. Spivak, Washington, D.C. ; John Igo, San Antonio ; Edwin Sue Goree, Burnet ; J. Henry Martindale. Lockhart ; and others. Staff cartoonist: Don Bartlett, Austin. Cartoonists : Bob Eckhardt, Houston : .Etta Hulme, Houston. MAILING ADDRESS: 504 West 24th St., Austin, Texas. EDITORIAL AND BUSINESS OFFICE: 504 West 24th St., Austin. Texas. TELEPHONE in Austin : .GReenwood 7-0746. HOUSTON OFFICE: 2501 Crawford St., Houston, Mrs. R. D. Randolph, treasurer. We are delighted to understand that Senator Daniel is in favor of federal-state co-operation for the solution of the state’s water problem. He is, in addition, advocating a river authority for every river in the state. , His views should help put to rest the pernicious doctrine that “conservatives” are by definition agairist the federal half of the American system. We are also happy to hear Daniel, or anyone else, advocate full disclosme of all sources of income for everyone in public life in Texas, as well as preventing legislators from t. practicing law before state boards and agencies and requiring registration of, lobbyists. Ralph Yarborough shoulcrtot he so resentful that .;his planks have been “lifted” from his platform. by his -opponents. If they are good ideas, he should welcome converts. On the other hand, Daniel is against “federal control” of natural resourcesmeaning, of course, that he will fight for every oil and gas priVilege the.oil industry tells him it wants. He is against federal aid to school construction, an improvident and myopic position. lig actually asserts that he would back up local school districts. which decide to defy the supreme law of the landa position. so intrinsically irresponsible, so literally and precisely subversive, that he would constitute a menace to the peace and order of the society if he were elected and such an im , passe came about. We were shocked ‘lien we noted that the Senator went to West Texas *last week and asserted the .. proposition that the United States should :stop aiding foreign agricultural progress because it might lead to competition with American farmers. Does he not realize that marginal losses that might be caused Amerman farmers are nothing cornpared to the millions of human beings who starve to death all over the human world every year ? Does he seriously assert that we should deny aid to irrigation, in Egyptstarve people we are trying to convert to the free way of liferather . than develop wholesome ‘foreign markets with which we can trade, and from which we can therefore profit? Such inhumanity for provincial political appeal is shameful. There is also a serious question raised about Daniel’s qualities as a leader by his willingness to throw r Oir &xas Mistrurr Bartlett Appears Exclusively in The Texas Observer GOP TIDELANDS CHANGE? wildlife refuges, and even ,Hell’s Canyon. Seaton .was opposed to giving tidelands oil to the states when he was in the Senate and might well reverse Eisenhower policies as Secretary of the Interior. When Seaton served in the Senate to fill out the unexpected term of the late Kenneth , Wherry, it became known that he was not going to vote with the Gulf states and various Republican senators to give tidelands oil to Texas, Louisiana and California.. , This caused dismay and indignation amonggas-oil men. It was-in the.Closing days of the Truman administration, and Senate noses. were ‘being. counted-to override his expected veto. So Governor Shivers of Texas . called on Gov. Val. Peterson of Nebraska, who had appointed Seaton to y ‘ the Senate, urging that Seaton be perSuaded to vote for tidelands oil. “I have no control over the sena :tor’s vote,” Peterson replied, thereby winning the undying opposition of gas-oil senators to his own appointment to the Interior Department later. * * Though the vote \(in the recent was hailed as a vote of confidence for Sen. Lyndon Johnson, now Texas’ favorite son, actually there were some significant backstage factors. The Texas vote was more a victory for venerable Speaker Sam Rayburn, political patron saint of Texas, than anyone else. Sam had never wavered in his opposition to Shivers. Lvndon had.. In 1952, at the Democratic conven 2 tion in _Chicago, Governor Shivers had given his word to Rayburn that, if given a seat at the convention, he would support the Democratic ti ,-ket there chosen. It was the likeable Lyn don who brought his friend to Rayburn’s room in the Blackstone hotel and told Sam that Allan could be trusted. Rayburn did, trust hitri. Whereupon Sliivers bolted -the ticket, and carried Texas for Eisenhower. Sam Rayburn has never forgiven him for that and never will. He, Rayburn, proceeded to stump the state of Texas for Stevenson, in opposition. to the man who had broken his word, while his young ‘protege, the likable. Lyndon, kept aloof. Lyndon Made one radio broadcast over his wife’s station for Stevenson. That was all. Meanwhile, Rayburn, aged 70, traveled all over the state, .Later he raised money at $10 /a-plate dinners. Other loyal Democrats joined him, but not Lyndon. Lyndon and Shivers, meanwhile, remained friends. And when the Southern governors’ conference met in Boca Raton iii 1954, Shivers had a secret talk with his fellow Dixiecrat governor, Jimmie Byrnes of South Carolina ; in Byrnes’s room, ‘in which . he, Shivers, proposed that the South support Johnson in 1956 .as its favorite son. Governor Byrnes’s reaction was .brief and to the point. “An upstart and a whippersnapper” was what he called the Democrat leader of the senate. Later, when Shivers came to Washington for the govq,rnors’ conference of 1954, it was his friend Johnson who arranged a breakfast for him with the Texas congressmen. It was cordial and congenia4, except for one thing. Shivers made no headway with . Speaker Rayburn. Mr. Sam’s motto is : “If a man goes back on his word, never trust him again.” He would have nothing to do with Shivers. . . . However, private meetings between Shivers and Johnson continued. The likable Lyndon believes .in compromise. He likes to get along alon , with people. When Johnson would come back to Texas, Shivers would slip out of the capital and-go:visit Lyndon at’ his ranch 65 miles out of Austin. They worked togetheron a lot of things including the ..selection of Lt. Gov. Ben Ramsey, satellite of Brown & Root,