ustxtxb_obs_1956_07_04_50_00004-00000_000.pdf

Bunked in for the Ride to Austin He Talks as He Leaves a Store The Judge and Yarborough Friends A Voter at a Rogers Melon Stand “”-* ‘ A COUNTRY STUMP \( Continued from Page supper with Leonard Chapel of El Campo, ,a rice farmer down there, an’ he looked at my old car an’ said, `Looks like it’s about to rattle away, don’t it Ralph ?’ I had to admit it did. Next mornin’ he called me an’ said, ‘My wife’ an’ I been hinkins, and we are goan drive the pickup this summer, you take the wagon. Then this other carit belongs to Warren Fuller, injured in the wara war hero’ former state commander of the DAV. He’s giving his time free, his car free.” From the shadows Warren Fuller appeared and applauded. Children were rolling on the grass. Louis Bock, who keeps the cemetery, said it’s dose in Lee Countybetween O’Daniel and Yarborough. Yarborough . had about the same crowd as O’Daniel. “O’Daniel,he didn’t throw no dirt, he didn’t swing no dirt,” Bock said. “You know what company that is,” Yarborough was saying, “that’s the one when the president lived up in Waco an’ they shut him up in the ‘Huse with a gun and said, you do something about it, an’ he shot himself in the head.” “Daniel ?” Bock said. “You don’t hear too’ much about him. Now ever once in a while you hear about him, but this county, it’s between Mr. Yarborough an’ O’Daniel.” “Texas. won’t even put up the $10 to get the $20 federal money for the old folks, or we wouldn’t have so many old people paid eighteen dollars an’ six bits,” Yarborough wag saying. “How we goan pay that $10 ? Well, we got enough sales taxes. We’re jus’ goan let those rich Republicans pay for it.” An old German farmer, red-faced, his arar looped over a low-hanging tree limb; chuckled : “He makes a good talk, don’t he ? Daniel ain’t spoke here yet. O’Daniel, he’s been here.” YARBOROUGH told of an old age pensioner whose _ monthly check was cut from $t5 to $8 beeause. he caught two minks and sold their coats. “When I’m governor it’s goan be legal to catch him a mink or a coon or a-possum or even skin a polecat if he wants to!” This jarred applauseand laughter. “Malnutrition that means starv’in’ to death on Shivers pensions !” He told about ‘an . old. Lady whose pension was cut .,$2 a Month because she had “outside’ support”five chickens ” her church friends gave her to help out. “In January I’m goan take that page_ -outa the book. We just ain’t goan. cut ,those pensions ’cause those old hens are cacklin’ a little.” Nine tinny bongs reverberated through the town, but Ralph Yarborough went on talking right through them. “You’re goan be able to set a trap or piece a quilt when I’m governor without’ being penalized …. Texas is 32nd in mental health.’ It’s . just a disease, there’s no witchcraft` about it.” T HEY SAY he’s lost twice before, Yarborough said. \(He has been attacking this argument headthis gang. That’s why they’re squallin’ ! If they’ll jus’ let me have the vote of everybody who’s ever lost a girl, or had a crop failure, or lost a business, or lost on a . deal, or busted a course in school, I’ll take that 99 and -a half percent of the voters and I’ll let ’em` have that half percent pink tea fellows who never lost ’em ‘anything.” When he had gone thrOugh his whole programwater conservation, lobby control, mental health, and so onhe said : “I’ve got some windoW, pane stickerstrue blue stickers ker honest government. We can’t afford those billboards as high as a sky-scraper like they got on that expresswar in Houston for the junior senator:” There was some applause, and then he went out onto the lawn, acro s s the gap that had separated him from them, and shpok their hands and talked to them. Last , he greeted an4 talked with the few Negroes, for they come last in such a town as Giddings, Texas. T HE NEXT DAY at Taylor, he was talking at the intersection of the Rockdale and Temple roads in Taylor. He had about 100 there. O’Daniel had been before hiinCeDaniel has been_ before everybody and had drawn 300, “the peanut boys” from the forkS of the crick, said Lynn Mills of the Taylor Press. After Yarborough’s speech a few stood around talking. Tucker, a working man, said: “Are those two . Daniel boys any, relation?” McFaddin, a farmer, said no As for .0’Daniel, McFaddin said, in the time-worn mystery of O’Daniel, “Nobody.votes for him but they sure do count up.” Rev. Herron, a Negro leader, was busy converting another Negro to Yarborough’s cause. Ralph Lawrence, a farmer, came up to them and said: ,”These .candidates that get on that race feeling. That’s not the ‘issue at all. I tell you we need an honest man. Why those fellows up there are stealin’. -the state blind right now !” At an old folks’ reunion in Temple, said\\ editor Harry Blandings of. the Temple Telegram, about 150 of them were discussing*the candidates. Yarborough would carry the crowd, ‘and some spoke up for Haley, Senteifitt, O’Danielbut not a voice rose for’ Daniel, At the Temple rally, as elsewhere, Yarborough’s speech was a melange of faith in the people \(“The people are looking forward,’in the middle of the twentieth century, —they’re .lookin ism, and personal identification with -the crowd \(“I remember the _trips we use to take in the wagon hauling the cotton to market in Tyler and to get supplies, we’d see a spring every few -Late in the afternoonhe waited 35 minutes in a little hall outside the con-. vention, session of the Slavonic Benevolent Order of the State of Texas in its quadrennial convention. There were 400 people there 4from all over the state. Finally he was called to the podium, given five minute’s. That’s. all he took, and that’s all he needed. “If all the insurance’ organizations showed the same fidelity and devotion to ‘duty as you are here, we wouldn’t have any busted companies.” Applause. He had marched into Czechoslovakia with the liberating army, he remembered, “and the people cried, and the soldierS cried.” But they were ordered back, and’ the communists came in. -Many here have loved ones there: “I’ long , to see the day when liberty flies again in Czechoslovakia!” Impassioned applause, and as he pumped his way through the churning crowd, which had risen to give , him a standing ovation, an old country emigre,Josef Vesely, came to him in tears and put his hands on his shoulders, and Yarborough was Stricken with pity and sympathy. FROM THERE the car and wagon went to Rogers: Through the public address, Chuck Caldwell roared up and down the , single main street, “Ladies and gentlemen, Ralph Yarborough, the Democratic candidate for governor, is here this afternoon to meet you and. shake your hand.” By the time they had the Yellow Rose on ‘the turntable,” Yarliwor-.. ough was halfway up the street, passing out, cards at grocery store doors, shaking hands with the watermelon stand owner, hurrying through a market’ and behind the meat counter to, greet three men there, across the street. to the service station, into’ the into the barber shop, until all his cards were gone and his troupe were harrying him to be gone. As he strode THE TEXAS OBSERVER Page 4 July 4, 1956 back down the main street to the car he exclaimed: “It’s hell to have to sit down in a dry office and read books for a living when yo .u can be out fighting for democracy!” Night came and the caravan turned down a farm to market road, to Tabor, which is four houses and two general stores; crossed four one-way bridges and arrived at the school house, -where 200 or .300 were gathered for the speeches and the barbecue. Back to the stump he went ’11 -don’t believe in this thing *of trying to stomp the federal government all the time I’m just goan let the rich Republicans pay that extra fifteen dol. hut …. That cleanup hasn’t been completed yet.” Then, after the handshaking and note-taking and card-passing, after everybody else had gane home, the man pri his last, strongest bid for the governor’s chair stripped off his coat and ‘lay down on a pallet in Leonard Chapel’s station wagon and :fell asleep for the drive to Austin.