ustxtxb_obs_1956_07_18_50_00006-00000_000.pdf

ELECT SAM A. LaRUE State Representative PLACE NO. 1 I voted Democratic in 1952 and shall vote Democratic in 1956 Your vote and support will be APPRECIATED Subject to action of Democratic Primary July 28, 1956 Charles 4rring S to Senator For Economy Efficiency integrity AND HONESTY, ELECT WARREN G. HARDING YOUR STATE TREASURER Warren G. Harding .has no outside interest and does not compete with private enterprises. Warren G. Harding has no connec. flops with any Bank as Director, Stock Holder, or otherwise. Warren C. Harding has no connections with the ‘Veterans Land or Insurance Scandals. Warren G. Harding will make a full time Treasurer for all the People of Texas. ifs Time for a Change FIRST TERM The Success Story of a Politician Booth Mooney, Publicity Writer for Lyndon, Writes a Glowing Assessment of the Boss THE LYNDOA TJOHNSON STORY by Booth Mooney, 177 p.p., \(Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, AUSTIN Producing a brand of corn far surpassing any being raised even in Texas these days, The Lyndon Johnson Story retells the already worn yarn about Samuel Ealy Johnson,.Sr., announcing in 1908 that his new-born grandson would be a U.S. Senator. Lyndon Baines Johnson not only fulfilled the prediction, at 46 years of age he became the youngest man ever to serve as Senate Majority Leader of either party. This book purports to tell how Johnson attained such re Bob Bray markable success, and it does, if one reads carefully between the lines. The author, Booth Mooney, a free lance writer, public. relations consultant and executive assistant to Sen. Johnson, has written precisely what might be expected. It is, at best, a rather overwhelming collection of what must be most of the nice things anyone ever said about . Johnson in the Congressional Record. Johnson, who in the foreword describes Mooney as “once one of my come my personal friend,” said the book is no “authorized biography,” but added : “I have read it and. I like it … I feel that if the book is at all out of perspective, it is because Booth Mooney has been too kind.” The barrage of praising platitudes result in an image of a remarkably skilled, able, ambitious, vain, and calculating politician ; an opportunist who reached office by a scant 87-vote margin \(thanks to the bloc-vote blessing of George Parr, who isn’t mennational stature with a strong start from riding the coattails of the late FDR. J OHNSON, first as Minority Leader and then Majority Leader, chalked up a record of remarkable Senate leadership. He often worked 15 hours a day to manage the complex affairs of the Senate. “Come now, and let us reason together,” he would say. “His greatest strength as Minority Leader was the effectiveness of his personal work with individual senators. He never attempted to bulldoze, either publicly or privately, those who disagreed with him,” it was stated by Mooney. However, at one point, Mooney quoted Mary Gregory ofthe Washington Star as having written : “Being won over by Johnson is a rather overwhelming experience. The full treatment is an incredibly . potent mixture of perSuasion, badgering, flattery, threats, reminders of past favors and future advantages.” Perhaps his party philosophy was best explained in the following: “The Democratic Party is big enough for all men who believe , in doing what’s best for America. There are divergent \(The State Fair Musicals at State Fair Auditoriuni in Dallas began with three touring company productions, “No Time for Sergeants,” “The Boy Friend,” and “Silk Stockings,” the most recent of which is reviewed below. The next three of the season “Can_ Can,” opening July 23, and then “The Great Waltz” and “Showboat”will be more or less domestic, i.e., Texas, producDALLAS With the Feuer and Martin touring company of “Silk Stockings” as its third presentation of the season, the State Fair Musicals has at last drawn a blank in its booking of road shows and can now move on to assembling its own productions with the assurance that it at least can do better than this. There was, perhaps, .nothing wrong with the idea of turning the old Garbo starter, “Ninotchka,” into a musical. Certainly there is a touch of “buffa,” if not “buffo,” in a hardened communist miss going soft on her first visit to Paris. and her being accom views about how best to accomplish that. “I believe good Democrats should stress and emphasize areas of agreement. They can meet on more things than they can divide on. There are times when they must divide .; but when they do, it must be on the basis of conviction, not personality. “There are many things advanced in the name of the Democratic Party I am unable to embrace and subscribe to. But a party, like a country, is subject to the rule of the majority. “When I. find ‘I don’t subscribe to the views of some . of the party’s lead-. ers, I differ with dignity and-. with whatever effectiveness I can muster. “I ask no Democrat to embrace everything I believe in altd .I reserve the same right for myself. “But ill say -this,” Johnson concluded _in the speech in 1954, li the Democratic Party at its worst is better for the country than the Republican Party at its best.” OONEY’S book reflects that through his Senate leadership, Johnson has followed the policy that panied by three commissars who are more than willing to get out of the party line was an added assurance that things would be kept suitably pink and frothy. But somehow the more George S. Kaufman and Leneen MacGrathand later Abe Burrows labored over the Melchior Lengyel plot \(jokes about Gorki’s “Merchant of Venice” and “the little commissar’s room” can only be described as laoriginal and the brighter their innovations: Before long one began to wince at the entrance of Ninotchka and her capitalist lover, an American theatrical agent, for her shedding the cocoon of the proletariat had long since become nothing more than a framework on which Cole Porter could hang some of his limpest songs. Interest and “Silk Stockings”quickened only when there was onstage the show’s happiest innovation : an American movie star of aquatic fame whose career as a prima water ballerina had netted her so much water in the inner ear that she had been forted to go legit. he first publicly stated when he as sumed position of Minority Leader: “All of us are Americans before we e members of any political organiza tion. As the Senate minority, we Democrats will place the national interest above partisan considerations. When we are forcedsby our convictions to oppose the Administration proposals, our opposition will be based on principle and will be expressed in a principled manner.” Senator Richard Russell of Georgia described Johnson as Senate Minority Leader: “He doesn’t have the best mind on the Democratic side of the Senate ; he isn’t the best orator ; he isn’t the best parliamentarian. But he’s the best combination of all those qualities.” Mooney’s story concludes from the thousands of get well messages received by Johnson following the senator’s heart attack that “the people, it turned out, just plain loved Lyndon Johnson.” Coming at political peach pickin’ time, the book is obviously concerned more with pointing ‘up Johnson’s pop.ularity than with literature. The . great ,George Bernard Shaw, once reviewing a sorry book,.tossed it aside after reading only a few pages. He calrrily explained to the enraged author; “I don’t have to eat all of an egg to know it’s rotten.” Not many readers will eat all The Lyndon Johnson Story, either. As broadly interpreted by Gretchen Wyler, this innovation became the chief diversion of the evening, and no doubt sensing the presence of true stuff, Porter tendered unto her two show-stoppers: “Satin and Silk” and “Josephine,” .a roof-lifting production number about the fabled empress who evolved from the star’s original intention to star in “War and Peace.” Close behind Miss Wyl t er in effectiveness are Philip Sterling as a Soviet composer whose d e vi ation had brought everyone to Paris in the first place and Leon Belasco, David Opatoshu, and Leon Janney as the wayward commissars. Right smack at the foot of the class are Allan Jones as the agent and Jan Sherwood as our titular heroine; he can at least sing, but Miss Sherwood has vigorously .modeled herself along the angular lines of Hildegard Neff and, in the felicitous phrase of the book, sounds as if she “had swallowed a Volga boatman.” Trying to whip up any en , tnusiasrn for these two proved to be the most fatigueing effort of the evening. Cy Fener’s busy direction and . Don Walker’s clattery orChestrations were pretty tiring, too. With Miss Wyler about, though, “Silk Stockings” seemed like a .completely different showwhich wouldn’t have been a bad idea, at that. Perhaps the production staff of the musicals which has been at ease for half the season will be sufficiently energetic to do better with “Can Can.” HARRIS GREEN THE TEXAS OBSERVER Page 6 July 18, 1956 STATE FAIR MUSICAL REVIEWED I ^ ********* sieve e to sfilit