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The basis for most Texans’ misunderstanding of the integration problem is misinformation. For example, a usual argument is that it will ruin a school system to integrate because Negro students aren’t intelligent enough to keep up with others. Yet tests conducted last year by a Galveston school board study committee of the white and Negro races, showed “that as between children there is no demonstrated differ ence in their intelligence, their Mate mental ability to learnas between white and colored children. At the conclusion of their first grade in school there is such a slight difference between their comparative knowledge levels as to be readily attributable to fallacies in the tests as to their actual knowledge ratios .. ” For each year of schooling, the superiority of the white youngsters’ knowledge became pronounced. In other words, our white children benefited from the better schooling which we have refused to give the Negro youngsters. For every year we fail to correct this mistreatment we are Sentencing that many more Negro citizens to a life of hardship because of inferior education and social training. Hurrah, then, for the Dallas Young Democrats. BOB BRAY Lobbyists to the Defense The petition urges that “Dallas public schools open their doors for the Sept. 1957, term on a racially integrated basis. By so doing, the board of education will have complied with the law, pending litigation can be dismissed and all of the citizenry of the school will have benefit of the resources of a single integrated school system.” It was also urged that teachers groups and student government activities be integrated immediately. A school-systemwide student council would meet , monthly to assist the board in integration problems. The school board didn’t take any immediate actin on the petition and probably will not cornply with it unless under court pressure. every bushor perhaps I should say behind every doorwith a handful of greenbacks to hand out to members of the legislature. “I know that is not trueyou know that is not true the public should be told that is not true. “Unfortunately some of them also think that every member of the legislature has his hand out to accept such shall we call themgratuities. “I know that is not trueyou know that is not truethe public should be told that it is not true. “Public officials never make the headlines by being honest and conscientious in their work. They are expected to be honest and conscientious and so, when they are, ‘it is not news. It is the unusual that makes the news and when the unusualthe corrupt officeholdermakes news and the resultant hue and cry goes up, thousands of, honest honorable officials are forgotten. “My chief purpose in appearing before you today is to say to you and to say to every man, woman and child in Texasthat a man can represent an industry or a group or an individual before the Legislature of Texas just as honorably and just as honestly as he can run a bank, operate a store, or, for that matter, occupy a pulpit,” declared McCalla. In the Current Events column in the Houston Informer, Carter Wesley bitterly points out: “A classic example of the South’s skill in handling Negroes was given by the Houston school board’s’ appointment of a committee to restudy the matter of integration in all of its ramifications, and make a report to the board. This lily-white board handled the affairs of the whites, Negroes and Mexicans, appointed a lily-white committee. There was not even discussion in the board of the possibility of the negro or the Mexican minorty’s being permitted to be represented in the committee . ‘ Wesley said Ralph Yarborough’s record is “avowedly pro-segregation.” .. Editorialized the Houston Press, ” . failure of the ICT made it very clear to the people of Texas that despite all the loud talk by Shivers administration that the insurance mess has been cleaned up it is still a shame and a disgrace to the name of Texas. As long as members of the legislature are allowed to represent interests that have a stake in what the legislature does the whole system of democratic government is a hollow mockery… ” … Bemoaning the second rules suspension defeat of the Pool bill in the Senate, the San Antonio Express says, “majority rule ran second .. Th dozen men \(who voted against early considjustify their votes The cloakroom decision had been made and the residue of an embittered Shivers administration did its Discussing his profession, McCalla said: “In a strictly legal sense, most of us who now represent substantial industries and groups before the Legislature are not `lobbyists.’ Lobbying’ is defined by our penal code as attempting privately to influence the action of a member of the Legislature other than by appealing to his reason. But I realize that in the commonly accepted use of the term we are ‘lobbyists,’ he said. Although he said he was not opposing a “reasonable bill” on lobbyist control, McCalla put the cat on lawmakers’ backs by relating this experience. “In 1935 it was my privilege to serve as a member of the Texas Legislature. Two bills were proposed at the 1935 session to regulate and control lobbying. I told my colleagues in the House of Representatives at that time: ‘If you think you need a law to protect you from being improperly influenced, you should vote for such a bill. As for me, I can and will prevent any improper influences without the help of any law.’ No member of the lobby in 1935 session made any improper overtures to me as a member of the House.” It was interesting to note that work.” The Austin Statesman said the Pool bill had “guttered its_ life out” and that a minority will likely elect the senator, which would be “something new in Tex. Washington columnist Ray Tucker says, “Speaker Sam Rayburn has finally and exasperatedly ordered a thorough congressional checkup on the Eisenhower Administration’s alleged effort to repeal or modify New DealFair Deal reforms by administrative decrees rather than by legislative action.” none of the lobbyist witneses offered any concrete suggestions on what. legislation they thought would be beneficial. This was, we considered, a shame, since after their long years in Austin they should have been in a position to know better than anyone else what controls are indicated. None of the three suggested that such controls are not needed, although you may be sure they did not cite any concrete example of cases that have occurred and should be corrected. They found fault with the proposals offered for lobbyist control but they offered no ideas for more effective solutions. While McCalla, ‘ a former ,district judge, turned to the penal statutes to find a definition of “lobbying”, the standard dictionary definition is good enough for us. “Lobbying: To accost, address, or solicit, as a legislator or legislative body, for the purpose of influencing or securing legislation advantageous to one’s own interest.” We are not critical of McCalla and the others for their remarks, since it is obvious that they were simply practicing their chosen profession. BOB BRAY bodies go, especially in view of the fact that the Texas legislature has 181 members.” .. Thad Hutcheson, the GOP senate candidate, conferred with a group of top Texas labor leaders in Austin in mid-February. ….”Democrats of Texas have mailed out an appeal for funds, the Observer’s editorial for Yarborough, and a statement of the group’s present purpose: elect “a genuine Democrat” to the Senate, accomplish legislative reforms, expand organizaton to every county, “educate now to prevent another conventon steal in. 1958.” Signing the letter: Mrs. R. D. Randolph, chairman; Creekmore Fath, chairman of finance; Mrs. Kathleen Voigt, director of organization. … Current issue of the “Harris County Democrat” slams John White. The Houston group has supported him “in the, past.” said the letter, but “reliable sources report to our regret” he is backed financially “by those who have opposed the Harris County Democrats on a state level.” They and “certain members of Congress, it is reliably reported,” urged. White to run to divide the loyalists and defeat Yarborough. “White also strongly supported the Pool bill unfair legislation,” said the report of the potent liiberal group. ….Harper’s article, “What Corrupted Texas?” ordinarily would call for some coverage in the Observer, but we are passing it by The Stump AND THE MUD To the Editor: I like you when you editorialize on Texas slums. How, the foreigner asks, can you speak of the high American Standard of living, yet as anyone can see so many pople are so miserably, desperate -ly poor? …. The slum is their purgatory. They are having city elections in Dallas. I am injecting the question, “How, in this year 1957, can we tolerate muddy, unpaved streets in any thickly settled part of Dallas?”… Paving does wonders for the morale of any street of people. Robert N. Jones 3002 Dutten, Dallas THE BROWN RIDER To the Editor: It is my firm conviction, after having known Judge Ralph Yarborough and his wife and son more than 25 years in close frindship, that Ralph Yarborough is a composite of all the best that is in the other candidates I wish that there were some way to get to every citizen . the Brown Building Rider \(Observer Mrs. Nellie M. Doyle 2923 Gaston Ave., Dallas HUTCHESON, MAYBE To the Editor: No democrat in this race will do otherwise but act as a prop for the dead hand of Lyndon. Johnson who in turn eagerly serves the Southern riff-raff the party. If a vote for Hart is as you write a vote for Dies then a vote for Yarborough is a vote for James Eastland. It is admittedly a hard choice ….the entire entourage must be assessed. In this perspective then Hutcheson may be the best bet. … The possible reorganization of the Senate … would be a great jolt to the present leadership and may bring an end to Creeping Reaction in the party. It would not be a disservice to liberal democracy to plant the roots of a second party in Texas….Finally, if the Democratic Party does not experience the disenchantment of the voters because of its sinful ways it will never change, and if it doesn’t change, I have had enough of it. D. A. Davis 2910 29th St., Pt. Arthur CLAP-TRAP To the Editor: It occurs to me that the editor of the great ‘ free and independent weekly is rationalizing himself out of an embarassing situation with respect to the Senate race. This chatter about who is a liberal and who isn’t is so much clap -trap. Those persons who make such a fetish of claiming the liberal label had best solve the semantics problem of defining liberalism before they lose track of what it was that made them decide they were liberals in the first place. Lately, a great many people in Texas have assumed that being a liberal meant pledging lifetime loyalty to the Yarborough Fan Club. It ain’t necessarily so. By the same token, slight deviations from the party line as laid down by the AFL-CIO does not per se make a man a monarchist. The classical definition of liberalism is an abiding belief in the inherent dignity of the individual. Statesmen may disagree as to what policies enhance invididual dignity, and neither school of thought can validly assert an exclusive right to the liberal precept. All this is to say I am for Jim Hart. WILLIAM H. KUGLE, JR. Athens, Texas THE TEXAS OBSERVER Page 3 March 5, 1957 AUSTIN The House state affairs cornmittee recently devoted a fourhour session to the preliminary study of four lobbyist control bills, and the most interesting witnesses t appear were the lob”byists.” They are Kenneth McCalla, general council for the Texas Railroad Association; Joe T. Steadham, retired, former representative of the railway labor unions, and Bennett L. Smith, a representative of the Community Public Service Company. The general tenor of their reMarks was that lobbying is a needed and honorable profession, that their own dealings had al, ways been on an honest and ethical basis, and that the trouble was that the people had a distorted picture of the situation. McCalla said: “My purpose in appearing before you is not to oppose the enactment of any reasonable bill on this subject. I appear before you to say some things that are not new but which I believe, in the current state of affairs, someone should say. I guess I have appointed myself to see that they are said. “Unfortunately some occurrences in the past few years have led the public to believe that here in Austin there is a lobbyist behind The Young Democratic Club of Dallas has taken a courageous step which should be followed by , other such clubs and other civic and church groups throughout Texas. It is leading the fight to