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FISH ANbCt w'”‘: s 41cENSititiCitt^ ” Bartlett Appears Exclusively in the Texas Observer BLAKLEY CRITICISED Let those flatter who fear, i is not an American art. JEFFERSON The Water Problem 1 So, now, the vestigial Shivercrats, who, we suppose, must now be known as Danielcrats, or, alternately, Country Club Democrats, want to shut off from a majority of the Democrats of the state the right to call themselves Democrats. The “Democrats of Texas” have organized as a group in order to legally and lawfully take away from the SDEC its ill-gotten control of the party machinery. This is an entirely proper and democratic objective at which they may or may not succeed. Rep. Moyne Kelly, at the instigation of Jim Lindsey, the new Democratic Party chairman who wants $15,000 a year although past chairmen have worked for nothing, has introduced a bill to ban the use of any party name which “suggests” an official aspect. In effect, it makes it illegal for Democrats to call themselves Democrats if the state committee doesn’t approve. This would have left Democrats in a pretty pass in 1952, when Shivers, Daniel, and others who cared less for the Democratic Party than for their Dixiecrat ideals betrayed the party and openly compaigned for Eisenhower through the state fonzutittee. The state Democratic executive committee is proceeding on the utterly false premise that it is the Democratic Party of . Texas. This is not true. The Democratic Party of Texas is the Democrats of Texas all who wish to be so known. Nocommittee can prevent any number of them from organizing as Democrats. The Country Clubbers do not understand that the only way to be a Democrat is to be a Democrat, and Jack Porter of Houston, the official Republican national committeeman from Texas, has made a gasping mistake. He has written down, and had published in the Dallas News, the following proclamation: “I pOinted out that about 98 percent of the Republicans in Texas voted in the Democratic primaries and have been the balance of power between the conservative and the loyalist Democrats in Democratic primaries for many years,” but that in the Senate race this week, “the badly split.” Now we know, beyond cavil, that it is official Republican doctrine to infiltrate and subvert the primaries of the Democratic Party. We have all believed it, but for the top Republican in the state to say it, and then publish itthis is a real windfall. If the legislature doesn’t pass a party registration bill now, it will be giving its engraved approval to a system of political hypocrisy which defies even the most agile Shivercratic mind for justification. Lueorporatins The State Observer, combined with The East Texas Democrat APRIL 2, 1957 Ronnie Dagger, 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 10c each. Quantity orders available.. Kntered as second -class matter Arr41 on Pnet. Office at Austm. Texami, nnoer r.lt act of March 8, 1879. all the name-juggling and political infighting won’t change the fact that the only way to control a political party justly is to have a majority. The Country Clubbers remember all too vividly that they did not have a majority at the . last state convention and so had to steal it, and this is the sum and meaning of the party-name bill. They are whining to the legislature to stop these unruly forces of demorcacy from winning the 1958 state convention fairly and squarely. The legislature has already been seriously imposed, upon twice by attempts to convert it into a political committee for the party bosses. First came the Pool bill to stack the election for a conservative. Then came the Herring bill to call the election off entirely. The legislature wisely refused to intrude on an election already in progress. Nov come Price Daniel, Jake Jacobsen, Jim Lindsey, et al, again trying to get the legislature to pull their chestnuts out of the democratic fire with the Kelly Bill. Will the legislature never be rid of these Machiavellian intrusions on its deliberations? The bill ought to be defeated both as another attempt to tinker with democracy through the legislature, and on its own demerits Let any man tell a Christian he can’t call himself a Christian if a central religious council doesn’t like it, a Texan he can’t call himself a Texan if the president of Humble Oil and Senator Johnson don’t like it, or a Democrat he can’t .call himself a Democrat if the state committee doesn’t like it, and he will learn quick enough the limits of authority over the individual. At! The Gonzalez-Korioth bill was amended, contrary to the wishes of the authors, to permit independents to vote in one, but only one party primary. We understand the loyalist groups are also opposed to this. It is our opinion that it is a good interim arrangement until Texas has an effective two-party system. Independents ought to be allowed to vote in one and only one primary on the reasonable expectation that they will support the party’s nominee, while being barred from party conventions. But Republicans by definition are committed against the nominee, and for them to be allowed to help choose him is plainly and simply building a lie into the political system. We are grateful for Mr. Porter’s definitive remark in this area, and we trust the legislature duly notes it. AN OLD TUNE Unless he had evidence he did not bring forward, Rep. Jerry Sadler’s accusation of a Daniel-ICT tie-in w a s wholly irresponsible. That would be nothing new for the representative from Percilla. 6 ‘ TELEPHONE in Austin : GReenwood 7-0746. HOUSTON OFFICE: 2501 Crawford St., Holmton, Mrs. R. D. Randolph, treasurer. 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. MAILING ADDRESS: 504 West 24th St., Austin, Texas. WASHINGTON While the public is watching the special Senate election in Texas, the temporary senator from Texas has been using his position to try to block an investigation into his private insurance business. He is William Blakley, appointed by outgoing Gov. Allan Shivers last January to keep the Texas seat warm until the April election. Blakley is a soft-spoken Eisenhower Democrat who owns millions in real estate and professes no political ambitions beyond his three month Senate term. He has behaved like a model stopgap senator, keeping discreetly in the backgroundwith one curious exception. His only significant act has Drew Pearson been to harass the Federal Trade Commission over its insurance investigations. What Makes this interesting is that Blakley’s own company is under investigation as one of the worse alleged violators. In fact, Blakley personally was named’a defendant because of his past habit of dissolving corporations that got in trouble. Blakley is chairman of the Girardian Insurance Company, which the trade commission alleges has been using phony advertising to sell insurance policies. The company deliberately misled policyholders into believing they were entitled to insurance benefits that the fine print in the contract didn’t allow, according to the FTC. “Any examination of Girardian’s advertising when contrasted with the actual terms of the policies,” charges the FTC, “can lead only to the conclusion that the advertising is false, deceptive, and mis leading.” Senator Blakley’s company \\vas found to be operating out of the back room of another insurance firm, Girard Life Insurance Company, which Blakley also owns. To prevent him from, avoiding personal responsibility, the FTC took the unusual step of making the senator personally liable. Before he ever came to the Senate, Blakley had brought indirect pressure on the FTC through such powerful fellow Texans as Senate Democratic leader Lyndon Johnson. Once Blakley became a senator himself ; however, he didn’t go through friends. He used the full power of his temporary office to attack the agency that had been investigating him. His most brazen act was to take over the cross-examination of Edward Tait, when he came before the Senate commerce committee for confirmation to the FTC. Usually a new senator, particularly one servingonly a threemonth term does not butt into a hearing. He is supposed to keep quiet and let his seniors do the. questioning. But Blakley waded into Tait with a barrage of questions and criticism. He challenged the FTC’s jurisdiction over insurance cases and. accused the FTC of “acting as judge, jury, and prosecutor.” He charged that the FTC had the idea only its own .staff was “competent” to decide whether advertising was deceptive. Fellow senators were startled at Blakley’s unexpected attack. But they didn’t know what was behind it. Blakleynever bothered to explain that he was a defendant in one of the insurance cases he was complaining about. His case is still pending before the FTC. THE CLEAN-UP AUSTIN The Texas House last week refused to agree to require an oath that its members will not violate even the innocuous code of ethics it passed. The House refused to go along with a plan that members disclose their sources of income., By parliamentary maneuver a provision requiring expulsion of any legislator-lawyer on retainer was shuttled off the floor. A good lobby regulation bill was passed, but what about legislator regulation? Is this the way the legislature is going assuage try to assuae the disgust of the people about official corruption? 2s artiel _At it Again, .11r Orxas Misrairr