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Will Lyndon Contro WASHINGTON Big question-mark in the minds of senators, as newly elected Ralph Yarborough of Texas arrives to take the oath. of office, is whether he will become part of the Lyndon Johnson team. Yarborough is the man who gives the tall and charming Lyndon that continued crucial one-vote ‘margin by which he can go on breathing as Senate majority leader. But the big question in the minds of Texans and Senators is : will Lyndon control that one vote? Lyndon has . kept very hush-hush how he voted in the Texas election. But it is not hush-hush that he didn’t raise a finger to help elect the man who gave him that one-vote margin. Some signs, furthermore, point to the probability that he supported Yarborough’s chief rival, Democratic Congressman Martin Dies. For down at Laredo, where Mayor J. E. Martin, Jr. ‘ is the chief remaining Texas boss, Martin’s machine announced for Dies. Martin makes few moves politically without checking with Lyndon. Aside from this, Yarborough has had Lyndon’s effective opposition for some time in Texas. And few men can be more effective than the astute majority leader of the Senate. When Yarborough was running for governor of Texas last year against Senator Price Daniel, Lyndon maneuvered a deal with Clyde Ellis, head of the rural electrification co-ops and valiant battler for public power. Price Daniel would vote for the Niagara power bill in the Senate, he promised, if the REA men in Texas would support Daniel .fou, governor. Sure enough, Daniel voted for the Niagara power bill, and the REA boys in Texas plugged for Daniel. Daniel finally nosed out Yarborough by.a scant 3,547 votes, and that margin might have been the result of REA activity. The new senator from Texas knows this. So he owes no debt to his fellow senator, Lyndon Johnson. Yarborough’s Knife-Scars Lyndon also waged a battle against liberal Democrats at the Fort Worth Democratic convention last fall and caused a bitter rift in the party when MARSHAI.L As it comes to all, it is now our turn to make a public confession. We of the old East Texas Democrat pizened the Observer at its .inception. Yessir, Jimmie Strong of Carthage and other reactionaries joined with the writer in bequeathing all of the properties of that right wing organ. to the then a-borning Texas Observer. Some uncharitable souls have suggested that these assets consisted of a pied subscription list and a bucket of tar and feathers intended for the editor and publisher. Yet we must bare all. The old East Texas Democrat had lived in’sin with that brazen huzzy, the I.C.T. Doubtless its views were without its conscious knowledge warped to the right by a weekly ad that John McCully had given us from his agency. We thought John was an angel with a ten foot wing spread, as indeed he was. Each week we would proudly count our dollars earned by advertising, which somehow always just balanced with the check sent us by John. Then, ah, the shame of it! we would write glowing tributes to the status quo, saying that there was no prophet but Allan, and that Dallas was his mecca. Remorsefully, we admit that the insurance industry influenced us in leaving the field. Too many of our readers were expiring in angry and flamboyant burst of apoplexy g,enerated from a mere reading of our opinions. Rates might have to be DREW PEARSON on The WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND his henchmen refused to seat several hundred loyalist Democrat delegates. Mrs. Frankie Randolph of Houston, Democratic national committeewoman, was among those who sat all day in a cow-barn with the entire Democratic delegation from Harris state, and one of the few which went down the line for Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and 1956. Yet they were barred from the Democratic state convention because Lyndon Johnson didn’t like them. Instead, Johnson played ball with Gov. Shivers, who twice worked hard for Eisenhower, and with Governorelect Daniel, who in 1952 worked hard for Ike and in 1956 didn’t work for anyone except ‘himself. These loyalist Democrats, kicked around by Lyndon, were all Yarborough boosters. They are the people who got out and beat the bushes last week, and who, despite all the big oil money for Dies and Hutcheson, despite the opposition of practically all Texas newspapers, elected their man. WASHINGTON A little-noticed but vitally important incident took place on the Senate floor the other day. It occurred in full view of the press galleries, but very little appeared in. the newspapers about it. Two senators, first a Republican, Williams of Delaware; then a Democrat, Douglas of Illinois, tried to get a roll-call vote on a move to reduce the tax concessions given to the big oil and gas companies. They could not get even 10 senators to raise their hands. The 10 hands needed were not necessarily to vote against the oil companies, but to record the vote raised if this continued, so we gave in to the specal interests as any good Texan should and generously ceased publication. But our sins will surely find us out. We persuaded John to transfer our adlet us roll the term under our tonguesour ad to the Texas Observer. So, our iniquity of inertia and insistence on the rear view mirror outlook was fastened upon the Observer. How many, how many mia cu.ipas will it take to absolve us! Permit a backward glance in closing. For a while we were, unbeknownst to us, stabled with such fantastic undertakings as a pregnancy detector and with such lovelies as Anita Ekberg. Gosh, Jimmie. Gosh!! FRANKLIN JONES Dear Franklin : You think you’ve been stabled with some lovelies. How would you feel in the same ‘stable with Bill Moore, the wild man from Bryan? That estimable senator, explaining why he took $2300 from ICT when he was. chairman of the Senate Insurance Committee, advanced the reason that the ICT committee should ask me if I got all sorts of cash from ICT. Unfortunately, I didn’t appeal to BenJack as much as Anita, and he didn’t -give me a thin dime. However, the Observer’s ad balances were usually rather close in totals to those received from good old John, so I guess Wild Bill had a point. What I want to know is why we didn’t get in on those baths and massages at the Lakewood Country Club.Ed. Ralph? So they’ll be watching when he comes to Washingtonto see whether he is charmed by Lyndon. “Ralph Yarborough,” said one of them, “has so many knife-scars in his back where Lyndon has patted him that he’ll never fall for his charm.” The Texas loyalists should not, however, underestimate Lyndon. He has fought valiant battles on some issues. He has a shrewd capacity for picking able. senators and wooing them. He recognized the ability of has partially wooed him into the Johnson camp. He recognized the abilities of Sen. Dick Neuberger of Oregon and has made him a sometime Lyndon satellite. Mike Mansfield of Montana has become a complete Lyndon satellite. So all the Senate will be, watching the new senator from Texas. And most of Texas will also be watching to see whether it has two senators or just one. Campaign Background At 4:30 the other morning I was faithfully following Secretary Wilson’s advice “to do what’s right and you’ll sleep , well with yourself,” when jubilant Texans began calling me to announce the sweeping victory of Ralph Yarborough for the U. S. Senate. either for or against oil. But 87 senators ducked out, didn’t want the public to know how they voted on oil. When you couple this with the hundreds of thousands, of dollars dumped into the presidential and Senate campaigns last year, it indicates a political circle of great importance to the American people. The circle goes round and round, like this : “The oil men get tax concessions. They use the money they save on taxes to elect their friends as senators and their man as president. Then their senators cooperate by voting for continued tax concessions.” Little of this, however, was recorded for the public to read and to know about. Here is the full story of what happened. Honest Tax Champion Sen. Williams is a stanch Republican turkey farmer and feed dealer who, coming from the Du Pont state of Delaware, could not easily be -elected if he were not a conservative. He had been waging a long-time campaign for honest taxes and honest tax collection. For a time, he got some support from Secretary of the Treasury Humphrey, who stated publicly that the 27/ per cent depletion allowance given the oil industry was too much. Before the corporate tax bill came up for renewal last week, therefore, Williams . appealed to Humphrey to support a reduction Humphrey declined. Williams nevertheless moved in the Senate to reduce the 27 14 per cent tax bonanza to 15 per cent. He got nowhere. So two fellow Republicans, Aiken of Vermont and Potter of Michigan, gave him whispered advice to try a compromise at 20 per cent. He did so. But a roar of negative votes drowned this proposal too. Those leading the “no” chorus were Democrats Lyndon Johnson of Texas, great friend of the oil lobby, Russell Long of Louisiana, who owns underwater oil lands in the Gulf of licans. Williams then tried for a show of hands to get a roll-call vote to require senators’ names to be recorded for and against the oil companies. He “All the newspapers in Dallas, Fort -Worth and San Antonio were against Yarborough,” reported the Texans, “plus most of the other newspapers. Yet a liberal Democrat beat a field of 19 candidates. “It’s like the sales-meeting of the dogfood company,” explained Bill Kittrell of Dallas. “The sales managersaid : ‘We’ve got the best publicity in the world. All the newspapers are for us. We’ve got the best advertising in the world. And we’ve got the best sales force in the world. Yet we’re not selling dogfood. What’s the matter?’ “A small voice piped up in the rear of the room. tell you what the trouble is,’ he said. ‘The dogs don’t like it’.” “That,” concluded Kittrell, “was the trouble with the Republicans and the Shivers Democrats. They had all the newspapers in Texas, all the publicity, and all the advertising. But the people didn’t like ’em.” Before the Texas election, Liz Carpenter of the Houston Post tried to query every Texan in Congress regarding his vote for –senator. All “pleaded the 5th amendment”no commentor else couldn’t be located. Actually most of them voted against their own colleague, Congre:,sman Martin Dies, and for Yarborough. Many would have voted for Judge Jim Hart, former chancellor of the University of T e x a s, if they’d thought he had a chance. Republicans. Then .Douglas, a former economics professor at the University of Chiacgo and a tav expert, proposed a further compromise. He urged that little oil companies with a net income of less , than $1,000,000 be allowed the full 27y, per cent tax benefit. Companies with a net income of $1,000,000 to $5,000,000, he proposed, should get 20 per cent allowance. Companies making more than $5,000,000, he moved, should get 15 per cent. This, however, was also roared down. Democratic leader Lyndon Johnson led the chorus. Pocketbook Senator Then Douglas asked for a roll-call vote. He. needed 10 hands. The Democrats pride themselves on being the champions of little business and the common man. Only six of them, however, were willing to stand up and be counted : Lausche of Ohio, McNamara of Michigan, Humphrey of Minnesota, Carroll of Colorado, Neuberger, and Douglas. Three Republicans also raised their hands : Javits of New York, Aiken., and Williams. While Williams and Douglas made repeated pleas for a roll-call vote, Senators Long, Kerr, Carlson and Dirksen, together with Lyndon Johnson, slipped around on the Senate floor, urging colleagues to keep their hands down. Though Gore was minus’ on the roll call, he did a great service to the country by carefully recording the recent contributions of the big oil companies. Here is part of the oil roll call : The Rockefeller family of Standard Oil, $152,000 to Ike; the Pew family of Sun Oil, $216,000 to Ike; the Mellon family of Gulf Oil, $100,000 to Ike; officials of Tidewater Oil, $27,000 to Ike ; plus officials of Phillips, Skelly Oil, Cities Service, Atlantic Refining, Richfield,. Texas, Socony, Standard of California, Standard of Ohio, Standard of Indiana, Standard of N.J.a total of $344,000 to the Republicans ; $14,000 to the Democrats. This includes, the major oil companies, not the independent oil men. Many of the latter contributed to individual Democratic senators. DREW PEARSON THE TEXAS OBSERVER Page 3 April 9, 1957 PIZENED! PIZENED! Oil Depletion Vote Off Record