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DEATH OF LOBBY BILL ANGERS PRESS The Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram are at editorial odds over Governor Daniel’s plan for a special legislative session. The News endorses a special session as the best means of Ex-Texan Ex-Democrat Bob Anderson MARSHALL Let us pause for the changing of the guard. The “noblest member of Eisenhower’s cabinet,” as Mister George Humphrey is described by the Observer’s colossal rival to the north, gives way in favor of Robert B. Anderson, of whom the same famed journal says, “little more could be asked than that he do as good a job as George Humphrey.” As Hon. Wright Patman has so often pointed out, through the policies of Humphrey we are today paying $10 billion a year more interest than we paid on the same amount of money four years ago. Both corporations and individuals are paying at this higher rate, which means an increase of $60 a year for every man, .woman, and child in our population of 170 million. Anderson inherits another Humphrey legacy. As Patman says, “Russia has repudiated her bonded debt. By permitting our marketable bonds to sell below par-88we are condoning a 12 percent repudiation of our own bonds to people who bought these . securities believing the implied government promises that they could get their money on them when needed without discount.” Anyone unfortunate enough to seek to borrow money at a bank is quickly apprised of the tight money policy. Despite the care of his adulating press to present Anderson as a friend of the President, but no modern Republican, may it not be that Ike is looking for an end to the Humphrey era? Surely he does not wish to give us still another “greatest Secretary of the Treasury since Andy Mellon”! Perhaps he even desires to groom the new secretary for the presidential race, since Mr. Nixon is rapidly shrinking to his true stature and yet enigmatically is likely marked* by. Sen. enigmatically et al, as an early “modern Republican” scapegoat. The publicity buildup for Anderson seems to parallel the old birthin-a-log cabin routine. We are given a modern Frank Merriwell or Frank Fearnot who has come from rags to riches to occupy the position of the young wonder of Wall Street. He may even be called a three state two country man,. lisps Mr. James B. Hagerty in describing his activities. His name was sent to the Senate with Texas as his state, but the White House changed it to New York. He is not to be called a Texas Eisenhower Democrat, but a New York Republican for so he voted there in 1956. With the memory of the brilliant failure of the Eisenbower Democrat Madam Secretary from Houston still fresh upon us, Ike’s demand of the home state change is understandable. Yet, we Texuns, suh, should rise to arms ! If he runs for president, will we permit one of our native sons to claim New York as his home? To make certain of a Texas candidate in the race, perhaps we should grease up that fast rolling band wagon our Lyndon drove at Chicago last summer and run him as the Democratic candidate. Then we could in proper confusion organize Texas Republicans for Johnson and Texas Democrats for Andersonand the devil take the hindmost. FRANKLIN JONES working out a lobbyist control law and a water program, but the Telegram says the Governor should reconsider because the meeting will cost more than it’s worth. The San Antonio Express sided with the News. …. The legislature has received widespread criticism from all sections of the state for its failure to pass a lobby control measure. “Despite its good performance record, the legislature completely failed the people in the matter of moral reform,” said the San Antonio Express. Editorialized t h e Corpus Christi Caller, “It is unfortunate that the 55th Legislature probably will be remembered chiefly as the one when bribery and scandal took most of the headlines. For the truth is that it enacted a considerable body of good laws. The best antidote to overdoses of scandal headlines would have been news that the legislature would police its own members and their lobbyist friends. This it refused to do.” A weekly, the Williamson County Sun, said, “It, -will be hard for Texas voters to understand what motivated their Senate in its refusal to seriously consider, let alone pass, laws that would make it more difficult for the lobby to run our state, by bribery and illegal lobbying activity.” …. Conservative Democrats of Dallas, apparently stirred by recent organizational actions of the liberalloyalist Democrats of Texas, are reportedly lining up strength to work for Daniel’s re-election. …. The Dallas News said it will be “clarifying and healthful” if the AUSTIN Coke Stevenson, Jr., as virtually every “wet” and “dry” in Texas knows, has the final say on literally hundreds of controversial questions pertaining to enforcement of the state liquor control act. No matter which way he decides he generally is doomed to make some drys or wets unhappy enough to scream for his scalp. How he has managed to weather the discontent this long as administrator of the State Liquor Board is one of the mysteries of state government. Frequently there have been dark predictions that he is about to be fired or resign. A few weeks ago a report circulated that a group of drys, bitter because they considered him partial to liquor interests, had turned over a great deal of information to the Governor. There was another report that Stevenson would resign to go to work as a liquor lobbyist. None of the predictions have come pass, and the son of the former governor, despite all the behind-the-scenes charges and controversy which naturally goes with a . tough job, seems as secure in his administration as ever. Stevenson explains the liquor control board policy in this way : “We don’t take sides with the wets or the drys. We just want to be able to enforce the law whichever way the people in the community say they want it enforced.” In our limited experience and observations of the matter, we would say that Stevenson is being quite candid. Having worked in Galveston for several years, it wos our conclusion that this was the rule the liquor control board followed there. That is, a majority of the people of Galveston County want virtually no enforcement of the liquor laws, and there isn’t any. Of course, Galvestonans go a step further than the local option liquor law allows. They, like many others in various wet areas of the state, operate several dozen unlicensed open saloons in direct violation of Democrats of Texas organization “makes Texans stand up and be counted liberals and conservatives.” But why, asked the News, did D.O.T. itself fail to approve school integration ? “Maybe the new Democrats of Texas need to do soiree standing up and being counted within their own ranks.” But the News concluded : D.O.T. “comes closer to consistency in political -views than does the Democratic Party as a whole. If the members of this new organization can prove by the will of a majority of the people of Texas that they are truly representative … well and good. Let the others get out and join the Republican Party, or form The Listening Post their own new party. If not let the self-styled Democrats of Texas get out and join the Socialist Party, or form their own.” …. Outgoing U.S. Sen. William Blakley let mail to his successor, Ralph Yarborough, pile up in his Washington office more than three weeks without notifying Yarborough it was there. The staff is just now digging out from under it. The delay prevented the granting of many requests which depended on a time factor, the Observer understands. …. Sen. Yarborough is being advised by almost all those who have his ear that “th.e incumbent is the incumbent is the incumbent”that he would be foolish to consider running for governor instead of re-elec the state laws. It would be simple to make a case a day on every one of them . with a handful of liquor but ut such places are allowed to operate almost unmolested. We asked Stevenson about such places once and he explained that “the people” wanted them. There is no question, at least in the case of Galveston, that the majority of voters do favor such operations. Even though Stevenson is permitting violation of the liquor laws, he probably is enforcing the laws in Galveston County the way the people want them enforced. Last November he had islanders in somewhat of a stir when, for some reason which still defies understanding, he suddenly decided that Galveston’s famed open saloons would have to quit serving “after hours.” His men made a series of raids to close so-called clubs down at the regular legal “curfew” -hour. This was a strange turn of events, bar operators complained, when the state liquor control board which allowed them to operate without a license at all had the audacity to try to regulate their hours like any licensed establishment. It presented a serious financial question, since many .isle clubs get a large portion of their trade in the late hours. Many stage only one floor show before midnight with a couple or three others from one to four a.m. Most of the Houston customers don’t cross the causeway until ten or eleven o’clock. After a few raids in which even the customers were charged for drinking after hours, the curfew crackdown faded. Everything is once more operating on schedule. Despite the Galveston practices, vhich both Governor Daniel and Attorney General Will -Wilson said they would clear up when they took office, and extremely ineffective liquor law enforcement in many sections of the state, partially due to limited personnel and equipment, and bitter wet and dry election fights, the liquor board chief skillfully manages to keep his bosses happy. BOB BRAY tion in 1958. They point to Price Daniel’s narrow escape from defeat. As of now Yarborough is reported sympathetic to this advice. He wanted to be governor, however, and the decision is hard for him. …. Organized labor did not agree to the passage of the workmen’s compensation bill, H.B. 433, although pro-labor legislators as a whole voted for it. …. Texas Manufacturers’ Assn., in a final report on legislation, says H.B. 433, the workmen’s comp bill, was opposed by claimant attorneys’ and organized labor, boasts incidentally of the death in the House labor committee of bills to set up a state labor-management mediation service, let unions obtain employment for themselves and their members, and otherwise help union labor. …. Governor Daniel is inclined to interpret the fact that the Democrats of Texas convention did not include Mrs. Kathleen Voigt of San Antonio among its officers as an attempt at harmony with Daniel forces. There was no such talk at the convention. …. All is not exactly well at the Texas Employment Commission. There is a feeling Garland Farmer, the administrator, has taken over too much of the discretion of the commissioners. And there was a not entirely pleasant impression when it became necessary for the Legislature to pass a special resolution to restore an “inadvertent” salary cut for Lee Williams, general counsel of the commission and nationallyrecognized authority on the unemployment compensation law, whileFarmer got another assistant at Williams’s old salary. The resoluton for several years, it was our legislature authorizes restoration of Williams’s salary if it can be done from available money. …. Drew Pearson reports from Washington : “Senate leader Lyndon Johnson has urged Senate conferees to fight forthe biggest possible budget cuts in ironing out differences with the House. He told them privately that the voters are demanding budget cuts and the Senate should share the credit for them. He is tired, he said, of the Senate restoring cuts made by the House. …. El Paso County’s new Democratic chairman, Sam Dwier, met with the El Paso Democrats of Texas and pledged his support to the group, Mrs. Ruby Worthen reports. …. Sen. Bill Fly, Victoria, is a candidate for lieutenant governor if Lt. Gov. Ben Ramsey doesn’t seek re-election. Talk persists Sen. Rudolph Weinert, Seguin, may not seek re-election. The ’58 Elections legislation than any other man. He has earned the permanent enmity of Texas laboring men. Nor has he any special political appeal. As a speech maker he is a good tobacco chewer. He’ll get Ed Clark’s vote, and the TMA’s ; we don’t suppose George and Herman Brown will be opposed to his aspirations. But these are the same interests who were for Shivers, Dies, and Daniel ; their control is no longer secure. All-out campaigns for Yarborough and against Ramsey would concentrate available political energies on the return to the Senate of a man who day by day is living up to the expectations of his followers and the return to his musty San Augustine law office of a man who day by day has done more effective dirty work at the legislative crossroads than anybody else in Texas, including Price Daniel. R.D. THE TEXAS OBSERVER Page 3 June 7, 1957 COKE, JR., SURVIVES