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BLAKLEY IN MARSHALL AUSTIN William Blakley, the Dallas multimillionaire \(between $100 and $200 million, estimated Fortune magazine oppose Sen. Ralph Yarborough this summer for a full Senate term, has been to Marshallthe city that sold its park and swimming pool rather than allow their integration. While there, he made a speech, had his picture taken, and had a front page editorial written about his potential candidacy. These occurrencesthe speech, the picture and the editorialtell much about Blakley’s political posture; they say that it is indistinguishable from that of ex-Gov. Allan Shivers, exAtty. Gen. John Ben Shepperd, and others of similar persuasion. The picture and the editorial appeared on page one of an issue of the Marshall News-Messenger, the HarteHanks daily whose local publisher is Millard Cope, an ardent admirer of Shivers and Shepperd \(and Gov. picture with Blakley were Wesley Jones, president of Marshall’s Rotarians, Shepperd \(mugging straight at the camera in the manner familiar and Shelby County’s white supremacy champion, State Sen. Wardlow Lane. The editorial. headed “Blakley for Senate,” began by describing Blakley as “a man who believes ‘OUT first and most important responsibilities’ are our ‘duties as Texans and Americans and who feels ‘our greatest possession is the right to liveand workas free men’ is a Marshall visitor today.” And, said the News-Messenger, he is a man who was “prevailed upon” by Shivers to take an interim appointment to the U. S. Senate between Daniel’s resignation and Yarborough’s swearing-in. The editorial goes on to say : “Never has a Texas appointment met with such public favor … \(Archer Fullingim, as Observer readers know, is the uninhibited editor of the Kountze News and the writer of a weekly column of comments about anything that offends him, after the manner of a latter-day William Cowper Brann. Fullingim calls his column, “The Printer Fires Both Barrels.” Recently, irked by Jake Pickle, the state Democratic executive committee’s organizer, Fullingim fired both barrels at P. Daniel’s paid propagandist on the Shivercrat dominated State Democratic Executive Committee of Texas, has written this printer a four-page, single-spaced typewritten letter of literally hundreds of words. I didn’t read the letter word for word; it was too long and too boring; besides I had other things to do. But I skipped around in it. The gist of the letter was his argument that he’s a loyal Democrat and that the Executive Committee is made up of loyal Democrats. Old Jake who is credited with dreaming up the infamous, salacious libelous Port Arthur Story for A. Shivers, was in charge of the Ex. Com .’s recent campaign to raise funds to keep all Shivercrats in office, including P. Daniel. Out in the Panhandle which voted against Pickle’s man, P. Daniel, and where there are neither unionists nor Negroes in great numbers, the cry for funds for Pickle et al was met with the cry, “Not A Nickle For Pickle !” That’s about the way it went all over Texas, except, of course, among the oil millionaires who wind up putting up most of the money anyway for Pickle and pals. \(If you’ve never heard of this tough boy Pickle, don’t sell him short. He’s rated as the most powerful propagandist in Texas and he is given “Today, Texans by the thousands are urging Bill Blakley to return to the national scene ; to offer his abilities as a candidate for the U. S. Senate, to serve a full term. Texans want him to continue … raising the prestige of Texas in Washington .. “He is a man of whom all Texans can be prouda success, in his own right, in banking, insurance, aviation, ranching, oil and gas. He has made a fortune without ever offering a share of stock on the market ; Texan to the core, his exercise is a busy day in the saddle … We urge Bill Blakley to accept the challenge….” BLAKLEYiS SPEECH \(for which he was introduced by Shepperd ; Cope presided at the meet”We are now standing in the twilight of state sovereignty, and the lengthening shadow of a centralized national government is threatening to erase the last essential elements of our constitutional system.” “. ,. the Federal Constitutionthe finest arrangement for the protection of human rights ever conceivedno WASHINGTON In the winter of 1956 during the height of the battle over the natural gas bill I got a phone call from Sen. Matt Neely, who was laid to rest in West Virginia the other day after 36 years in Congress. He told me how Louey Johnson, former Secretary of Defense and a big Democratic wheel in West Virginia, had urged that he change his position in opposition to the gas bill and vote for it. Johnson promised a contribution of $5,000 to the campaign of Congressman Bob Mollohan in his race for governor of West Virginia. “I love that boy,” said Neely. “I’d credit for masterminding Shivers and Recently I got a whole slew of letters from Jake telling me to get on the ball and raise some money for Pickle and pals. Naturally, I wasn’t going to do that. I kept remembering 1952 when Pickle and pals went out and voted for Ike, the hero of Little Rock and of the Sputniks, after turning the State Democratic Executive Committee over to the Republicans, also all the funds in the treasury raised by loyal Democrats. They spent Democratic money on the Republicans, the while they turncoated on the Democrats and stabbed the Democrats in the back. Follow me? So tiring of all of Jake’s duns, I sat down and wrote old Jake, telling him why I was dragging my big feet, sitting on my hands, when it came to raising Democratic dollars to spend on Republicans. Jake’s answer is the letter I’m talking about. I can see why old A. Shivers first and R Daniel second hired old Jake to do their dirty work with words. He used quite a few in the letter to me, making me quite envious of his talent. The letter had nine long paragraphs and he called me a liar in every one of them, of course without using that word. But like I said, I only scanned the letter picking out a hot, juicy item here and there. He called me “mean and bitter” and brother he hit the nail on the head there. When I remember all the propaganda he put out for A Shiers and P. Daniel and against Yarborough, I feel even meaner and bitterer than Jake could imagine. The only thing about Jake’s letter that got under my skin and hurt my feelings was the way he started off the ninth paragraph. Wrote Jake : “I have been told that it would do ‘no good to reply to an ‘old crank’ like Archer Fullingim.” Who said that, Jake ? I’ll old crank him! longer is considered by all as the supreme law of the land. The once sovereign states now are regarded by some as a political subdivision of a single national government.” “The system of checks and balances, designed to insure the equal power and independent operations of each branch of the government, is no Ranger effective. The constitutional principle of ‘judicial review’ has been replaced by a doctrine of constitutional interpretation for legislative effect. The Constitution is now what the court wants it to be.” “I believe it is the right of any individual or group to segregate themselves, and I would suggest that anyone who advocated forced integration who would impose the presence of one person upon anotheris proposing the destruction of every personal right and individual freedom for himself and for others as well.” “… the most essential element is the sovereignty of the state and the dignity of the individual.” Shepperd introduced Blakley as a man who will “always be regarded for his devotion to the fundamentals do anything in the world to make him governor of West Virginiabut not that. This observer will always remember Matt Neely for his explosive wrath against the lobbying attempts of big business, for his record as a crusading, uncompromising battler against economic injustice even before anyone ever heard of the New Deal. Another Democrat came to Congress in the same year West Virginia first sent Matt ‘Neely to Washington a young congressman from Texas named Sam Rayburn. That was 1913, one year before the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in the So that is the reason I’m running my picture in the Kountze News for the first time. I’ve had this here picture for more than a year now and I’ve been “trying to figure out some way to use it, and this is the nearest I’ve come to a reason for publishing it. Anybody who can get called an old crank by Jake Pickle deserves to have his picture in the paper. It’s the best political recommendation a man could have. I’d sue Jake Pickle in a minute if he as so much said I was a good old boy or something like that. Because if Jake has something good to say about a person you better start looking for the gimmick. Anybody who has voted the Democratic ticket straight is undoubtedly an old crank to Jake Pickle. Undoubtedly he thinks that anybody who opposed Shivers, Daniel and Ike are old cranks. And coming from Jake, I think that’s a compliment. If I have earned that title in Jake’s thinking, then I have made the grade. For I’d rather be an Old Crank in the Democratic party than an unscrupulous charlatan, a mountbank, an imposter and a slavering, fawning refugee from the Republican party. Jake intimates that he is now back with us brass-collar old cranks in the Democratic party. That’s jake with me, Jake, btu you have got to carry the water for a while. You can’t just take over. We are fixin’ to give you your walking papers in due time. Us old cranks in the Democratic party did not get that way by voting the Republican ticket in 1928, 1952 and 1956. It takes a long time to build up to that completely loyal niche. Maybe if you had not thrown in with the turncoats who gave us Little Rock, the Sputniks and Nixon there’s be more nickles for J. Pickle. But an old crank Democrat ain’t going to trust you as far as he could throw a bull by the tail with folding money. that have made America what it is today.” Cope introduced Shepperd as “one of the most outstanding and farsighted attorney generals the state has ever had.” Among the guests at the BlakleyCope-Shepperd love feast were the three justices of the sixth state Court of Appeals at Texarkana : T. C. Chadick, Matt Davis and William Fannin ; a retired judge of the same court, Reuben A. Hall ; and James Blundell. Blundell was identified by the NewsMessenger as a former chairman of the state Democratic executive committee \(but not as a Blakley employee, R EP. WRIGHT PATMAN of Texarkana sent greetings by telegraph from Washington : “Your Rotary Club and Marshall are very fortunate in having Sen. William A. Blakley as your guest speaker. I have known Sen. Blakley well and intimately for 20 years. He is one of the finest and best men I have ever knowncivic-minded, patriotic, successful businessman, successful lawyer, and a great statesman. He is, indeed, a great American …” Anyone for Yarborough? LYMAN JONES Balkan City of Sarajevo was to touch off the bloodiest war so far in history. Neely and Rayburn served for many years together. Came the New Deal and Sam became a New Dealer, sponsored some of its most important legislation. But while Matt Neely was turning a deaf ear to political contributions to influence his vote on the gas bill, Speaker Rayburn was promoting political contributions to help congressmen who would vote for .the gas bill. And today Sam is opposing any penetrating probe of the very same New Deal agencies he helped create especially the Federal Communications Commission. It’s reported repeatedly on Capitol Hill, though denied officially, that the real reason for Sam’s backaway is a backstage RepublicanDemocratic deal. The Republicans will produce enough votes to pass the Harris gas bill in which Mr: Sam is so vitally interested. The Democrats in turn will hush up the investigation of Republican influence peddling and corruption in the Federal Communications Commission in which the Speaker was once so vitally interested. It seems like a long time since Rayburn and Neely served together in the House of Representatives. The Secret Memo The secret memo which scared Rayburn and investigating congressmen away from any penetrating probe of the FCC is actually a document which every public official should read. and cry raised by Republicans when Truman Democrats accepted hams and deep freezes, argued that the probe should proceed. The final vote in the Moulder committee was overwhelmingly against them. The ,memo has been suppressed. Nobody is supposed to see it. After reciting how commissioners had accepted free TV sets, free liquor, free meals, free hotels, and free travel from interested parties, the memo states : “If any of the above-mentioned practices were engaged in by a federal judge, there would be grave doubt as to that judge’s fitness to continue in office. For a judge to receive favors from a litigant before him would be for him grossly to violate the canons of judicial ethics. Similarly, for a litigant to confer favors upon a judge would be for him to indulge in a grave impropriety. “Practices such as those already mentioned, engaged in by the members of a body like the Federal Communications Commission, strike at the very heart of the scheme of administrative regulation set up by the Con gress.” DREW PEARSON Page 3 Jan. 31, 1958 FULLINGIM ON PICKLE Tradeout on Gas Bill