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DALLAS Four hundred North Texas liberals filled a banquet hall in Dallas one night last weekend to pay honor to Franklin Roosevelt. They were greeted with congratulatory wires from Eleanor Roosevelt, a speaker at the affair in previous years, Sen. Paul and James Carey, president of the International Union of Electrical Workers. They were in high cotton, in fact : Mrs. Margaret Carter, Fort Worth, told them, “When the Dallas News devotes its Sunday newsmaker feature to Frankie Randolph one Sunday and to Nat Wells the next, brother, we’ve written some poll taxes.” Six speakers told what Roosevelt meant to them. C. M. Savage, president of the Dallas AFL-CIO Council, said Roosevelt’s philosophy was “that the government owed the working people protection, the same as it owed protection to business.” But for his social security, wages and hours, collective bargaining, and other welfare legislation, Savage said, “we would have the depression of the 193ft again now. It is easy for us to see what we owe Franklin Roosevelt.” John Wilson, chairman, Dallas County Democrats, said, “There was a candidate whom all the forces of reaction and greed could not down. There was something about this man that created a state of mind.” U. Simpson Tate, regional director of the NAACP, said Negroes became “politically mature” and were first fairly recognized under FDR. Before his time no Negroes held civil service jobs; now 26 percent of all federal employees are Negroes, “on the basis of merit and not of color.” As long as FDR’s ideas prevail among Democrats, Tate said, “nothing that any Republican can ever say will dissuade me from being a liberal Democrat.” Richard Alexander, secretary of the Texas Farmers’ Union, paid tribute to “this great courageous MARTIN ELFANT Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada Suite 201 Century Building 2120 Travis, Houston 2, Texas CA 4-0686 ID 3-1210 leader who was not afraid of government and who believed government should do for the people what the people couldn’t do for themselves.” “To me he’s the man who saved the nation.” Throiigh price supports he gave farmers “bargaining power,” said Alexander. Gilbert Garcia, speaking for the Texas GI Forum, said New Deal farmers’ aid let some of his younger brothers continue in school while he and older ones quit school and went to work. SR. ERNESTO ZORIA, Mexican consul in Dallas, said the evening’s speaker, Sen. Henry Gonzalez of San Antonio, “is the evident and eloquent expression of the open feeling of possibilities that all the Mexican-Americans have in this state of Texas.” He said Roosevelt had, with his good neighbor policy, “opened for north, south, and central America the fruitful road of good neighborliness.” Gonzalez, introduced by Ronnie Dugger of the Observer, told the crowd he had responded to a newspaper columnist’s speculation he might run for lieutenant governor with a remark he would not consider it until the lieutenant governor’s quarters at the Capitol were enlarged to accomodate his seven children. “Can you imagine me running for statewide office and going to East Texas to campaign?” he asked. “The only way I could do that would be to have a safe conduct medal from the Governor.” He said he had jested to reporters that Gov. Daniel would not attend the black and white ball in San Antonio because, judging from the title, the ball was integrated. “A lot of people got angry with me, and I was just joking,” he said to uproarious laughter. He said in his written. speech he had “not really entertained” thoughts of running for lieutenant governor but added: “Now, I must confess the idea is tempting, if for no other reason than to try to bargain with the incumbent to recognize me more often on the floor of the Senate in exchange for a promise not to run. … Now my friends, I am speaking facetiously, I am joking. This statement must not be taken seriously.” Having just returned from Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana, he said he was “waiting to see who is the first to accuse me of running for the presidency. At least I could be the favorite son of the West Side …” IN TEXAS, Gonzalez said, “125,000 people are condemned to ,wander from job to job on the farms, 75,000 of them have to leave the state to eke out a livelihood. Poorly housed, inadequately paid, more poorly clothed and fed, accompanied by their children, the citizens of tomorrow, they roam unperceived by the overwhelming majority of their fellow Texans. I believe Franklin Roosevelt would have taken cognizance of this pathetic condition.” “In Texas,” he said, “the average income of the Latin-American … is less than $985 a year. That’s not good. It cannot forebode good.” Gonzalez said “the greatest reforms” needed in state government concern the legislative process. “There has crept into our legislature a creeping, but steadily creeping, corrupting influence … to proper parliamentary procedure,” he said. In the Senate, “any eleven men can defeat any proposal, any time the eleven men can get together and agree to knock it out.” Lt. Gov. Ben Ramsey, the presiding officer in the Senate prepares a list of measures to be considered each morning. He does not follow the regular legislative calendar except on unusual occasions. Since legislation is therefore being taken up “out of the regular order of business” as a matter of routine, and since the Senate’s rules require a two-thirds vote for this to be accomplished, any eleven senators can prevent a measure from reaching the Senate floor for debate. Gonzalez said it is “impossible to have full and free debate … if a man arrives at his desk, sees 300 bills for consideration, and doesn’t know what bills are going to be discussed that morning.” He said he imagined better legislation was written 50 years ago than under “these corrupting influences.” He was not, he said, criticizing Ramsey. “Any day a majority of the Senate make up their minds to enforce the rules of the Senate, that’s the day we can have … a better, a purer, a more just procedure in the Senate,” he said. \(Gonzalez’s speech concerned mainly his approach on maintaining freedom in a mechanized economy. It will be published in Fred Schmidt, the emcee, and Texas AFL-CIO state secretary, said of the liberals assembled, “What we are interested in is people. That’s all in the world we’re concerned with.” Otto Mullinax, Dallas attorney, speaking for the sponsoring Dallas Chapter of Americans for Democratic Action, said, “We are opposed to depressions, whether individual or in large communities.” Days of FDR Recalled Dallas Demo Women Drop Truman Invitation Officials at the Texas Re search League are badly stung, and very much put out, by the Observer’s editorial remarks last issue identifying the league as the Texaco Research League. VA liberal at the Roosevelt Day dinner in Dallas wore a button, “Democrats for Hoover,” a genuine relic. Democratic Women of Dallas County, who had invited ex Pres. Harry Truman to speak in Dallas March 15, bridled at co operating and sharing proceeds with the Dallas County Demo Political Intellioence crats and having one f union representative at the head table, voted not to have the dinner and to withdraw the invitation to Truman. Speaker Waggoner Carr said in Fort Worth he’ll be reelected by a comfortable margin. His opponent, Rep. Joe Burkett, Kerrville, says the same thing. Sen. Ralph Yarborough in serted Dawson Duncan’s feature on Mrs. R. D. Randolph into the Congressional Record, remarking first: “Mrs. Randolph is the leading lady in Texas politics today, and is destined to remain the leading lady in Texas politics for a good many years. . . She ranks high among the fighters for good government in all of Texas history.” Bill Gardner writes in the Houston Post of Jim Sewell’s possible candidacy for governor, “The fact that he is blind creates a handicap, of course, but his political sagacity, legal ability, and alert intelligence are unquestioned:” Gardner said organized labor is not greatly concerned about the governor’s race, however, and this might hurt Sewell’s candidacy. IMeeting in San Antonio, the state Young Democrats’ ex ecutive committee planned to in vite Harry Truman, Dist. Judge Jim Sewell of Corsicana, and others to speak to their state con vention in Austin May 9-10. Reso lutions adopted criticized Jack Porter’s letter, spreading unem ployment, hard money; endorsed a Senate Democrats’ anti-recession program, including tax cuts, eased credit, and more public works; the code of ethics proposed by the Democrats of Texas; the federal agencies probe; and the world’s fair exhibits. On The Observer DALLAS Fred Schmidt, emcee at the Roosevelt Day dinner here and secretary-treasurer of the Texas State AFL-CIO, told the 400 banqueters the Observer had “left its mark on the history of Texas these last few years more than any other publication.” He said critics of the Observer who charge it is the mouth organ or apologist of labor, the NAACP, or the liberal Democrats of Texas obviously don’t know what they’re talking about, they haven’t opened up the paper one day and found their hides nailed to the wall.” Encouraging guests to subscribe, Schmidt said, “whether we agree with it or not, it’ll be good for us and it’ll be good for our children who are coming along.” ITemple Daily Telegram edi torializes: “The people of this country have taken all the beating they can stand from oil imports.” ISays Texas Businessman of the nine day allowable: “Texas newspapers did not turn the rules and border the stories in black, but the announcement last week … was, in truth, the death notice of a reigning sovereign. Oil is King no more in Texas.” I Dick West of the Dallas News complains in a column that “national magazines have succeeded in building up a myth” about “those feelthy-rich Texans.” An article on the Porter letter in New Republic this week \(by “Any Friend of Oil is a Friend of Texas.” IJ. Edwin Smith of Houston, former chairman of the Harris County Democrats, and Justice Robert Hamilton of Midland, appointed to the El Paso court of civil appeals by Gov. Shivers, are both stumping the state for Justice W. St. John Garwood’s Supreme Court seat. \(Garwood is IDallas GOPers plan at least three races this year, writes Bob Hollingsworth of the Times ‘-Herald: against Sen. George Parkhouse and County Commissioners Bill Coyle and Denver Seale. Carter Wesley of the Houston Informer analyzes the current posture of ex-Sen. William Blakley: “… Blakley, in throwing up his balloons to see what his chances are to be elected to a regular term, is attacking the Supreme Court and generally defending segregation.” / Under the headline, “Disillus ioned Tribune Breaks With President,” Ray Zauber, editor and publisher of the Oak Cliff Tribune, writes: “The breaking point as far as we are concerned is Modern Republicanism . outdoing the New DealFair Dealers in their own game … there are now two liberal parties in this countryeach trying to outsocialize the other.” Sen. Henry Gonzalez. San Antonio, may be considering running for lieutenant governor. His speech in Dallas last Saturday emphasized larger problems of liberal thought, and he continues to repeat his response to speculation he might run for lieutenant governor that he won’t consider it until they enlarge the lieutenant governor’s apartments to take care of his seven children, which obviously could be done easily. I The state AFL-CIO, in a press release distributed to Texas labor papers, discusses some political possibilities: “Gov. Daniel will, of course, run for a second term. There is much talk about an opponent against him, but so far they are all in the rumor stage. Dist. Judge Jim Sewell of Corsicana … is among those reported considering the race. Dist. Atty. Tom Moore of Waco is also reported thinking about it.” “Although Senator Ralph Yarborough has not yet said what he will do, observers generally expect him to wait until April to announce for a full term as U. S. senator …” “Atty. Gen. Will Wilson now expects to run for a second term and may not have serious opposition.” “Lt. Gov. Ben Ramsey … has some opposition in sight. Sen. Jarrard Secrest of Temple, Sen. Charles Herring of Austin, and former Sen. George Nokes of Waco all are considering that race.” COMPLETE INSURANCE SERVICE HALL’S WIGINTON-HALL LEAGUE CITY INSURANCE AGENCY INSURANCE AGENCY INSURANCE AGENCY Dickinson, Texas Alvin, Texas League City, Texas