ustxtxb_obs_1958_09_19_50_00008-00000_000.pdf

OLabor’s March for Warm Springs collected $3,000 in Austin and $1,500 in Fort Worth. One of the Austin contributors: Price Daniel, $50. OThe Galveston County grand jury returned 45 vice indictments in a follow-up action to the sweeping vice-raids last year. There were no details. Texas Daily Sued; Motel Rates Eyed 0 Charges of violating the Sherman Anti-Trust Act were brought against the Greenville Herald-Banner by a Dallas County grand jury. The indictment charged that the Banner conspired to eliminate the Greenville Herald as a competitor and operated at a loss, utilizing revenues from other newspapers in the Harte-Hanks chain to finance such losses. OJames Stewart, general man ager of the State Fair of Texas, assured Texas alumni their complaints about Dallas motel prices during the weekend of the Texas-Oklahoma football game would be investigated. OParents of an 18-year-old tuberculosis patient took a stand, for religious reasons, against a blood transfusion which might be necessary to cure her. Her mother, a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses, consented to an operation but not to a blood trans The Week in Texas fusion which might become necessary. Atty. Gen. Will Wilson ruled surgeons could not give the girl a transfusion against her will and would become liable for damages if they did. OTerming the situation “very good,” Dr. Edwin L. Rippy, president of the Dallas school board, praised whites and Negroe s alike for a peaceful school opening. No Negroes attempted to en in white schools in Dallas this year. ODallas Negroes should have representation on the school board, real estate man W. P. Vaughn told a crowd of 150 persons in the Good Hope Baptist Church Community Center in Dallas. “We are entitled to representation and until we get it, we might as well hush up about this other thing.” Vaughn’s remarks evoked prolonged applause. AUSTIN Perhaps the best way to summarize the inexhaustible post mortems on the state convention is to say briefly who said what. Lyndon Johnson: He was surprised and sorry that the caucus nominees for the state Democratic evecutive committee were not uniformly honored. Sam Rayburn: He was given every assurance he thought necesary by Daniel’s people that the caucuses would be honored, and he was surprised and deeply regretful that this was done “in accordance wih what I definitely though had been promised.” Ralph Yarborough: “Political morality went out the window,” destroying unity and harmony, which had been in reach. “We are right back where we were in 1956.” It’s “a tragic situation.” Some delegations that voted against Sewell had counted “on promises that were made.” There were “direct breaches of promises made in writing and orally.” “We’ve got to go on fighting.” “People are determined they are going to pick their own delegates and that they’re not going to have their decisions tossed out by a little palace guard when they get there.” Price Daniel: He is “highly pleased with the overall results.” He regrets the “vocal demonstration by DOT and its cohorts,” but he was told several hours before any committee reports SAN ANTONIO When the state Democratic executive committee voted to throw o u t the Robertson County liberal Democrat delegation and seated the proDaniel rump convention delegation instead, it was the “crowning infamy,” said Sen. Ralph Yarborough, expressing his resentment over an action that denied to Mrs. Lillian Collier of Mumford a seat as a delegate to the state Democratic convention. What were the facts in this case? Mrs. Collier headed the women’s division of Yarborough’s campaign for re-election to the . Senate and has been critical of Daniel as a member of the SDEC. She and Yarborough both made it clear in San Antonio that they considered the unseating of Robertson County’s delegation an act of reprisal by Daniel and his lieutenants. Yarborough told the liberal caucus in the Hilton Hotel on the night before the convention that prior to the Robertson County convention, Jake Pickle “of Port Arthur fame” telephoned Daniel supporters and instructed them to attend the county convention in August and to rump and that the Daniel delegation would then be seated at the state convention on the recommendation of the Daniel-dominated SDEC. The . Daniel protest in Itobertson. County was important because that county had the “swing vote” in the 11th senatorial district. Seating the rumpers meant that Mrs. Jud Collier, Mumford, and Judge James Sewell, Corsicana, would not return to the SDEC. Before the SDEC, Mrs. Collier maintained that a roll call was held by precincts. It was argued for Daniel that the county chairman had exercised deplorable conduct in refusing to allow a roll call, whereupon the rumpers left. “All we plead for,” Mrs. Collier told the SDEC, “is just simple honesty.” This was greeted by a roar of laughter, the Observer was advised after the ‘meeting \(which of 39 to 11 the SDEC seated the pro-Daniel rumpers. The Arguments As a witness before a credentials subcommittee of the SDEC, Mrs. Collier gave this version of what happened at the Robertson County convention: A test vote was taken, and it was overwhelmingly in favor of the liberal Democrats. R. E. Cornforth, Jr., Daniel backer, and others called for a count of hands. Mrs. Collier asked for a roll call vote. Ranzell Nickelson, convention chairman, said he would take a roll call if everybody would please take their seats, but the Daniel group walked to the back of the room and entered the men’s room, where they held their rump convention. Mrs. Collier, with a straight face, questioned the accuracy of the listing of the names of several women supposed to have been in the gents’ room convention. At any rate, the roll call was allowed by Nickelson and the count was 67 to 3 for the Yarborough Democrats, but the rumpers were gone by then. Mrs. Collier’s account was sup-. ported by the chairman and secretary of the convention, both liberals, and by Rep. Herman Yezak of Bremond and Mrs. Yezak, who said she had a seat near the back of the room and could see and hear what all the other delegates were sent. After the caucus was interrupted and a few more delegates were rounded up, Slagle lost to Bill Parker, a friend of Rayburn’s also, 9-7. Collin County’s 24 votes were then decisive in the senatorial district caucus. Rayburn was reportedly angry because of Yarborough’s intervention. The subcommittee which unseated Mrs. Collier’s delegation upheld the seating of another mostly pre-Sewell delegation, that from Atascosa County, headed by Dr. Ben F. Parker, radio station owner of Pleasanton, which had been contested by Bryan Culpepper on the ground that the county clerk had placed his stamp on the convention returns of only one precinct. A contest filed against the proDaniel Walker County delegation by Mrs. Mary Wienzierl was not allowed. Four liberal Democrats, including Mrs. Minnie Fisher Cunningham of New Waverly, had walked out of the county convention, claiming that the proceedings were invalid because three precinct returns failed to include the names of those attending. Mrs. Weinzierl said that the motions to “disallow” her protests at the county convention had stimulated her curiosity about the word, and consulting Webster’s she found it meant, “refuses to admit ihe truth.” Her reasoning was that since lists of qualified voters present at three precincts had not been prepared as required, “if part of the egg is bad the whole egg is bad.” “The delegates, Mrs. Weinzierl, Alfred A. Weinzierl, Mrs. Minnie Fisher Cunningham, and Mrs. Max Hill, held a county convention on the courthouse lawn, following the law as specified for the conduct of such convention,” Mrs. Weinzierl told the subcommittee. Nobody showed up at the committee hearing to push the contest of the one-vote Loving delegation. In Loving County, the committee was told, only one precinct elected a delegate to the county convention but he didn’t attend. The committee seated McKinley Hopper, a Daniel supporter. SHAKEUP The Texas Commission on Higher Education accepted the resignation of Carl F. Parker, finance ,examiner. Earlier in the month Dr. Brude Thomas, program examiner, quit the Commission. Thisl leaves Director Ralph Green with two top staff posts vacant with time drawing near for the Commission to make its report to the Legislature. Beaumont, 75 per cent. Next came Paul Kilday of San Anton’::,, 73 per cent; Homer Thornberry of Austin, 70 per cent; and Wright Patman of Texarkana, Lindley Beckworth of taadewater, Albert Thomas of Houston, Clark Thompson of Galveston, \( and Frank Ikard of Wichita Falls, all with 67 per cent, Then came George Mahon of Lubbock and John Young of Corpus Christi, 50 per cent; W. R. Poage, Waco, 45 per cent; J. T. Rutherford, Odessa, 42 per cent; Walter Rogers, Pampa, 27 per cent; Olin Teague, College Station, 18 per cent; Omar Burleson, Acheson, and Joe Kilgore, McAllen, 17 per cent. THE TEXAS OBSERVER Page 8 September 19, 1958 ,a11111M “Imir Robertson County Dispute OPublic and private citizens overflowed the Croft Funeral Home in Johnson City to pay final tribute to Mrs. Sam Johnson, mother of Senator Lyndon Johnson. Dr. Blake Smith, pastor of the University Baptist Church in Austin, officiated at the interment in the family cemetery at Stonewall. E. A. Munroe, described in the Houston Post as a “segregationist minded independent Baptist minister,” enrolled in Texas Southern University, almost 100 per cent Negro, to show “how stupid and inconsistent” it is for white persons to enroll in Negro schools and vice versa. School officials sent Munroe through preliminary registration without pause and said he had been accepted, pending proof the minister has the necessary credits. He was accompanied by 30 of his placard–bearing followers. OMontgomery Count –Com missioner T. J. Peel and Conroe merchant E. A. Kelley posted bonds totaling $4,750 after being arrested on indictments in connection with alleged election irregularities in the 1958 Democratic primary. Peel, successful candidate for reelection, allegedly perjured himself three times before the grand jury probing vote fraud allegations. . OOver 1,600 employees of the Arlington Geneal Ivrotor5 plant lxcnt on strike in protest of what E. T. Cox, President of local 276 UAW, called “bungling grievance procedures.” A GM spokesman characterized the strike as “hit-and-run guerilla warfare.” The Post Mortems were in that some pretext would be found for a demonstration in any event. He blames DOT and DOT people for causing caucuses to try to bump two SDEC members because they “cooperated with me too closely.” This was to “taunt me.” The rejections were fewer than any time in at least 20 years. The law, which says “the convention elects,” is not mandatory that the caucuses be followed. Was he informed the two persons bumped pledged to support his three point program? “No I was not.” “You’re never gonna be .able to have a state convention where every nominee of the senatorial caucuses is accepted.” Jim Sewell: Daniel laid down the rules and then broke them himself. “It was the most unsportsmanlike act I have ever seen.” “We must go ahead and work harder to see that we do have honestly conducted public affairs.” Edwin S. Mayer \(the Republican candidate for Texas goverswitch parties if they want harmony: the Republicans had a very harmonious convention at Wichita Falls. Tom Laney, chairman of the Denton County delagation: the legislature ought to investigate “flagrant dishonesty and dicatorial practices at the convention.” saying and doing. She confirmed that a roll call also was asked by the Daniel people in the back of the room at about the same time as or slightly after Mrs. Collier’s request. She also was definite on the point that the roll call began and was in progress when the Daniel group walked out. The Daniel group’s version, as given by E. B. Priestly, was that they were refused a roll call and walked out before it was taken. They said this made the convention illegal. The minutes of the rump convention. say: “… Mr. Nickelson declined to honor the demand use to vote by precincts, because