ustxtxb_obs_1958_11_14_50_00001-00000_000.pdf

The one great rule of composition is to speak the truth. THOREAU Vol. 50 4.N.A A.1,xas , e..g, -Q. 00 0 riss’ tistrurr We will serve no group or party, but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. An Independent-Liberal Weekly Newspaper TEXAS, NOVEMBER 14, 1958 10c per copy No. 33 Democrats Argue; LBJ Seems Secure Why Barefoot Lost AUSTIN Senator Johnson at Big Spring last week spelled out his idea of the Democrats’ program for the next two yearsa program of more of the same rather than new ground breaki ng. Promptly, f r o m Washington, came sharp demurrers from Paul Butler, the party’s chairman, and Clarence Mitchell, legislative director for the NAACP. Nothing more clearly demonstrated that the Democrats’ national good fortune means trouble for Lyndon Johnson. The senator’s parliamentary skill, most valued when the Democrats had a teetering majority in the Senate, will be strained to th utmost now by the enthusiasms and expectations of a twoto-one Democratic majority there. At Big Spring Johnson exuded friendliness toward President Eisenhower, said the new Congress “has a mandate, but it is not a mandate to divide, to disunite, to destroy,” and outlined a 12-point program which is essentially an extension of present Democratsponsored policies. “The Democrats will give the President the same type of cooperation that he has received from us ever since he came into office,” Johnson said. “We will meet him halfwayand perhaps even further if the circumstances , warrant. We recognize that he has been selected as our President for two more years and that a nation cannot exist in the field of foreign affairs and defense when it speaks with two voices…” He proposed a new farm program but gave no details. He called for legislation to help areas of chronic unemployment, which Eisenhower vetoed last congress. He advocated stepped up water development in the West, lowering of interest rates, “a bold new housing program,” and an expanded airport building program. He advocated a review of foreign policy, a “consistent policy” for Latin America, breathing new life into the newly created space agency and a program to RALPH SENDS HAYS A FRIENDLY WIRE AUSTIN Rep. Brooks Hays of Arkansas, a moderate on racial questions, made public this telegram he received from Senator Ralph Yarborough following his defeat for Congress by write-in candidate and archsegregationist Dale Alford: “W a r m congratulations to you on your stirring fight for democracy. All Americans know the tragic odds that you faced and the stand you took for Americanism in our time. I know that you would rather be right than be a congressman. “I predict and hope that you will still render further and higher public service to the nation. With profound admiration.” explore outer space, a program to develop the peaceful uses of the atom with emphasis on an atomic merchant marine, and a bill against labor racketeering. This week Secretary of State Dulles announced he and the President agreed he should ask Johnson to speak before the UN on peaceful uses of the atom and that Johnson had agreed. Butler said he had no reason to disagree with the 12-point program but he was sure more points woud follow on decisions of the Democratic advisory counafter Johnson consults with Democratic governors and senators he has not yet talked to. Butler noted that Johnson said that “reasonable men would wait for the recommendations” of the federal civil rights commission. “I can only say that the civil rights commission is solely concerned with voting rights, and the House and Senate should act in other areas than voting rights,” Butler said. He mentioned laws giving protection from personal violence and the strengthening of “certain” present laws. NAACP ‘Shocked’ Mitchell said he was shocked to see that Johnson’s program avoided civil rights. “Utterly unrealistic,” Mitchell said of ignoring the votes of all northern Negroes who voted for Democrats. “Because he comes from Texas it wouldn’t be necessary to carry a banner for civil rights, but I have never felt that he was an opponent of civil rights,” Mitchell said, specifically advocating a curb on the Senate filibuster. Senate liberals also girded for a fight to curtail the oil depletion allowance. The question of who gets credit for the Democrats’ victory became embroiled in certain postelection remarks. Johnson’s victory statement had said: “Responsible leadership and responsible campaigning have won a great national victory. The American people have decisively endorsed the constructive and confident leadership of the Democratic Congress. They have made it clear that the people do not want a veto of the 20th Century.” Columnist William S. White said the Democrats won so largely because of a “record of true professionalism under highly professional leaders,” Johnson and Rayburn. Holmes Alexander wrote in the Austin American that Johnson was “the national winner,” “the peerless leader,” and was decisive in the states in which he campaigned. Vernon Louviere wrote in the Dallas Times-Herald and other papers that Johnson and Senator Yarborough both campaigned in states in which Democratic upsets ensued. Marquis Childs wrote that Johnson “is going to have to cope with eager beavers taking new confidence from the liberal labor sweep.” Dallas News said Johnson “will have his hands full.” Christian Science Monitor said the big northern gains in the party mean “trouble for Senator Johnson.” Jim Mathis of the Houston Post recorded the DALLAS, AUSTIN In the backwash of defeat, Barefoot Sanders this week must be pondering the perils of moderation. Results of his middle of the road campaign against Dallas Congressman Bruce Alger indicate that Sanders moderately antagonized his supporters so that many of them didn’t vote and moderately failed to allay the fears of those skeptical about him s o that they voted against him. Out of the precinct voting figures from the heated Dallas County race, three facts emerge. 1.Heavily Democratic areas did not turn out in force, voting only 29 to 49 per cent of their strength. 2.Many conservative Democrats are conservatives first and Democrats second. Sanders could not hold the “silk-‘stocking” votes he got in his successful Democratic primary race against Joe Pool. 3.If interest of voters in firmly Democratic Dallas areas had been stirred to the point that 65 per cent of them voted, Sanders would be the Congressman. Alger areas voted 65 to 72 percent of their qualified strength. Furthermore, since conservatives were voting heavier, any increase in total votes from liberal boxes would have been likely to contain proportionally more liberal voters. Running as a “constructive conservative,” Sanders thumped the ultra-conservative Rep. Joe Pool by 10,000 in the primary votes and ran surprisingly well in Dallas’s potent District One, getting over 40 per cent of the vote in the area embracing Highland and University Parks, Preston Hollow, and Walnut Hill. In. an effort to hold this “silk-stocking” vote in his showdown duel with Republican Alger, Sanders advocated right to work and a curb on the U. S. Supreme Court. In 42 upper middle class and upper class precincts in Dallas, Sanders got 12,312 votes to Pool’s 14,703. In the same precincts in the general election, the Sanders total dwindled to 10,450 while Alger piled up 29,810. Many voters in this area roughly 9,000 didn’t vote at all in the Sanders-Pool contest because they were busy voting for Alger in his Republican primary race against labor leader Grover Cantrell. Alger thus converted Sanders’s 2,000 vote primary margin in .”Town North” into a 20,000 vote margin, carrying all 42 precincts in the area, some by as much as 8 to 1. This was enough to overcome Democratic majorities elsewhere. Every heavily Democratic area in. the city had voter turnouts less than 50 per cent. Staunchly Democratic South Oak Cliff, with 20,414 qualified voters, gave Sanders 6,079, representing 65 per cent of the votes cast, but the South Oak Cliff turnout was 46 per cent of total voting strength. In Grand Prairie, which has a large labor vote, Sanders led more than two to one. Of Grand Prairie’s 7,000 qualified voters, 49 per cent went to the polls. Turnout was even lower in Negro boxes. Of 12,687 qualified voters in nine Negro precincts, Sanders polled less than 4,000 votes. He got 84 per cent of the vote, but only 37 per cent voted. Lowest of all wias the turnout in West Dallas, a substantially Latin-American and Negro area. Sanders got six of every seven votes cast, but only 29 per cent of those qualified went to the polls. South Oak Cliff, Grand Prairie, West Dallas, and the Negro precincts gave Sanders a majority of 8,000. The four sections cast 18,554 total votes out of a potential of 43,800 eligible voters. Alger won 63,636 to 56,567 out of 120,203 votes cast. `A Mistake’ Cordye Hall, office manager of the liberal-loyalist Dallas County Democrats, told the Observer after an exhaustive study of pre”In my opinion, Barefoot made a mistake emphasizing the word `conservative,’ which he had on. his billboards. Immediately after he put the one on the Expressway, my office began to get calls, and Democrats were saying, ‘Heck, if he is a conservative, I don’t want any part of him.’ Many of these people were what Barefoot would consider conservative, but the word is synonymous with Republican in Dallas County. “I think he should have worked closely with our loyal Democratic precinct chairmen. He seemed to think the ‘conservatives’ would support him if he didn’t associate himself with Dallas County Democrats or others who have fought this Drake machine \(in the Dalpeople may have accounted for some of the precincts not voting more than 40 or 50 per cent. On the other hand you can review the lists comparing Barefoot’s July and November vote and see that placating the ‘conservative’ precinct chairman does not cause him to work for you when someone who is more conservative is on the ballot.” Mrs. Hall also charged that “at least ten” Democratic precinct chairmen openly ‘supported and worked for Alger and another 85 spond to a request to endorse “the nominees of the Democratic Police Chief Cleared In Negro’s Killing JEFFERSON An East Texas police chief has been acquitted on a charge of violating the civil rights of a Negro prisoner by beating and then shooting him to death. The federal indictment accused Ellis M. Stackpole,, police chief at Hughes Springs, of beating the Negro while acting as a peace officer and then shooting him, after which he died. The indictment said there was no justification. The Negro was Jodie P. Holloman of Cass County, stopped for investigation Sept. 14, 1957. Stackpole testified that he fired after Holloman threatened him with a knife. Hughes Springs constable Farris Williams, Jr., and night watchman Albert Henderson told the jury they saw no knife in Holloman’s hand. Henderson said Holloman was backing away with his hands in the air as the police chief fired. Stackpole said he would not have shot had the prisoner’s hands been raised. A federal court jury acquitted Stackpole. Party” in an ad or “refused flatly to allow their names to be used.” She said the ten Democratic chairmen who supported Alger openly were Jack Gillespie \(precinct man of the Oak Cliff White CitiThe request for -the ad endorsement was sent out by Dan Patton, Jr., chairman of precinct 441, on Oct. 24. The proposed ad was included in the letter: “We, your Democratic precinct chair men, united behind the nominees of the Democratic Party, are proud to urge you to vote Democratic on November 4th in order to promote ound., constructive government in all levels in Dallas County by electing Democrats from Commissioners to Congress.” On Nov. 4 Patton had to return the contributions received from some of the precinct chairmen “due to the failure of securing a majority of tures prior to the ad deadline.” On, Aug. 30, the loyalists tried another stratagem, a petition to Ed Drake, chairman of the Dallas county Democratic committee, to call a meeting of the committee to organize “a forceful, vigorous campaign to secure the election of all the Democratic nominees …” “We were able to get only 80-odd signatures out of 184 precinct chairmen,” said Mrs. Hall in disgust. Schwille’s Letter One of the pro-Alger Republican precinct chairmen, Schwille, sent out a letter Aug. 7 accusing .Sanders of being hooked into “a liberal-socialist ticket” with Ralph Yarborough, George Nokes, J. Edwin Smith, and Sarah Hughes. Henry Gonzalez was included, too, along with mention of his NAACP citizenship award and “documented reports” that 54 NAACP “offices” have “375 or more citations of communist or subversive ffiliations.” The letter refers to “the GREAT, like Gen. McArthur, Forrestal, Dies, Jenner, McCarthy” and warns that “the communists” aim to make the U. S. a satellite in a “world union of socialist soviet republics.” In the precinct in which Schwille is the Democratic Party chairman, Sanders beat Pool 292-222, but in the general election, Alger beat Sanders, 634-215.