ustxtxb_obs_1958_11_14_50_00002-00000_000.pdf

Page 3

by

1960 CONVENTION SHIFT Labor Troubles Stir; College Cuts Pushed AUSTIN, HOUSTON The most significant developments for 1960 Democratic conventions in this year’s general elections in Texas are shifts in delegate strength from the major counties and the development of a strong likelihood that liberals will again win Harris County. Conservative Dallas County and liberal Jefferson County gained sharply in proportional importance at the 1960 presidential and state conventions as the result of comparatively huge turnouts for a hot congressional race and a wetdry election, respectively. Nueces County also gained strength in the conventions. In Harris County, the candidacy of a Negro lady, Mrs. Charles White, for the school board, sent voting in Negro precincts zooming spectacularly while the traditionally conservative boxes fell off precipitously. This gives the liberal Harris County Democrats a new advantage in the contest for control of the county Democratic convention in 1960 and may cause some concern among advocates of Sen. Lyndon Johnson for president. When the next conservativeliberal contest in May, 1960, is waged for control of the Texas delegation to the Democratic National Convention, new delegate strengths in the 16 largest cities will favor the liberals from a standing start. BORGER Senator Ralph Yarborough gave Roy Whittenburg a trouncing in the millionaire oilman and rancher’s backyard. Yarborough won 30 of 33 Texas Panhandle counties and beat Whittenburg by 250 votes more than he did Dallas millionaire Bill Blakley in the July primaries. Statewide Yarborough carried 250 of the 254 counties and won about 3 to 1. Unoffical totals from 33 Panhandle counties listed Yarborough 26,011 and Whittenburg 14,078. Yarborough also beat Whittenburg in Amarillo’s Potter County, 4,251 to 4,140, and in Borger’s Hutchinson County, 1,939-to-1,137. Whittenburg lists his home at Plemons in Hutchinson County and at Amarillo. He publishes the Borger daily newspaper, and his brother, S. B. Whittenburg, publishes both Amarillo dailies. Roy won in Plemons, where he cast his vote, 177 to 126. On the basis of one delegate vote for each 300 votes cast for the Democratic nominee for governor in this year’s general election and 1956 alignments, the 1960 big city lineup will show 582 liberals and 572 conservatives. In the recent “governor’s convention,” in which delegate strength was based on the huge turnouts in the 1956 presidential election, the lineup was 1,269 conservatives and 1,152 liberals. As in 1958, the deciding balance in ’60 will be in the hands of the 238 small county delegations, which voted heavily conservative in 1958. Dallas County increased its representation almost to the size of Houston’s. Jefferson County voters, lured to the polls by a wetearned 120 delegates, more than the totals for four similarly sized areas, El Paso, Amarillo, Waco and Lubbock, combined, and more than San Antonio or Fort Worth. Of the 120,000 who voted in Dallas, 88,000 pulled the lever for Price Daniel for Governor, giving the city 294 delegates in 1960, a close second to the 297 delegates for Houston, where voting was comparatively lighter. Harris County has 316,000 poll tax exemption holders. Dallas County has 223,000. Dallas could have taken a commanding delegate lead had not 25,000 Dallasites voted for Republican gubernatorial candidate Edwin S. Mayer. Out of about 3,500 delegate strength to the 1960 Dallas county Area counties Yarborough lost were Randall, Hansford, and Roberts, the latter the smallest poplation of any Panhandle county. These three also gave Blakley their votes in July, along with Hartley County. Embarrassment was avoided by the Borger and Amarillo newspapers, however, as they abstained from making any direct predictions about Whittenburg’s chances. Yarborough was criticized much less directly than he was when he ran against Blakley. Borger editor J. C. Phillips, an ardent supporter of the late Joe McCarthy and a critic of the U. S. Supreme Court, boosted his publisher on Oct. 27 in the Borger News-Herald. He wrote: “Assuming that Roy Whittenburg is elected…. it will be because the people give serious thought to the need of such legislation to curb growing power of the U. S. Supreme Court. Once the voters have demonstrated such an overwhelming desire for convention, it appeared that conservatives would have about a 1,000-vote edge. Rep. Bruce Alger’s candidacy brought to the polls many of his partisans who also crossed party lines and voted for Gov. Daniel. The state as a whole stayed firmly in the Democratic column, though Dallas, in addition to returning Bruce Alger to Congress, piled up an imposing 50,445 votes for Republican Senatorial candidate Roy Whittenburg. Sen. Ralph Yarborough, making his first appearance on a general election ballot, received 61,493 votes to give him his only local success to date in Dallas. \(Yarborough released a telegram he received after his victory from Adlai Stevenlican state legislative candidates were convincingly defeated in all areas, although Houston Republican T. E. Kennerly ran a fair race, losing his bid in the newlycreated 22nd Congressional district to Democrat Robert Casey, 20,508 to 37,272. Naming Bruce Alger, Barry Goldwater a n d Vice-President Nixon as a starting point, Texas Republican chairman Thad Hutcheson said in Houston the election proved the GOP “must regroup and rebuild around strong, clearly identified personalities.” He said Nixon was “head and shoulders about everyone else” for the GOP’s 1960 presidential nomination. this needed change in our federal judiciary…. others seeking office will follow suit…” Amarillo Globe-Times editor Tommy Thompson wrote on the same day: “I certainly don’t plan on crawling on the Yarborough band wagon, and I’ll vote for Roy Whittenburg. I think his stand is one of the most refreshing happenings in recent Texas politics.” Yarborough won 23 of 34 precincts from Whittenburg in Potter County. Ten of the eleven that Yarborough lost were the same precincts Blakley won from him in July. Blakley also took only eleven Potter County precincts. No Panhandle resident has ever run for the U. S. Senate before. Unsuccessful in Democratic bids for governor twice were Gen. Ernest 0. Thompson, former mayor of Amarillo, and the late State Sen. Clint Small, former mayor of Wellington. The Texas Commission on Higher Education recommended that state grants for student health programs and intramural athletics be discontinued at all state universities. University of Texas dean of men Jack Holland said the action would do “irreparable damage to both programs.” Mothers in Houston began selling their blood at $20 a pint to get up money to continue .school bus service discontinued by the Houston school board. The Court of Criminal Ap peals upheld for the second time the death sentence of an 18year-old University of Houston freshman who admitted killing his 17-year-old girl friend when ishe tried to break up their courtship. An insurance agent in Dallas has sued Bankers Life and Casualty Co., charging he was paid an end-of-the-year bonus of $10,000 in Confederate money. The company declines comment. Recognizing the “explosive nature of the issue” but asserting the “perils of cowardice in silence,” the Baptist General Convention of Texas condemned bombings of synagogues and public schools involved in desegregation, added that devices such as private operation of public schools to avoid integration are “a grievous threat to the integrity of the public schools.” The convention, meeting in San Antonio, elected Rev. Carl Bates of Amarillo as President and heard Ben Wooten, president of the First National Bank in Dallas state “tithing gives one courage… a sense of inner feeling that he is resting upon a substantial solid financial foundation.” …. The United Church Women of Houston voted to merge with the Negro group of United Church Women. After months of negotiations which both management and union officials said offered little hope for a compromise, the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union called for a membership vote on a strike that would shut down 50 oil and chemical plants and idle 26,000 workers on the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast…. In a dispute growing out of the company’s refusal to accept an arbitration award favorable to the union, Dallas Why Barefoot Lost to Alger \(Continued from Page or oil executives or what. The idea of business men who are supposed to be leaders in their community setting an example for juvenile delinquents … They even sign, an oath before a notary public that they will support the Democratic Party, then laugh in your face and tell you this is a free country when you face them with it.” Sanders would not say whether he might run against Alger again in 1960; he indicated he is not through with political life. Alger concluded from his victory: “I’m going to tell the Republican Party leadership, and I’m going to tell the President himself, that there is a great hunger in this nation for a return to sound, traditional constitutional principles.” Dist. Judge W. L. Thornton issued a temporary order restraining members of the OCAW from directly calling, inciting, or advocating any strike, work stoppage or slowdown at all plants of the Lone Star Producing Company …. Calling strikes “a type of warfare” and asserting “I know of no greater service I can do as a judge than to keep you from cutting each other’s throats,” Federal Dist. Judge T. Whitfield Davidson continued his restraining order forbidding 1,800 MKT railroad employees to strike in four southwestern states, recessed futher hearings until Nov. 15 in Dallas…. Temco aircraft workers to 310 to accept a company offer of a five to 22-cent-an-hour pay increase with an additional three percent boost in eleven months… San Antonio bus drivers voted 401 to 6 to strike unless wage demands for 36 cents an hour increases to their base $1.80 an hour scale are met by the San Antonio Transit Company. San Antonio city manager Lynn Andrews, involved in a rate squabble with the transit company, said the company had returned $2.7 millions to its stockholders in dividends in 16 years on an original investment of 1.5 million and added the company would have ample money to invest in new buses if it hadn’t made heavy investments in insurance companies and subsidiaries. Southern Methodist Univer sity and the University of Houston announced identical increases in student tuition from $250 to $325 per semester… Delaying action on Texas participation in the national defense education act which will supply over $2 million in federal aid to education, the State Board of Education instructed education commissioner J. W. Edgar to submit plans outlining what part the state would play under the new law…. L. P. Sturgeon of the Texas State Teachers Association said teachers generally appeared to favor increasing the school year from 9 to 9 and onehalf months but were not sure about ten months, as recommended by the Hale-Aikin committee. Supported by representatives of 150 cities and 16 of the 17 counties involved a n d strenuously opposed by Mayor Lewis Cutrer speaking for Houston, the Trinity River Authority’s master plan for development of the 250mile watershed was subjected to a day-long debate before the State Board of Water Engineers in Huntsville…. In Austin, Asst. Atty. Gen. Joe Carroll proposed that pollution of the Brazos river by oil field brine be curbed by a law requiring proper disposal of salt water by producers before their oil could be sold. Stressing the “definite re lationship between education and crime,” 0. B. Ellis, head of the Texas Dept. of Corrections, said 20 per cent of his prisoners cannot write a letter home and 60 per cent have only a grammar school education, and pleaded with a Cherokee County audience to “support your schools all you can.” THE TEXAS OBSERVER Page 2 Nov. 14, 1958 Ralph Sweeps Panhandle Subscribe to The Texas Observer Get a Friend to Subscribe to The Texas Observer Name