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The one great rule of composition is to speak the truth. Di REA U The Texas Observer 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 Vol. 51 TEXAS, NOVEMBER 6, 1959 10c per copy No. 31 LYNDON, PRICE PLEDGE FEALTY HOUSTON Declaring that opposition to Mrs. R. D. Randolph for another term as Democratic national committeewoman “would be proof of meanness and littleness,” U. S. Senator Ralph Yarborough left little doubt that her reelection, if challenged, could become a highly explosive issue in next year’s political warfare. Speaking to a heavily applauding $5 a plate sellout crowd of Harris County Democrats, liberal Democratic leaders, and key labor men, Yarborough said: “There has been some talk in recent months of a move, to try to oust her or to see that she doesn’t get the post again. I cannot believe these reports are true, so far as any real Democrats are concerned, for I cannot conceive of any fair, honest, sincere believer in the Democratic Party who would have the gall, the unfairness to her and the treachery to his party, to work against a woman who has worked so hard. I’d personally say that any group which would kick her out is not trustworthy and when dealing with them you had better watch your pocketbook. Those who want to pickle the Democratic Party for their own personal greed and gains are the ones who want to replace her …” The dinner, honoring Mrs. Randolph, was sponsored by the International Association of Machinists, airplane mechanics, and attended by about 700 persons. The hotel had to set up a dozen extra tables. Among those participating in the meeting were District Judge Jim Sewell of Corsicana; Jerry Holleman, president, and Fred Schmidt, secretary, State AFLCIO; Congressman Albert Thomas of Houston; County Judge Bill Elliott of Harris County; Reps. Dean Johnston, Charles Whitfield, Bill Kilgarlin, and Bob Eckhardt of Houston; Houston Criminal Court Judge Mir on Love; Houston Young Democrats’ president Don Gibson; and Attorneys Franklin Jones, Marshall, and Bill Kugle, Athens. Loretta Craft of Fort Worth, secretary of the Ladies Auxiliary of the International Association of Machinists, presented Mrs. Randolph the group’s “highest honor the Good Citizenship Citation for 1959.” “Mrs. Randolph performed great public service … and maintained her wonderful dignity and calm in the face of totally unfair, Shivers Gently Gigs Johnson On TV Station DALLAS Gov. Allan Shivers took a slap at Sen. Lyndon Johnson in the closing seminar on politics at the North Dallas Chamber of Commerce. Asked in a question and answer period what he thought of an uninstructed delegation to the 1960 Los Angeles convention, Shivers replied: “We have one newspaper and one television station in Austin so we get only one side of the news. I don’t see anything at all about uninstructed delegations.” Mrs. Lyndon Johnson owns the only TV station in Austin. Shivers urged conservatives to adopt programs that stress items of general welfare as well as those of interest to business alone. He said jousting with unions should be confined to specific issues, “rather than encouraging class warfare for political reasons.” He spoke admiringly of labor’s COPE, adding, “So far, business people have not devised a tax-free wayof doing that.” And he said that in Austin, “the conservative element has little or no leadership … it has almost lost its incentive.” BASTROP Gov. D’aniel endorsed Sen. Johnson and Sen. Johnson endorsed Gov. Daniel Tuesday night in Bastrop before a Johnson-for-President crowd estimated at between 1,000 and 7,p00. “Never have I seen any man who is more devoted to what is best for his country,” Daniel said of Johnson. “I do not know of any man available who would make a better president of the United States. I am glad to join you in giving him our 100 percent support for president of the United States.” Congressman Homer Thornberry said Johnson is “capable and qualified” to be president and introduced him as “our personal friend, a man who is devoted to us.” The band struck up “Happy Days Are Here Again” and as Johnson stood silently before the mike on a red bedspread the arrangers had bought for $11 in a Bastrop dry goods store, about 100 demonstrators circled a green cement dance floor with Johnsonfor-president banners for five or ten minutes. Johnson said: “I am deeply grateful to my cherished friend, the Governor and Mrs. Daniel for the honor they pay me by their presence. “I have never worked with a more honest or trusted public official than Price Daniel, and I am proud of his friendship and I am proud he is Governor of my state.” After he went’ to Congress, Johnson said, “the greatest President I have ever known selected me to run a national campaign for the Democratic Party. His name was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I was no novice at the political gameI did have the best teaching that could come to any man, from the master himself. … President Roosevelt said to me, :Lyndon, we got to play this just like a football coach advises his team. And that is one games at a time’.” Johnson said he is running for re-election. “Now I have ears and I can hear, and I have eyes and I can see, and I see what some of my friends are doing, and I hear what some of my friends are saying,” he . said, “and all I got to say is this: that we got to take one game at a time.” He had confidence, he said, in BY YARBOROUGH Mrs. R. Defended Houston Scouts Enlisted in Anti-Smut Drive HOUSTON Thirty four thousand Boy Scouts ,yvere set upon -obscene literiture in Houston by the Boy Scout leadership, Mayor Lewis Cutrer, Assistant Police Chief George Seber, District Atty. Dan Walton, and Postal Representative Ben E. Burgdorff last week. Minor Huffman, executive of the Houston Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America, said the Scouts’ new project will include all literature that is “obscene.” He did not, however,, explain how the Scouts were going to draw distinctions among the obscene, the smutty, the sexy, the sugges tive, the soporific, the sophomoric, and literature. Even as the assembled guardians of the public morals were unleashing the Scouts on the lewd and lascivious prints, elsewhere in the town a county courtat-law judge, Jimmie Duncan, was having some trouble with the meaning of “obscene.” Last June 30 the vice squad of the city “swooped down” on a’ number of newsstand clerks and charged them with selling obscene magazines. One of the hapless was Oliver E. Cherry, 75, who was working at Guy’s Newsstand. He was charged with selling “Tonight,” a girlie magazine which evidently discussed resort hotels which do not allow mar ried couples and similar subjects. Cherry’s attorney, Seymour Lieberman, charged that the 1935 state obscenity law under which the clerks were charged is unconstitutional, violating free speech and free press. “Most of the works of Shakespeare would come under it”; so would “Sports Afield,” since it advertises guns for sale, he said. After about an hour and 15 minutes of Lieberman’s argument, Judge Duncan made his position clear. “I don’t want to cut you off, Mr. Lieberman, but there isn’t any use of your citing me any more of that Yankee law because I don’t intend to follow it,” he said. This naturally had a dampening effect on Attorney Lieberman’s presentation. Nevertheless,. t h e judge_ was somewhat interested by a recent Supreme Court decision which provided that the test of obscenity is whether a work taken as a whole appeals to “the prurient interest.” “How do you , spell that?” the judge asked, pen in hand. He wrote it down, sent to his office for a dictionary, and looked it up. A bachelor around town, Mike Gordon, said “Tonight” wasn’t worth $1 and was a low brand of humor, but “I don’t think it’s immoral.” A lawyer, Lee Ducoff, who is a former police officer, said the magazine was pretty crude, all right, but no more immoral than a Bikini bathing suit. Cherry had said he had had no idea what “Tonight” or any other of the hundreds of magazines he sold contained. The jury found him not guilty. Back on the law enforcement scene, Boy Scout Leader Huffman said the parents and 12,400 adult leaders of the Boy Scouts in Houstonalong with members of the 780 sponsoring institutions will be asked to aid in the anti-smut campaign. He did not estimate what percentage of Houston’s population. this would come to. The Boy Scouts, he said, will be pornographic materials received by mail, including the envelope the postmaster immediately and turn the material over to him. Huffman said he did not want to put the boys in the position of going around looking for smut. Mayor Cutrer said he was “very enthusiastic” about the plan.