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Austin Land Sold to Sears; Only One Bid AUSTIN A 34-acre green space in Austin was sold to the single bidder; Sears, Roebuck and Co., for the $800,000 Mayor Tom Miller announced months ago was the starting bid price he and Sears, Roebuck had agreed upon. The city council’s action was unanimous. Petitions of protest were on file with more than 3,000 names, 500 or 600 short of the required number, and citizens opposed to the sale were still seeking legal barriers to its consummation at midweek. City Attorney Doren Eskew called for higher bids six times and received no response from the packed city council room. Mayor Tom Miller, who has been criticized by former newspaper editor Edmunds Travis for advocating selling the land on such short notice that other prospective buyers have not had adequate time to make necessary surveys, interrupted the silence to say to George Riggin, the Sears manager in Austin, “Y’all like to raise your own bid a little?” The crowd laughed hard. Eskew told the Sears officials, -The council is not obligated to accept your bid.” “Anybody else like to bid?” Miller asked. “We’ll just leave it open about three minutes longer,” Eskew said. In about 30 seconds Eskew asked three more times and announced AUSTIN “I see a possibility of arriving at some agreementI mean there’s a hope, let’s say hope rather than possibility I’m not ready to give it up,” said Gov. Daniel of a special session for teachers’ pay probably no sooner than Feb. 1. But, he said, “I’m not going to call ’em just to see ’em kill off the program . I’m not going to spend $250,000 here down a rathole.” Trying to extract any more explicit resolution from the Governor’s remarks at his first press conference in four months was a dangerous game for the full press corps on hand. When one reporter asked him, “In other words, you plan to call a special session …” he bristled with offended sincerity and replied: “I haven’t said that. I’m telling you the absolute, sincere truth. I plan to call a session if I feel there’s a reasonable possibility to pass that program. If I do not … I will not call it. For you to judge that I’m not telling you what’s in my mind, you’ll be giving the public the wrong impression. I’m telling you exactly what’s in, my mind.” Reporters assessing the figures he gave them on legislators’ replies to his request for their views on a session generally had to conclude that he would have a difficult time passing a pay raise and financing it in a special session. He asked the legislators two questions: did they favor the higher teachers’ pay, and did they favor a special session? To the first question, 20 of 25 senators replying said yes, six of them tying their answers to specific kinds of tax r rograms they favored or opposed. Of 92 House members replying, 77 said yes; but 33 of these ’77 stated reservations, 12 of them going as far as to say teachers’ pay is not an emergency matter. Another 54 of the House members had not replied at all. To the second questiondid they want a special sessionnine senators said yes, two said no, 14 were noncommittal; 47 representatives said yes, 24 said no, 20 were noncommittal. One was Cox Announces For Governor The one great rule of composition is to speak the truth, THOREAU / A \(“t fr d, 45, The 4,,xas Obs..ver J r We will serve ne 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, DECEMBER 11, 1959 10c per copy No. 36 Daniel Can’t Decide Yet Liberals Hit By McClellan AUSTIN Jack Cox, ex-FIA leader, announced for governor Thursday. “I am not running against anybody,” he said. “At this point it looks like anybody who will be running will be running against me.” As for his party connection, he said, “I just call myself a Democrat. I suppose I’m of the old Jeffersonian school … that government is best which governs least. … I hope the Shivers organization will support me.” He said he had talked to ex-Gov. Shivers. Cox quit as executive secretary of Freedom in Action Nov. 30. against the entire program. Daniel was inclined, he said, to look at the 77 for the pay raise instead of the 47 for the session as an indication of public opinion. He was thinking that “once they’re down here” they would vote their convictions on the program, whether they had wanted to be called or not. But he allowed that the results indicated to him “that before any decision can be made,” he needs more replies from House members. Tax Issue Vital He was concerned by the fact that “almost a majority indicated they put the type of financing ahead of the job of improving the schools.” For himself, the Governor said the state should “do the job” to avoid federal aid, which would “in my opinion result in some federal controls eventually.” \(He stressed the word, Some reporters pressed him on the authenticity of the need for higher teachers’ pay. He was asked if the “average teacher’s salary from state and local sources” was a fair basis for comparison between stateshe thought it was. Had the figures listing Texas 31st among the states been adjusted for cost of living or average income? No, he said, but these correlations would n o t make Hubert Humphrey shot two deer, talked to a lunch group, said Democrats must nominate a liberal for president, said Lyndon Johnson is a great American, and shook the rafters at a Texas Farmers Union convention by condemning the Republidans as enemies of the farmers. He flew to Johnson’s ranch Thursday night \(“purely social,” he said; the same invitation given any visiting senator, said Johnup at 5 a.m., and they went hunting. “I fired two shots and killed two bucks, a nine-point and an eight-point,” Humphrey said. Then they flew to Houston for a lunch arranged by Houston oilmen and Johnson men J. R. Parten and Marlin Sandlin. Humphrey told the lunch group, “We hunted deer on the range both as non-candidates. Lyndon had several chances to draw the bead of a rifle on me but I came back without a scratch.” Johnson said Humphrey is “one of the most distinguished Americaris this century has produced.” Humphrey also said Johnson is “a great political leader. I have said this in Minnesota and I say it in Texas. There are times when he has not followed my advice but perhaps that is why he is always re-elected. He is a big man, a big Texan, a great American.” In his talk at the luncheon Humphrey said the U. S. must war on illiteracy, hunger, and .disease. He said the country has enough surplus wheat to produce 60 billion loaves of bread while Russia does not have such productivity He told Houston reporters he doubts that any Democratic candidate can get the presidential nomination on two or three ballots. “We have a mighty good array of winning candidates. But whoever gets the nomination will be a liberal. If he isn’t, he could not be elected.” Who would get the nomination if Humphrey were on the moon unable to accept it? “I’d like to assume they’ would send a rocket up to ‘bring me back down,” he said. Asked about Sin. William Proxmire’s criticisms of Johnson, Humphrey replied, “I don’t agree with , his statements, although some people thought it might have been better for me if I had.” Arriving in Fort Worth for the Farmers’ Union speech Friday night, Humphrey was asked if he considers Johnson a constructive liberal. “I call Sen. Johnson a very competent, able leader,” he replied. “He is my very good friend. He certainly isn’t a conservative. I believe he classifies himself as a middle-of-the-road liberal.”‘ At the Farmers’ Union banquet Sen. Ralph Yarborough glowingly introduced Humphrey, and Humphrey responded with high compliments for Yarborough. Also present at the 600-person DALLAS The conservative Democrats of Dallas, replying to the Truman rally \(Obs. Oct. of their own, responded only mildly to the idea of Lyndon Johnson for president and wildly cheered states’ rights, voting for men and not parties, and the 1959 labor bill passed by the Congress. Sponsors of the dinner included ex-Sen. William A. Blakley, Robert Clark, chairman of the Johnson clubs in Dallas, and S. J. Hay, a co-chairman of the Johnson clubs; Manuel DeBusk, Hugh Prather, Wallace Savage, and Drake, conservative Dallas party leaders; Dick West, editorial writer, Dallas News; Ben Wooten, banker who has endorsed Johnson, and others. Many of the sponsors have supported Eisenhower. Proceeds from the dinner were earmarked for the state Democratic committee, which is pledged to support the Democratic nominees for vice-president and president. In his press conference, Sen. John McClellan, Democrat from Arkansas, said Johnson is “the closest to my philosophy” among the Democratic contenders. “I can enthusiastically support Sen. Johnson when we get to the convention in Los Angeles next summer banquet were Jerry Holleman, president, Texas AFL-CIO, and Mrs. R. D. Randolph, Democratic national committeewoman. Holding forth an hour and a quarter, Humphrey never lost his audience during his “smorgasbord” of ideas for farm reform and recovery. He was applauded often. The American farmer is “today’s forgotten man” with his income dropped 24 percent$2 billionduring the f i r s t threefourths of 1959 and his net buying power the lowest it has been in 19 years. Republican policy boils down to “We like Ezra,” Humphrey said. Granting the basic problem is overproduction, Republicans settled on “the most inhuman solution to it: lower prices and break Sen. Hubert Humphrey and perhaps even before,” he said. He warned that the wrong nominee or the wrong campaign could be hard on Democrats. “We may throw away our opportunity,” he said. He said Paul Butler’s statements are “disconcerting to the party and are uncalled for.” ‘Conservative Southern’ From what was said and who was there, outsiders would have been hard put to understand the purpose of the gathering. But this is Dallas and, as Honor Guest Governor Daniel said, “Dallas always seems to do things right and in a big way.” A total of 1,152 bankers, industrialists, and other business leaders and their well-dressed wives were present; Gov. Daniel said the crowd was evidence that “Dallas will continue to work for the right kind of Democratic Party in our state.” Earlier, county chairman Ed Drake keynoted the theme of the meeting from his party standpoint: “The people here,” he said, “stand for the traditional principles of the Democratic Partythe preservation of states’ rights and individual freedoms. If those principles are lost, the party is an empty shell.” J. E. Connally, chairman of the state Democratic executive committee, made it official by con the farmer’s back . . . then maybe they won’t produce so much.” This has hurt consumers \(prices basically and still the surpluses are several times what they were when “this deliberate farm deflation policy” began. “And if the Republicans in Washington knew anything about human nature, they would have known from the beginning that increased production yes, surpluseswould result from deliberately depressing farm prices. As long as the American farmer is a free and independent man, he will try to make up for lower prices by planting more. It’s just plain common sense and economic necessity,” Humphrey said. “The true surplus” is hunger at home and abroad, he said. He advocates spending funds for “food for peace” instead of for storing food. He suggests putting young men to work in U. S. forests and parks “a Youth Conservation Corps.” He has “a food stamp plan” to supplement the diets of needy U. S. citizens. “Present farm policies have paved the way for the seizure of America’s vast acres of agricultural land by corporate interests, by corporate powers,” he said. He proposed four goals: determining a fair price for farm goods and a fair income standard for farmers. “Income per farm per HUMPHREY SETS FARM PLANS