ustxtxb_obs_1960_01_15_50_00004-00000_000.pdf

Page 8

by

Texas Observer Exclusively in the Bartlett Appears MODERATE NICK THE KNIFE VS. L. B. BROWNROOTER Let those flatter who fear, it is not an American art.JEFFERSON `My Mind Is Open But My Heart Is Closed’ Congratutationd, Ji itne We congratulate t h e Abilene school board for its good judgment upon second thought in breaking off its acceptance of private business funds to finance its development of a revised “Americanism” curriculum. We trust the Sweetwater school Nothing is more sickening than the steady flow of reports from Cuba that Fidel Castro is as fanatic and punitive against his critics as any tinhorn Latin-American dictator. Reporters are jailed because they refuse to betray their news sources. Cubans who peacefully withdraw from the government, saying merely that they do not approve any more, are attacked virulently and neurotically by Castro and put in jail for 25 years. The murders of the Batista Siva6tdaJ The Swastikas and hate-the-Jews signs which appeared in Germany and Europe frightened but did not seem really to threaten us. Now they appear on a Dallas synagogue and inside two Corpus Christi public schools. Let those who indulge easy hostilities to ‘racial or ethnic groups reflect on the implications. And who can fail to see an analogy with the sign ‘which still obscenely straddles the main street of Greenville, Texas : “The Blackest Land and the Whitest People”! cearthyiJrn McCarthyism, firmly planted during years of fear, grows now in our native politics with the tenacity of mesquite. Liberal New .Orleans mayor DeLesseps Morrison was smeared the last few days of the campaign for governor because a secretary of his once belonged to an organization listed as communist by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Such sordid plays are always carefully fenced off from the candidates they benefit. We hope the voters now generally reject them, but the Louisiana returns were not reassuring. 21ryneo3 In a speech in Coleman, Atty. Gen. Wilson says of more payrolls in Texas, “there alone lies the key to prosperity,” and that therefore we must hold down the costs of state government. What does he propose to cut? Aid to the aged? Appropriations for Gatesville school for boys, which needs increases ? Or would he return the state hospitals to their previous ‘conditionshuman warehouses? Will Wilson should say what he means. There is a dryness to his economicsa frightening, inhumane dryness. Published by Texas Observer Co., Ltd. Entered as second-class matter, April 26, 1937, at the Post Office at Austin, Texas, under the Act of March 3, 1879. JANUARY 15, 1960 Ronnie Dogger Editor and General Manager Sarah Payne, Office Manager district will follow suit, and other Texas public schools will refuse these propaganda-tainted grants if and when they are offered. The Observer is gratified if its reports on the program were a cause of the Abilene board’s reconsideration. sympathizers after Castro came to power \(w,ithout fair trials, in an ating; their similarity to the murders during Batista’s reign do not mitigate them, they make them more horrible. We approve of many of Castro’s reforms, but if he does not stop his paranoiac persecutions of his critics, he cannot hope for the support of liberal America. If he has no more regard for the rights of human beings than this, his very humanitarianism is called into question. Let him try a little democracy, and run the risks of freedom .as he promised! e aol 5exaa We would like to hear from our readers on the subject of the , treatment of Negroes in East Texas. We have a feeling that liberalism in the state has not confronted its responsibility for East Texas. We have not yet accepted our collective guilt. The worst official act of Gov. Daniel, his signing of the 1957 segregation bills, has passed as expedient. Professional Texans like to have the Cadillac-and-oil myth rub off on them, but not this use of people as animals. Even the University of Texas, which has made progress on the issue, bars. Negroes from college , sports with other teams, setting a bigoted example for the hundreds of thousands of Texas fans and necessarily accepting guilt in the ugly Cotton Bowl incidents. If the liberal comminity of the state refuses to address the realities of East Texas, how can moderates and state universities be held to account? .5 _ eoi ton We commend Gov. Daniel for deciding not to call a special session before the elections. If the y , teachers will work for progressive taxes and not sales taxes this summer as well as higher pay for themselves, perhaps Gov. Daniel will be able to conclude that a special session in the fall will be justified. ro. Clayton Airs. Will Clayton of Houston, a very wealthy woman, worked loyally and fearlessly for the poor. In her handwritten will, she left part of her estate “to Any beloved country, the United States of America, to be used for the retirement of the national debt.” For her goodness and for her patriotism she will be long and well remembered. 7 Published once a week from Austin, Texas. Delivered postage prepaid $4 per annum. Advertising rates available on request. Extra copies 10c each. Quantity prices available on orders. EDITORIAL and BUSINESS OFFICE: 504 West 24th St., Austin, Texas. Phone GReenwood 7-0746. HOUSTON OFFICE: ‘1010 Dennis, Mrs. R. D. Randolph. MARSHALL Back around Dec. 20 of last year, the Gallup Poll showed Mr. Rayburn’s presidential candidate to be running like a house afirein the had a thundering three percent vote ; in the Midwest, seven percent ; and in the Far West, five percent. Now there’s a horse for you. The only area offering him colors to carryFor. Old Dixie, Sah !finds itself slapped in the face by Pussyfoot Johnson, who must needs be a Westerner, or a Far Westerner, or even a hairy-eared mountaineeranything save a Southerner. From such ironies are political victories fashioned, if Pussyfoot is also fleet of foot. There are signs that the old Master is headed for evil days, and that hissing noise you hear is the air escaping from the trial balloons that were the Johnson-for-something-or-other clubs. They have been created and viewed, by and large, with a sense of raging apathy. Oh, the political opportunists may seek” to breathe, vigor into them, but when the Texas-shaped steaks made by the anointed and the free barbecue played out, Pussyfoot began to look like William Arvis Blakley. He may yet hold the whole wide Texas in his handbut not the political world. The liberals, who are the only true democrats, are beginning to wake up to where Leaderless Lyndon took them during the last session of Congress, and they want no more. Likely that three percent vote from back East represented the membership of the National Association of Manufacturers of the area. If there was a liberal in it, he probably was caught during pre-holiday celebrations. ALL OF WHICH brings us to a point of importance. Recently that harum-scarum / firebrand, David Lawrence of U.S. News & World Report, editorialized on the presidential candidates to be. Contrary to all expectations, he turned out to be a Nixon man on the Republican side. On the other hand, he picked Our Lyndon for the Democrats: Now there would be a race, Nick the Knife and Lyndon Brownrooter. Granted, this ticket would be a safe one, McKinleywise; but what of its effect on the immediate prosperity of the country, say through the. 1960 campaign? With Nick sporting the colors of his California slush fund contributions, and Lyndon those of a rooty brown sack, what a pageant , of the commonplace ! Both might plan to spend on the race, but they would have no funds. Fancy with me the approach of either to the wells of conservatism, Nick first : “Ow candidate merits your’ support, :Sir, as did Saint Ike against that Socialist Stevenson,” would be the opening. The closing would be the tart reply that the worthy member of the N.A.M. could see not one whit of difference between Nick and Lynn, and he didn’t give a hang which went in. The fund solicitor would sadly go his way, remarking that indifference will not loosen purse strings. When the money seekers for either should approach Labor, the response would be another “no.” For Lyndon, the stalwart knifer of the KennedyIves labor bill ? The man who chose the ranch of the worst labor baiter of all time for his heart attack ? Impossible, Why, Nick-the-Knife has more claim.. on Labor’s vote. After all, he got credit for putting the squeeze on Big Steel in that memorable strike when St. Ike refused government interventionuntil the country economy had suffered a sufficient blood letting. Alas, Labor’s only move in this sad eventuality would be to wear the 600,000 buttons that Papa McDonald had made up for the pending strike vote in the Steel of fair, and which bear the one word, “NO.” Come to think of itI want one of those for election day, if it sadly comes with the Gold Dust Twins monopolizing the ballot. Aside from there being no place for the independents to go, think of the shock / to our economy. No money pumped into the various localities for the organization of clubs, such as Crop Dusters for Dick, or Librarians for Lyndon. No school teachers lead’ ing their little flocks in chanting “Dick’s a Dear” ; no “Democrats for Dick.” Funds shut of f. TV without fodder, failing to exude the quarts and quarts of sticky political honey that the Republicans usually give us. No canned interviews with Ike and Dick, where rigged questions and answers are given as though spontaneous. THE THOUGHT is too horrible to pursue further. Why, we might as well be on the beachor wouldn’t we be? FRANKLIN JONES THE TEXAS OBSERVER