ustxtxb_obs_1960_04_01_50_00002-00000_000.pdf

“BOW” WILLIAMS Automobile and General Insurance Budget r ayment Plan Strong Stock Companies GReenwood 2-0545 624 LAMAR, AUSTIN Let’s Abolish the Poll Tax! Over $133 Million Insunence In Force govitt,4 kie4 . INSURANCE COMPANY P. O. Box 8098 Houston, Texas HAROLD E. RILEY Vileo-Presideat and Dinseler s/ Agendas Teague in His First Race NEGRO SIT-INS IN EAST TEXAS his having taken legal fees from shaky insurance companies when a state senator. Essentially, Teague’s record is conservative. It is a record that has said “no” to federal civil rights legislation, at least a qualified “no” to federal aid to education, and “no” to most of the legislative hopes of organized labor. Foreign aid, too, has been added to his “nay” votes. His record has had a few liberal moments, mainly in the area of veterans’ benefits. Teague’s Sixth COngressional District primarily is a rural East Texas region, but his awareness of labor in his district is apparent in his comments concerning the current contest. He says that leaders of organized labor put his opponent in the race, and that labor is coming out of neighboring counties to help Moore. Teague does not consider himself to be anti-labor and claims that State AFL-CIO director Jerry Holleman “would vote for me if he voted in my district.” Many laboring people, he says, have benefited from the veterans’ programs he has sponsored. Against $1.25 Minimum With minor exceptions Teague has found himself on the opposite side of the fence from the AFLCIO on labor legislation. In 1956 the Committee on. Political Eduyear Congressional voting record on six labor issues. Four times COPE listed Teague as voting wrong. Heading the list was Teague’s vote to override President Truman’s veto of the TaftHartley Act of 1947. Analyzing the overall labor, general welfare and foreign aid records, COPE credited Teague with 12 wrong votes and seven right votes for the 1947-56 period. Two years ago COPE compiled another analysis for the 1957-’58 sessions, this time listing Teague as wrong ten times and right, three times. Teague’s latest opposition to labor’s position came in’ the 1959 session when he voted for the tougher Landrum-Griffin reform bill. Organized labor had supported reform legislation, but had opposed Landrum Griffin on grounds that it went far beyond reform and imposed unnecessary restrictions on legitimate unions. Teague does not regard the bill as “union busting” and says it gives “the average laboring man the same rights in a union as the average citizen wants in American life.” He said he would try to personally contact laboring people in his district “and tell them what is in the bill.” Before this session is out, Teague probably will have to record his vote on at least one other piece of important labor legislationthe minimum wage. He told the Observer reporters that he is opposed to raising the current $1 an hour minimum. “When it was raised last time, five or six little industries in my district had to close,” he said. Early in his Congressional career-1949Teague participated in a successful move in the House to push through an amendment removing one million people from the federal minimum wage protection. Teague’s fourteen years in seniority have enabled him to move into two key committee positions in the House. For eight years he has been chairman of the veterans affairs committee, and in 1959 he got a seat on the choice science and astronautics committee. The Bryan congressman probably is best known for his work on veterans’ legislation. He estimates that he spends 80 percent of his time working on the veterans’ program. He has sponsored such legislation as the Korean GI bill and the War Orphans Educational Assistance Act. For Yarborough Bill Teague hinted that there was a chance that another piece of veterans’ legislationthe Yarborough Cold War GI bill might get House approval this session. It passed the Senate last year. He said that currently there are not enough votes to get it out of the Veterans Affairs Committee, “but some changes are taking place.” “I am very friendly to the legislation, and I still have hopes it will pass this session,” he said. While he has supported the GI educational b ill s, Teague has shown less inclination to favor federal aid for education of the non-veteran public. In 1957 he helped defeat, 208 to 203, a bill which would have provided federal –aid for school construction. A year later he voted to kill a bill for federal loans to college students \(the National Defense he did vote for the Fogarty Amendment to increase_ funds for school construction in federally impacted areas. For a number of years Teague has had his own education bill pending in the House education and labor committee. Instead of federal aid, Teague’s legislation would provide that one percent of all federal income taxes collected in a state be left in the state for education. The bill presumably would give the richest states the most for education, and the poorest the least. It has never been reported e ut of the committee. Teague takes a rather typical Southern view on civil rights, terming the issue “a political football.” This year he opposed bringing civil rights legislation up for consideration on the floor of the House and stood with Southern colleagues in a vain effort to block the final version, which passed last week. Teague said he doesn’t think civil rights legislation is important “to the Democratic Party in the upcoming election.” “No person in my district is excluded from voting, and no one should be,” he said. He opposes federally enforced integration, and said that there is no integration problem in his district. “They’re getting along fine,” he commented. At the same time he feels that he and his Southern colleagues know best how the Negroes should be treated: “Walk around the Capitol and ask the colored people here whom they prefer. They’ll say they like the Southern congressmen better than the Northerners. We treat them like people.” Other Issues In recent years Teague has sided with the growing bloc which opposes foreign aid. He terms his vote as a protest to what he calls the poor administration of the program: “I supported federal aid for a number of years because I saw the destruction in Europe. I voted for it until these countries caught up. Since then I have voted against foreign aid because it has been poorly administered, and we have tried to buy friends where they couldn’t be bought.” He said that he strongly favors the technical aid provisions of foreign aid and contended that he would vote for foreign aid if his vote meant passage or defeat. Teague believes in this country maintaining a deterrent force that would make “political gangsters as they have in Russia know that we will give them the bad end of it.” He said that he thinks the total defense appropriation is sufficient. He is opposed to any further reduction in conventional weapons. He opposes Sec. Benson’s farm programs but. doesn’t offer any specific remedies. He does, however, say he would favor plans like the Humphrey food-for-peace proposal. “There must be some way to continue to produce what we are able to produce and give it to needy countries,” he said. Teague, who studied agriculture at Texas A&M College, is a firm believer in soil and water conservation. “Our resources should be improved for our children,” he said. “Local funds should be used when there is sufficient local money, but some projects are so big that they can’t get local money and federal funds need to be used.” Watershed projects dot Teague’s eleven-county district. A report issued by the U. S. Department of Agriculture Soil Conservation Service at Temple last month listed 13 projects in tl1ie planning or construction stage. Teague’s record; while predominantly conservative, has its variations. His record on housing legislation probably is a good example. Despite many votes against public housing in previous years, he sided ‘with its supporters on three important votes in the last two sessions of Congress. Teague, commenting on his Washington career, said, “Actually, my philosophy is more liberal than My voting record.” He has chosen to run his record. ANNE and JAKE LEWIS Fath Report Coming AUSTIN Creekmore Fath’s contribution to the Observer’s discussion of Sen. Lyndon Johnsonan analysis of divided leadership in the Democratic Party, the national cornmittee, advisory council, and party platforms on one side, and the Congressional leadership on the otheris delayed a week, since it is longer than expected, and its typing had not been finished. THE TEXAS OBSERVER Page 2 April .1, 1960 remained closed and attended by police. Sheriff Earl Franklin told the press all the Negroes were from out-of-state. The student release said this was “grossly incorrect” and that “a large number of the students are Texans and a substantial number are local Marshall citizens.” Press reports said a’ white was among the protesters; this was explained by the statement as a mistake about one of the students. Saturday afternoon a group of ten different students entered Union Bus Terminal Cafe in Marshall and sat at the lunch counter. “All white patrons left, except for two men who remained,” the student statement said. The store was closed, the students left, and were approached -by police and sheriff’s officers, called “nigger,” “boy,” “boot,” and “you” by one or two of the officers, and “threatened with jail if they came to town again as a group,” the students’ statement said. “A spokesman for the students states,” the release continued, that “it is the hope of the students that this movement will stir the local Negro population out of their lethargy and awaken them to the realization that they have had their civil and human liberties almost completely and totally denied them for so long a period of time. ,Opinions from various students indicate that they intend to continue their protests.” ‘Bash His Head In’ Monday, they did. At 10 a.m., three groups of college students sat at Woolworth’s, Dinner Planned; New Controversy AUSTIN Byron Skelton, Democratic national committeeman, responded to a letter from Mrs. R. D. Randolph asking him his plans by announcing that he expects to put on a Democratic fund-raising dinnerin the late fall to raise the balance of the 1958 and all of the 1959 Texas quota to the Democratic Party, and perhaps some of the 1960 quota. Meanwhile, a new fight broke out. Speaker Sam Rayburn said in Dallas, in a Times-Herald interview, “I couldn’t imagine the national convention doing a idiculous thing” like barring Southern delegations which did not pledge to support the Demo 7 cratic nominees. Democratic National Chairman Paul Butler told a press conference in Detroit he believes that loyal Democrats in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, and South Carolina should prepare competing delegations if regular delegations will not pledge to support the nominees. He said those states have adopted rules which pave the way for them to bolt the party if they find the civil rights plank unacceptable. “I would hope that loyal Democrats will organize a delegation in the event the regular delegation is challenged by the credentials committee,” Butler said. This bore on Lyndon Johnson’s candidacy in two ways; by po’sing the possibility that Southern delegations favorable to him could be booted out of the national convention; by suggesting to his foes among Texas Democrats that if the Texas Johnson delegation will not pledge to ‘support the nominees, a competing delegation might win recognition at Los Angeles. a local Rexall drug store, and the bus cafe. The bus cafe was locked when they arrived. They were asked to leave thi other two counters but refused and were arrested and taken to the police station where they were questioned and fingerprinted. “What we’re trying to do is to talk some sense into them,” Police Chief C. M. Ezell was quoted. “We had them in the courtroom here for a heart-to-heart talk.” D. A. Charles Allen said, “If there are additional sit–ins, charges will be filed.” A student statement from the protestersthis time signed by seventeen names, all male names said: “While in the custody of the police the students were told that this movement was going to get someone hurt, and that even if the movement was successful the relationship between the races would not be any better. They were also advised not to return and if they students understood that this movement might end in a violent manner.” The statement also said that one of the students, “who seemed to be listening unattentively, was handled roughly by one of the police officers,” who “took the student to another room where he sat the student down by pushing his finger against the -student’s eye. He then grabbed the collar of the young student and proceeded to shake and slap him. He also told the student that he was letting the NAACP swell his head, and if he returned to town he \(the offiAfter being fingerprinted the students were released in groups of two or three. The city commission issued a statement saying they recognize the right to demonstrate, but demonstrations which “will incite public disorder” are unlawful. “Under this country’s free enterprise system and under our laws a merchant has the legal right to select the patrons he serves,” the statement said. The release from the students continued: “Information indicates that the students intend ‘,to con