ustxtxb_obs_1960_04_29_50_00001-00000_000.pdf

diN91$0 THE 4.4.-St1h4C1 -04 POST Ca. 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. The one great rule of composition is to speak the truth. THOREAU The Texas Observer An Independent-Liberal Weekly Newspaper Vol. 52 TEXAS, APRIL 29, 1960 10c per copy No. 4 `Wait for Your Leaders, Dammit’ May 714: echigrial To Democratic Voters : On May the 7th, that is, next Saturday, you, as a Democratic citizen, will have your only chance to directly affect the Democrats’ presidential nomination. The’Republican press of Texas is having a seizure . currently, a kind of political epilepsy, in the climax of its five-year attempt to stampede Texas Democrats into supporting Lyndon Johnson. Many business oriented Texans have lent their names to this movement. It is well organized and will be joined with Price Daniel’s forces in the precinct. It includes many Johnson supporters who will be “Democrats for Nixon” if Johnson is not nominated. Every thinking liberal Democrat in Texas knows that Johnson’s nomination would be an historic calamity in this country and abroad. He, more than anyone, has compromised the Democrats’ liberalism in the last eight years. Adlai Stevenson, Chester Bowles, Hubert Humphrey, John Kennedy, and Stuart Symington are all more liberal than the Texas opportunist. Each of them has a background much less vulnerable to Republican attack than JohnsonJohnson of the Southern racist period, 87-vote Johnson, Johnson of the labor-baiting period, Johnson of the many shocking illiberal votes, and most recently, Johnson of the ‘halfway-to-Eisenhower” period. In Texas, we know these things. And we still live in a free state ! The Republican dailies do not tell Democrats what to do vet. hope you will organize your precinct for him. If you are for John Kennedy, organize your precinct for hint. If you are for AB Jthat is, Anybody but Johnsonorganize your precinct for an uninstructed delegation. To be sure, the trend in Texas, banked by the Republican Dress, seems to be running the other way. So what? Are you boys and girls, or men and women? With 1960 an historic year for the nation and the world, all citizens have a special duty to do what they think is right, no matter what they think is expedient, on May the 7th. The Decisive Precincts HOUSTON The Young Democratic Clubs of Texas, firmly in control of liberal forces opposed to Sen. Lyndon Johnson for the Democratic presidential nomination, strongly commended Adlai Stevenson of Illinois in a resolution and heard Sen. William Proxmire of Wisconsin criticize Johnson and say that Sen. Ralph Yarborough of Texas would make a fine president. References to Johnson were booed by the 170 delegates, and when Proxmire named Johnson at a banquet Saturday night, there was loud booing. Two conservative, pro-Johnson delegations, from Dallas and the University of Texas, were not seated, while liberal delegations from Dallas and U.T. were seated. Presidential sentiment among the convention delegates was overwhelmingly p r o Stevenson. There was no official criticism of AUSTIN Texas Democrats will in effect decide Saturday, May 7th, whom they want to be president and whether forces opposed to or in favor of a general sales tax will control state politics for the next two years. In the primary election on Saturday, they will choose state officeholders and members of the 1961 legislature. In nearly 6,000 precinct conventions, mostly that night at 7 o’clock, they will select delegations in the series of presidential conventions and give them directions on whom to support for the Democratic nomination. To participate in the precinct conventions, Democrats must have voted in the primary. The Republicans and the Constitution Party do not hold primaries, but they hold precinct conventions May 7th leading to their presidential nominations. On May 14 county Democratic conventions will be held. On June 4th runoff elections will be held for those races not settled Saturday. On June 14 both the Democrats and Republicans hold state conventions to select delegations to send to their respective national conventions. The Democrats’ national convention will be July’ 11 in Los Angeles; the Republicans’, July 25 in Chicago. Forces in Texas ‘favoring Sen. Lyndon Johnson for the Democratic nomination will recommend, in the May 7th conventions, only one resolutionJohnson for PresidentMac Roy Rasor of the Johnson state headquarters in Austin said. Whatever other resolutions precincts want to pass are to be left to the decisions on the precinct level, he said. Creekmore Fath, secretary-treasurer of Democrats of Texas Clubs, has sent DOTC members six resolutions for precinct conventions, including one committing state and county party officers and delegates to support “all nominees” of the Democratic Party in the November election and another endorsing Mrs. R. D. Randolph for a second term as national committeewoman. The Harris County Democratic executive committee a d o p t e d “fair-play rules” for the precinct conventions which included making an accurate list of all persons qualified to participate, during the convention; letting all members desiring to make nominations do so; and allowing “reasonable time” for discussions of all nominations and resolutions, not limiting any speaker to “less than three minutes.” After convening at 7 p.m., the rules say, if some voters are still waiting to vote, the convention should be recessed until Johnson in the resolutions, but the rejection of the two delegations in which the most proJohnson sentiment was lodged, the invitation of Proxmire, the absence of Speaker Sam Rayburn whom the pro-Johnson faction tried unsuccessfully to invite, and the booing of Johnson’s name made manifest the Young Democrats’ position. The Stevenson resolution, as serting that Stevenson “has faith go to the precinct conventions and see that in your state convention, a resolution isn’t brought out for a sales tax.” Johnson and Daniel forces, on the other hand, are firmly committed to Johnson for President. Gov. Daniel, declaring that Sen. Johnson’s “stock is rising all the time,” has pledged his forces to the support of the Johnson for President move. Daniel pledges to fight “splinter groups” and again emphasizes to his people that the same delegates elected May 7th for the presidential state convention will also be the delegates to the September state convention on party politics in Texas. But “Freedom in Action” delegates can go either wayfor or against Johnsonand no one has a very definite idea, outside F.I.A., what their plans are. F.I.A. people work within _ parties,’ but do not acknowledge party loyalty as controlling. They insist the United States is “not a democracy,” as assistant to the state F.I.A. director Bill Hollis wrote F.I.A. people last year. They are more conservative than Johnson and in many ways more conservative than Eisenhower. In recent months F.I.A. has been threatening to take control .of the conservative movements in both Houston and Dallas, to the disgruntlement of many non-F.I.A. conservatives. Should they control one or both of these delegations, Johnson might be in trouble from the right. they vote and arrive for the convention. Issues at Stake The May 7th Democratic precinct conventions will decide a number of things: The Texas stance on the Democrats’ presidential nomination. The subsequent enthusiasm or lack of enthusiasm with which state party officials will campaign for the Democratic nominees, whether they include Johnson or not. Liberal or conservative control of the state party machinery stem-, ming from the September convention for the next two years. ‘ The shape of the forces in the precincts is difficult to make out. Liberal Democrats organized behind Mrs. Randolph and D.O.T.C., and almost certainly ‘to be joined by Sen. Ralph Yarborough, are not friendly to the Johnson candidacy, and should occasion arise might be expected to bolt to Los Angeles if necessary to support a more liberal candidate. Mrs. Randolph, speaking in Houston on the May 7th conventions, said: “It’s the only place that you really have any say as to who’s going to be the nominee of the Democratic Party as to president and vice president. “If you do not attend your preeinct conventions, you may have a resolution coming up in your precinct conventions for a sales tax. If you’re against the sales tax, you had better see that you YOUNG DEMOS PRAISE ADLAI No Passion Fruit Here AUSTIN Texas liquor officials have taken an unyielding stand against mixing passion with liquor, officially disapproving for use in Texas the label, “Royal Hawaiian Passion Fruit Liqueur.” The first disapproval came March 30 when James Strong, marketing and practices supervisor of the Texas Liquor Control proving the label for use in Texas and explaining, “There is no fruit defined in the standard dictionary as passion fruit.” A Honolulu Star-Bulletin columnist picked this up, saying passion fruit looks like a lemon but tastes sweet. “The entire Hawaiian passion fruit industry had better close down because Texas and Webster don’t believe it exists,” the columnist, William Drury, wrote. The president of the company, E. M. Bovee, shot off a letter to Strong, saying he was sure it was all a misunderstanding and enclosing an extension circular about “passion fruit culture” published by the University of Hawaii. Convinced that passion fruit do exist, Strong talked it over with Coke Stevenson, Jr., the liquor board administrator, and they agreed to bar the label, anyway. In his official letter of disapproval, Strong says, he told the company president, Bovee: “The words ‘Passion Fruit Liqueur’ cannot be approved for use since the general impression is that the name of this product infers that the consumption of same would stimulate the passion of the individual consuming same.” “The main objection,” Strong explained to the Observer, “was associating passion with liquor. Looking at the label of the thing, you’d think that passion would be stimulated by drinking the liquor.” Administrator Stevenson, laughing, said he had been down in Mexico recently and heard of one liqueur named “creme de amor.” Furthermore, he said, he was given literature for another liqueur which quoted doctors who said that it “promotes sex.” He said he was approached in a marketplace by a salesman for this sexy liquid and told, .`This is better than Spanish fly.”‘ He does not expect to receive applications for the sale of these liqueurs in Texas. But he agrees with Strong that Texans must not be tempted by anything in a bottle labeled “Royal Hawaiian Passion Fruit Liqueur.” “There is a passion fruit,” he said, “but we think that on the market, it would possibly be too suggestive, appealing maybe to the younger generationthose over 21, say of that vintageit might not be conducive to our nice settled market we have down here.”