ustxtxb_obs_1960_07_15_50_00004-00000_000.pdf

Mauldin in St. Louis Post-Dispatch ‘Little Old Men, Little Old Women’ Space and Money Let those flatter who fear, it is not an American art.JEFFERSON ‘The Hole in the Dike’ AMONG THE TWISTS and ironies of presidential politics, Sen. Kennedy’s decision to choose Sen. Lyndon Johnson as his running.mate will doubtless take a prominent place. For here is an eminently successful young nominee whose brilliant, young, albeit somewhat f rigidly professional organization had just scored an easy first ballot victory. That victory had been won over a powerful and persuasive legislator who had swept all else before him, and who had, in the last desperate days, jibed him for his Catholicism, his inherited wealth, his immaturity, his lack of Senatorial responsibility, Sand his father’s views of the world in 1939. Kennedy had behind him a bold and vigorous platform, he had amply demonstrated firmness and intelligence in the torrid convention infighting. He was ready for Nixon. Then, quite suddenly, he sought out his foe. He did so, we can all rest assured, purely in the spirit of a calculating gambler. The essence of that gamble can be set forth as an interrogative : Could he afford to dampen his appeal in key Northern and Western states in an effortby adding Johnson to the ticketto keef’most of the bristling and recalcitrant Southern states in line in November? Or, to rephrase,. could. hein havingthe controversial majority leader join himafford to equivocate with the South at the expense of yielding to. the shrewd and pliable Mr. Nixon. a valuable beachhead, a beachhead in those very parts of the nation which will surely demand that the whole Democratic ticket be as bold in pursuit of the presidency as was Kennedy in pursuit of the nomina tion? They reasoned, no doubt, that Kennedy’s Catholicism and his liberal reputation on civil rights were twin obstacles that towered too high in the South. Like Al Smith in 1928, They turned to a Southern senator and majority leader. Kennedy and his advisors, with a Southern revolt imminent, thought so. We think, as a calculated gamble, they have made a mistake, which we all may pay for in November. Johnson is going to be a target of rhetoric for the Republicans this fall perhaps as much as Kennedy himself, and particularly on oil, on labor, and on civil rights. There was a strong undercurrent of dissatisfaction among the Northern delegations, representing those states with the heaviest electoral votes. They 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. JULY 15, 1960 Ronnie Dugger Editor and General Manager Willie Morris, Associate Editor Sarah Payne, Office Manager Published once a week from Austin, Texas. Delivered postage prepaid $4 per annum. Advertising rates available on re, quest. Extra copies 10c each. Quantity prices available on orders. know, and they regret, that Johnson on the ticket is going to make it considerably harder for them this fall. Why, on the other hand, did Johnson do it? Why did he step down from his pinnacle as the nation’s most powerful senator to accept a candidacy under a man toward whoma fact upon which many Los Angeles observers were commentinghe had only the most hitter feelings? The answer lies not only in a stillburning presidential ambition, although the fact remains that Johnson will never be nominated by a Democratic convention. It ,lies in the tangled realities of personal power in ‘Washington, and it resides in the patent fact that whatever happens in November; Johnson can’t lose. He has served as majority leader only under a Republican president. This has been his great strength. Under a strong, ambitious Democratic administration pushing a broad and active program of legislation, he would still be an important figurebut not, certainly, as of old. The vice-presidency, an office now of tremendous world prestige, would not in contrast seem so insignificant. He would be a heartbreak away’ from the presidency … And if the ticket loses in Noveinber, under the, special law passed by the Johnson-dominated 1959 legislature, he will still be re-elected to the Senate for another full term, and return to the majority leadership. In the final reckoning, what man among us can unerringly and as divine truth say that Johnson, away from his Texas constituency and a free agent, will not in time become a greater man than he is, a spokesman for all of America, not bound to the old shibboleths, the vintage labels, the regional insularity and littleness. We need men sensitive to the great and overwhelming winds of change, to the downtrodden and the distressed all over the world. We need those who can recognize, as most of the agrarian-oriented nineteenth century Tories in Texas perhaps never will, that this deep and bitter conflict with Communism means absolutely nothing bitt brute owerplay unless we have men with the vision to set our own house in order, and make it fairer, and a little less harsh and selfish and grasping. To the man who has injured such liberalism in his own state so badly, this is the challenge we offer. W.M. EDITORIAL and BUSINESS OFFICE: 504 West 24th St., Austin, Texas. Phone GReenwood 7-0746. HOUSTON OFFICE: Mrs. R. D. Ran dolph, 4191% Lovett Blvd., Houston 16, Texas. 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. We are dedicated to the whole truth, to human values above all interests, to the rights of man as the foundation of democracy; we will take orders from none but our own conscience, and never will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of, the powerful or cater to the ignoble in the Inunan Sam Kindrick, a San Antonio Express reporter interviewing officials at Robert B. Green Hospital, has emerged with a sordid story of infantile malnutrition and the usual lack of money and space which deserves the widest possible circulation. A social worker who conducted Kindrick on a tour of the children’s ward said “We call them the ‘little old men’ and ‘little old women’.” As the reporter described them: “Ripped by the ravages of diarrhea, abdomens bloated to the near-bursting stage, the starved babies resemble abdominous monkeys.” HOSPITAL officials blame ignorance, indifference, and the low wage scale in San Antonio for the starvation of such babies. ,The head nurse said about 300 are admitted each year. “But we turn away hundreds of undernourished children,” Dr. Victor Lopez, resident pediatrician, told Kindrick. “Because of space limitations, we can only admit those suffering from disorders brought on by malnutrition.” Diarrhea is a major ailment. Until a child is sufficiently underfed l or improperly nourished to contact some diagnosable sickness, he cannot be admitted. Mrs. Nina Smith, a social worker, attributes .the situation to the baresubsistence wages for laborers and the ignorance of parents. “It’s the\(_ survival of the fittest,” Dr. Lopez said. “When 10 or 12 persons dine off one can of soup, the big ones get the most.” NDIFFERENCE is another factor. One father, it was reported, deliberately reduced his son to a bag of bones because the child was mentally retarded. A three-yearold boy was nearly starved to death by his parents because he drank ;kerosene at the age of two months. “We never figured he would be any good after drinking the kerosene,” the father told a hospital official. , Another three-year-old boy was brought to the hospital weighing 13 pounds. He didn’t have anything to eat for three years except diluted milk. “His parents didn’t know he was old enough to chew solid foods,” Mrs. Smith said. Mrs. Smith described the plight of the hospital Social Service. “We have no operating funds. All we can do is work with the family problems.” “That’s the trouble,” said Dr. Lopez. “You can’t get through to a hungrY man. Feed him and then he’ll listen.” *A MAN IN BLUE Los ANGELES The AP reported that a fellow in a blue shirt and a white “Johnson-forPresident” tie chanced to be sitting near the free soft drink stand in Johnson’s bedecked reception room. A woman and her young son walked up and asked for a bottle. The man said he was sorry, but he couldn’t help her. “Come on,” the woman said, pulling_ her son away. “They’re just cheap here.” The man in blue was H, L. Hunt. Herblock in Washington Post ‘Who Has Who in the Bag?’ The Winds of Change .. . _Ad the eaLtated ah THE TEXAS OBSERVER