ustxtxb_obs_1960_08_19_50_00004-00000_000.pdf

Let those flatter who fear, it is not an American art.JEFFERSON Resonant Conscience averich emergeJ Bartlett Appears Exclusively in the Texas Observer For the Gods .. . Dishes of Ironies THE TEXAS OBSERVER EMPI ii1A0 -11W 7 SINCE THE ELECTION of Ralph Yarborough, Texas politics has been less interesting and less fundamental because of the absence of a rising liberal leader in whom the state’s considerable but mostly latent liberalism could find its expression and result. Although he made a good showing against Ben Ramsey, Don Yarborough did not develop, last spring, into this leader: he seemed still to have too much to learn, and to be too “political,” too cautious. Rep. Bob Eckhardt of Houston is a state leader of unrivaled stature among liberals, but his career, being as important as it is, has tended toward a steadier program of ascent. There are other able liberal leaders, but most of them are principally local figures. Therefore, the sudden emergence of Maury Maverick, Jr., as the most likely and best qualified liberal candidate should a U.S. Senate race develop next year is by all odds the best Texas political news since the sweep of the San Antonio House delegation by the Franklin Spears coalition. As a member of the House in the early fifties, when the legislature was controlled by unrestrained interests of private privileges, when the state government was ridden through with thieves and bribery, and when McCarthyismTexas stylewas making cowards of most politicians, Maverick stood forth, alone when necessary, for his convictions. A “worrier,” he would pace the floor of the House, head hanging down, chest collapsed, as the debauches of democratic government were passed off on an inattentive press and an uninformed people. His bursts of protest at the microphone and his lonely WE DON’T KNOW anything anyone can do about it, but we wish to register our plain indignation at being asked, by the state legislature and Sen. Johnson, to vote for the same man for Vice-President and U.S. Senator. It is an insult to intelligent voters to ask them to vote for one man for two such important national offices in the full knowledge that constitutionally he will only be able to fill one of them. A North Texas college student has sued, seeking to have the situation declared as unconstitutional as it is absurd. We have doubted from the first that he had a chance in the courts, but his point is nevertheless well taken. ~ti3 tonic THE TRIAL of Francis Power for admitted espionage in Russia illuminates the historic follies of nationalism. As a nation we are collectively guilty for the violation of Russia’s sovereignty; but Russia and the United States are also guilty for failing 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. AUGUST 19, 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 $5 per annum. Advertising rates available on request. Extra copies 15c each. Quantity prices available on orders. nays on the voting board are remembered now by those few whose spirits followed his slouching image back and forth across the well of the House. We were disappointed this year when Maverick worked for Johnson for President ; but while we make no excuses for this, we would recall that Maverick led the fight in the Bexar County caucus at the state convention for the liberals’ loyalty oath, even though Johnson bitterly opposed it. The people who know Maverick know that he is a person of integrity, a liberal of independent spirit, a militant friend of civil liberties and civil rights, and one of those resonant consciences without which political debate would be hollow sloganeering and democracy mere merchandising. His speech at the labor convention last week created the climate of idealism and courage in which the delegates decided to endorse the Negroes’ lunch-counter sit-ins as the same kind of social’ pioneering by which the unions themselves won their place in American life. A careful student and a proud inheritor of Texas history, Maverick fixes thereon the unmistakeable antecedents of contemporary Texas liberalism. Although he is the son of a legendary Texas congressman, it is more important that he is a son of the bright liberal heritage of his state and nation. We hope he runs for the Senate if a race develops. We believe he could win while fighting for the most controversial principles which he would most certainly do. If we could vote for Kennedy and Lodge without invalidating our ballot, we would do so ; but this is not possible. A Republican told us that anyway, he would get a chance to vote against Johnson twice on the same day, which must be some sort of consolation for being a Texas Republican. For liberal citizens, the best course may be to vote for the Kennedy and Johnson ticket and write someone in, or vote for the Republican for senator, as a protest. As for legislators who, cowering before Johnson’s will, passed this law letting him run for two offices, we hope their constituents will burn them good nowif only with derision. .7ollieJ to muster leadership sincerely devot ed to the abatement of hostilities among nations. From the U.S. point of view Powers was a brave man do ing his duty as a loyal American ; from Russia’s, he is a menacing spy EDITORIAL and BUSINESS OFFICE: 504 West 14th St., Austin, Texas. Phone GReenwood 7-0746. HOUSTON OFFICE: Mrs. R. D. Randolph, 419 1/9 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 human spirit. MARSHALL Due regard for the opinion of mankind causes the writer to say at the outset that he speaks as an independent, one who entered none of the primaries or conventions, and thus became one of the undecided group that the pollsters say will determine the outcome of the national election. The Olympian detachment of this position is heady stuff : no need for partisan praise or dedicated denunciation, just the sensation of floating above the strife and watching the ant-like participants tear off a pincer here, a leg there, and a head yonder. Not that I will go through November shouting, “A pox on both your houses,” but rather that I may praise or condemn in that vein of objectivity usually reserved for the report of a conventional non-shotgun wedding. The most exquisite irony of all operated through the efforts of the reactionaries to make Senator Johnson their stalking horse. Seeing the trend, Sen. Kennedy at first wrote off the South and wooed the liberals with an ardor that made Mark Antony’s affair with Cleopatra look like a game of post office in junior high. This produced the most . liberal Democratic platform in the memory of man. Whether through magnitude of heart and mind or of crass ambition, Sen. Johnson unsteadily mounted this platform and is beginning to get his sea legs on it. Dick Nixon had hoped for some Southern support before July 18, but with Sen. Johnson promising the South to the Democrats, Nixon panicked and shifted his line far to the left of any earlier Republican ideology. Forsaking hope of great head who violated the mother country’s integrity and security. The very fact that all thoughtful persons under stand he was doing his duty as an American citizen makes his treat ment as a criminal indecent, yet if a Russian flew a spy-plane over Kan sas from a base off the coast, think of the pressure to hang him from our own people! The nation-state system, here ludicrous, is also a ter rible menace to the peace in a world where even a Spanish factory will be able to produce hydrogen bombs. Timid candidates couch international idealism now in terms of food surpluses, underdeveloped countries, and free markets, but the true nemesis of world peace is inflammable nationalism, and peace will not be reasonably secure until, economically and politically, nations become one world. way in the South, Dick also made like Mark Antony toward the industrial north and east and expropriated the Rockefeller liberalism lock, stock, and barrel. Of such ironies are concocted dishes for the gods. Lyndon, as leader of the South at Los Angeles, drove the Democratic convention far to the left. Lyndon, as running mate of Sen. Kennedy and deliverer of the Southern vote, in turn drove the Republicans almost as far to the left. Politics, like the Almighty, sometimes works in mysterious ways its wonders to perform. The pre-committed conservatives can scarcely say that their choice for president is unfit to be vice president. Certainly, neither they nor Lyndon intended for him to be the instrument that drove both parties so far left of center in their platforms. All that remains for them is to wag their heads. Meanwhile, it may happen that this election will be decided by those who “have nowhere else to go.” Will there be more who have nowhere else to go but into the Democratic Party, or more who have nowhere else to go but into the Republican Party? This trend toward support by negation has been caused by the refusal to recognize natural lines of demarcation, such as liberal and conservative, and the effort to present parties that are all things to all menand women and children. We see it in most of labor, which has nowhere else to go but into the Democratic Party. And in Jimmy Hoffa, who perforce a congressional investigation has nowhere else to go but into the, Republican Party; although readers of Bobby Kennedy’s The Enemy Within can doubtless think of somewhere he ought to be sent. Even among us independents, those with conservative leanings find difficulty in determining to where they best have nowhere else to go. Both platforms are liberal enough to give us something of a choice between personalities, if we have liberal leanings, but alack, a-day, for the conservative-pointed independent ! He went out, not with bustles, but with Barry Goldwater. He can subscribe to neither platform, and I wager he won’t be able to accept the campaign speeches of either candidate. You know, that fellow Johnson may have been an instrument of fate this summer. Who else could have pulled and driven the two major parties so far to the left? Well, back to the observation post to see which is the best party for me to have nowhere else to go. FRANKLIN JONES, SR.