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A Matching Offer DALLAS Trustees of a Dallas foundation have voted to buy 500 Observer subscriptions with an expenditure of $2,500 to place the Observer in all the libraries of Texas colleges and universities and all the public libraries in the cities and towns of the state, contingent on two-for-one matching subscriptions. Advising the Observer of their decision, the trustees said they are convinced “of the importance of maintaining in Texas an independent newspaper.” The Observer is preparing a list of all the college and tax-supported public libraries in the state, including all 105 branch libraries in the cities. A year’s subscription will be sent to these libraries courtesy of the Dallas foundation, provided the trustees’ expectations of matching subscriptions are met. On the thought that each library subscription greatly increases the number of Texans who see the Observer, the trustees suggested that the matching subscriptions should be more than one-forone. Observer supporters wishing to assist in obtaining the 1,000 matching subscriptions should earmark their subscriptions “Library Matching Fund.” The Observer also hopes that some group subscription purchases will develop on a matching basis. “The Observer is gratified and complimented by the foundation’s decision. I am confident that the matching subscriptions will be forthcoming,” the editor said. There are no conditions on the foundation’s grant except the matching program and the privacy of the identity of the donor, he added. .spaper The one great rule of composition is to speak the truth. THOREAU Vol. 52 Nixon, Kennedy to Visit AUSTIN Concern has steadily increased among Democratic leaders that Richard Nixon may carry Texas. Senator Kennedy’s visit to the state Sept. 12-13 thus takes on dramatic importance for the national campaign, as will the Vice President’s Texas foray. Speaking in North Carolina, Nixon said he hopes to carry Texas and some other Southern states. First on the list of Kennedy’s Texas difficulties, of course, is religion. Second is the evident failure of Sen. Johnson’s presence on the ticket much to enhance Kennedy’s chances here. On the plus side for the Democrats’ ticket in Texas is the almost solid line-up of Democratic officialdom in party loyalty and the gradual formal inclusion of liberals within the campaign effort. Texans for Nixon, meanwhile, continued to meet in Dallas under the leadership of Carr Collins, the wealthy Baptist layman. Their Friday meeting this week would probably foretell the shape and direction of their campaign. At an earlier meeting there was a feeling of marked disappointment that no leading Democratic “names” had come forward. AUSTIN If E. B. Germany, president of Lone Star Steel Co. and a member of the Johnson delegation to the Democratic convention in Los Angeles, intends to keep his pledge to support the party ticket, he has not said so. On the other hand, he has said that Kennedy bought his nomination, the Democratic platform is repugnant to him, the Democratic convention was a “sorry, degrading mess,” and Richard Nixon’s acceptance speech was thrilling and compelling. In his column, “As I See It,” which appears in various East Texas weekly newspapers, Germany said the Los Angeles convention was a mess of “mass hysteria, mob rule, and a fine but illconcealed disregard for all that is fair and honest,” “rigged in favor of Kennedy,” and proof that “a high honor can be bought with money. “Even with our own Lyndon Johnson on the ticket, self-respecting Texans are going to find it hard to support the Democratic Party .. .” Germany wrote. “How can our senator support such a platform” passed by “a convention controlled by labor and the colored people” and “aimed at returning the Yankee Carpetbaggers to the Southland? At this moment, my conscience is in revolt . . .” Subsequently, Germany noted that as a member of the Texas delegation, “I was pledged to support the party ticket and the party’s platform.” He had, however, been “assured” that if John Where, for example, was Allan Shivers, they asked. The latest Belden Poll gave Kennedy 40% and Nixon 36.. with 24% undecided in Texas. Jarring the analysts, the Gallup Poll gave Nixon a national lead and, in a measurement of “enthusiasm quotient” for the different candidates, gave Lodge 45 percent and Johnson only 30 percent “Texas Businessman,” business advisory report written by Horace Busby, suggested that if Texas goes for Nixon, the state’s strength in the Congress for “Texas legislation” will be weakened and Johnson’s chances for a 1964 presidential nomination will be nil, suggesting the development of a new Johnsonoriented argument to persuade Texans to vote for Kennedy. Most of the top leaders of the state campaign for Kennedy Johnson are Johnson , people. Ger ald Mann, Dallas attorney who is the state director, is a Johnson Democrat but was acceptable to Sen. Ralph Yarborough. Co-chair men of the campaign are Speaker Sam Rayburn and Gov. Price Daniel. Friends of Yarborough had anticipated his inclusion as a co chairman, but it did not develop. Yarborough’s original plans to campaign around the country have been modified: he will campaign hard in Texas on the theory that son did not get the nomination, he would continue as majority leader. “Did failure to nominate Senator Johnson relieve me of my party obligation?” he asked. Mentioning oil depletion and civil rights, he asked further, “. . . am I bound to support a national. platform . . . entirely repugnant to my business, civic and social interests?” The federal government meddling in state affairs, he said, “is a sure-fire route to socialism.” Germany said the first great oratory he had heard at either convention was Nixon’s. He found it thrilling when Nixon said Russians will live under freedom; and when Nixon quoted Lincoln that the question is whether we are on God’s side, the ovation, “like a mighty clap of thunder,” came from “people . . . who were starved for a spark of nobility in a sea of the ordinary.” Speaking of Nixon, Germany said, “. . . here was one of the old school who remembered that the United States of America was founded on the belief in God.” Germany urged conservatives who are delegates to the Sept. 20 state Democratic convention. to attend, not to give any “disloyal declarations,” and to “hold the conservative beachhead in the Democratic Party.” He said they could make up their minds after the convention is over which ticket to back. To date, however, Germany has not said himself whether he will support the Democratic ticket or vote for Nixon and Lodge. AUSTIN, HILLSBORO A broadly gauged report on problems of Texas’ old people has been completed, compiled by hundreds of citizens throughout the state who unearthed facts on population trends, health, welfare, education, income, and housing. The story it tells, in dispassionate, statistical tones, is in many ways a story of social failure. The Governor’s Conference on Aging, which meets in Austin September 7 and 8, will examine the report and make recommendations to a White House conference in January, as well as, to the state, counties, and municipalities. Willie Morris The population of citizens over 65 is increasing twice as fast as the overall population in Texas. As in the nation at large, the population is assuming the shape of an hour-glass, with increasingly large numbers of both young and old and a lag in the middle. Right now there are 700,000 Texans over 65. By 1975 that figure will be over a million. As one prominent state official, John Winters of the Department of Public Welfare, says, this trend over the course of the next several years will not only have important social effects, it will have political consequences as well. A person 75 may be past his prime physically, but his vote counts as much as anyone’s. The fact-finding report reveals that the plight of old people with no resources beyond the maximum $67.50 monthly old-age assistance is dire. In 90 counties out of 183 reporting, at least 30 percent of retired couples are existing on less than the bedrock minimum yearly income estimated by the respective county committees to be necessary to maintain “a decent standard of living, including Yarborough Cites Assistance Losses WASHINGTON Sen. Ralph Yarborough said elderly Texans “are losing $18 million a year from their old-age assistance checks because the state administration has miserably failed to secure matching state funds to meet the federal funds already appropriated and waiting . . . if Texas will only match them.” He said, “This is another case where those who are always talking about states’ rights should be concerned with meeting the state’s responsibilities to its aged. “Our problem of decent care for our senior citizens has been greatly worsened in Texas by the failure of our state government” to meet the issue of high medical and drug costs for old people unable to pay. The Observer story Aug. 5 on the loss of state funds by failure to match federal funds applied on a monthly, not a yearly basis, re-examined figures make clear. We regret this error. adequate food, clothing, housing, medical care, and recreation.” In 97 counties out of 192 reporting, at least 30 percent of old people living alone do not have the basic subsistence income estimated by the county groups. Twenty-nine of these counties reporting said over 70 percent of their elderly couples, and 34 said over 70 perCent of their single old people, do not have the basic minimum income. Sen. Crawford Martin The vast majority of counties report that ald people either “cannot meet emergencies” or “the smallest unforeseen expense works a great hardship on them.” Social services are reported to be ‘seriously inadeqUate. In 45 counties more than 50 percent of elderly people have no form of prepaid health insurance. Many counties “are not fulfilling their legal and moral obligations to take care of the medically indigent,” the evaluation report says. Rehabilitation programs for the aged are practically non-existent. Organized recreational and educational programs for the aged are also rare. Little is being done by county or local groups to relieve the loneliness and the sense of isolation of many old people. 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 housing piCture is the most dismal of all. Certain urban areas, the evaluation report states, “are becoming depressed areas because their residents have moved into advanced age brackets and are no longer capable of maintaining homes.” Only 22 counties report having public-housing projects for lowincome families with units for the elderly. 105 counties reported such units are needed. There are only 33 nursing and convalescent homes of a voluntary nature in Texas, with a total of 2,000 beds. There are only five for Negroes, with 122 beds. Less than one-half of these are operated by county or city governments. Understaffed Inspection The State Health Department agency in charge of inspecting and licensing the 600 privatelyowned nursing and custodial homes for old people for minimum sanitation, safety, and dietary standards receives state appropriations to hire one director, two field inspectors, and a small clerical staff. Consequently, these homes can be kept only under “routine supervision” by overworked local health units. Many old people of limited income are living in “unsanitary, hazardous, and uncomfortable conditions” in unlicensed homes, cheap hotels, flophouses, a n d sub standard houses. “The old-age assistance recipient whose assistance check is not supplemented from other sources is confronted with an almost insurmountable problem when he is forced to seek sheltered care,” the evaluation report states. Owners of many of these marginal homes, in taking the entire assistance money , of an elderly person without other means, still have financial difficulties in keeping in the black. Almost half of Close Campaign Seen for Texas Bolt Brewin92 Germany Has Doubts The Texas 1\(1> c An Independe .1,0%-\(2 r, \(2,5-0 A1/4,6 c4k a OISnla I St dv u , 15c per copy No. 21 The Aged in Texas