ustxtxb_obs_1960_10_21_50_00004-00000_000.pdf

0141-641.00\(u_ ‘However, on the other hand, I would just say this . . NICEY NIXON AND THE GOP Let those flatter who fear, it is not an American art.Jefferson J\(enneci y The 1960 election will be less significant as a choice between two men . than as a measure of our values as a nation : in the great crucible we will find, in gross ballots, the weight of our love of our fellow men, our willingness to sacrifice for a better national life, the intelligence of our understanding of the world crisis. While former Governor Shivers is accusing the Democratic candidate of appeasement as he had done every national election since 1952, and while the Dallas News is trying to argue that Nixon is “the Texas candidate” because he is the Oil candidate, each of us should spend some time in our own minds, putting together our information and our values. We must, each American voter, ask what is best for the country and for the race and vote the way we believe in our most private consciences, for these are turning years in human history and a time for vision. We have before considered the two parties’ platforms. This newspaper finds the Republican document held back, restricted, limited, by doctrines outmoded by the modern realities and really, in many ways, merely symbols for the defense of private wealth. We find the Democratic document better suffused with a comitment to concern for the poor and better grounded in a growth theory of economics which releases both public and private energies, through public works and lower interest rates, for faster national economic growth. What, in sum, are the issues between the two men, Kennedy and Nixon ? Apart, that is, from Quemoy and Matsu, about which Nixon has simply been demogoging. Let us compare what they have said, informed by a balanced study by Raymond Brandt of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Foreign aid. Nixon has spoken in generalities, advocating more multilateral programs. Kennedy is for more U. S. loans, exchange of students and technicians, dispatching agricultural experts to backward nations, and cooperation with other well-off nations to increase the flow of public and private funds to Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and LatinAmerica. Medical aid for the aged. Differing debatably on methods, Kennedy and Nixon also differ significantly on whether to embarrass beneficiaries with a means, or poverty test. Nixon would ; Kennedy emphatically would not. Aid to education. Nixon, ahead of his party in Congress, supports federal aid for school construction but opposes it for teachers’ salaries. Kennedy favors federal aid for construction and teachers’ salaries. Nixon killed the latter aid program in the Senate. Kennedy would give the teachers’ fund to the states, leaving them complete supervision of what is taught. Economically depressed areas. With four million unemployed, Nixon defends the Eisenhower veto of the bill to aid high-jobless areas. Kennedy supports the vetoed bill. Civil rights. Both men are liberal here. Kennedy has endorsed the sitins; Nixon supports their objectives Published by Texas Observer Co., Ltd. 26, 1937, at the Post Office at Austin, Texas, under the Act of March 3, 187. OCTOBER 21, 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 order. but adds that they should not violate local laws. Minimum wage. Nixon is for $1.15 and no significant extra coverage. Kennedy has sponsored $1.25 an hour and wants it extended to from five to ten million more workersmainly in retail and service enterprises. Right-to-work laws. Nixon says the laws don’t work, but he does not favor a federal repealer. Kennedy does. Farm policy. Nixon . advocates “greater freedom” from Washington and omits to inform us what percentage of parity he favors. Kennedy pledges “full parity of farm income” with that of urban dwellers and endorses the Democrats’ plank for 90 percent of parity. Kennedy also wants government controls on production and sales. New Public Works. Nixon has said TVA-type developments “can’t be done by individuals” and the federal government must take the leadership. Kennedy is for new starts on water, power, and flood control projects. Interest rates. Nixon is against the Reserve System pegging interest rates “at artificially low levels.” Kennedy is against “tight money” and high interest. In a few areas, the views of Kennedy and Nixon are in balance, but in most of them, Kennedy is far ahead of his Republican-hobbled opponent in vision, boldness, the experimental spirit necessary if we are to survive as a world force for liberty. Then there is the question of’ character. Kennedy ducked the McCarthy issue, perhaps, but as John Fischer wrote in Harper’s this month, Nixon exploited it “to the bloody hilt” and implied men he knew to be patriotic Americans were disloyal. Who can forget that Nixon accused Adlai Stevenson of “spreading Communist propaganda”! As Fischer wrote: He imputed disloyalty to decent men, when he knew this imputation was untrue. Such behavior seems to go well beyond the limits of intellectual honesty, even when those limits are defined with the full tolerance we ought to allow to any politician . . . As Walter Lippman has put it, Nixon’s record raises a serious doubt whether he has “within his conscience those scruples which the country has a right to expect in the President of the United States.” We have conceived a feeling, which we find in many others also, that Kennedy is a sincere man and Nixon is not. The Vice-President’s unctuous performance against Truman’s blunt language was no mere campaign sidelight: it was a stark insight into the mind of a conscious hypocrite. We have not supported Senator Johnson. We must say we are relieved that Lodge has turned out to be such a political knothead, advocating federal aid to Catholic schools and, with what Kennedy calls “reverse racism,” a Negro in the cabinet; but even if he had not, we would not be deterred from our conclusion by Johnson. The Texas senator may matter again later ; he does not matter now. We will vote our strong conviction : the Kennedy-Johnson ticket. EDITORIAL and BUSINESS OFFICE: 504 West 24th St., Austin, Texas. Phone GReenwood 7-0746. HOUSTON OFFICE: Mrs. R. D. Randolph, 419 1/2. 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 In the third TV debate the vice president hit his true stride, or slink. He was humble, oh so humble, and oozing creamy goodness as he rolled his shifty eyes heavenward and spoke of the profanity of Hair-breadth Harry at Waco. This goody-goody performer had noticed how many children were in political audiences, and how they looked up to and revered an American president. He was humbly proud that St. Ike had restored dignity, decency, and good lauguage to the presidency. Here was the Nixon nuance at its worst : Plainly, this Missouri misfit may have been qualified to play the piano, but in a different sort of house than the White House. He would be at home in the stable, but could scarcely be considered White House broke. So, Mr. Truman is too crude for Nicey Nicey Nixon and Immaculate Ike. Our littul peepul should not hear a damn or a hell, and Sen. Kennedy should wash Mr. Truman’s mouth out with soap. Uriah Heep could hardly have done so good a job of peddling meek mish mash. In considering Ike, and himself no doubt, Mr. Nixon piously commented that with him or Ike in the White House, any father or mother could tell their child : “Well, there is a man who maintains the kind of standards personally that I would want my child to follow.” All right ; readers, send the children into the back room, and let’s take a long look at whether it is better to cut a-loose with a well provoked damnation and consigning of people to an all-time Baptist hell before the children, or to show the kiddies a world in false face, a world without standards or principles, tailored on Madison Avenue ; whether a president like Andy Jackson ought to be revered more for building up the nation and sending the pampered privileged toyes, dammitt, hellthan condemned for wrecking a room or so with his inaugural ball. In Roark Bradford’s immortal “Ole Man Adam and his Chillun,” a devout preacher condemns “mouf Christians” and exhorts his flock to give up turning their wash pots into stills, while shouting loudly in church on Sunday. Unhappily, the president has his idolators during his lifetime, and Harry has those who would blacken his memory, even before death. Are both groups “mouf Christians”? Well, deceit is hardly a trait to pass on to the children. Personally, I would prefer a tot who has learned to cuss proficiently at four to one who has learned to cheat without detection at seven. The seven-year-old would be the one I would expect to take the confidence man route through corporation alley to Brazil. And this, even though he had accumulated a desk drawer full of gold stars for regular attendance at Sunday School. WHEN WE LEAVE ASIDE the Parson Weems approach to Mr. Eisenhower, how does his Administration stack up for forthrightness? It was born in the deceit of phony issues, purveyed by Republican drum beaters who either knew they were spurious, or were unbelievably ignorant and incompetent. The President would go to Korea to end the armistice truce; a thing he could have done by an air mail letter, once he decided to surrender. He would unleash Chiang Kai Shek, an aging and discredited general who needed the protection of the Seventh Fleet. Once the Administration took over, the deception continued. The President was packaged and sold as a sage ; yet his homework consisted of reading some parts of the Sunday papers, the Little Orphan Annie strip, no doubt. His thoughtful preparation for the Bermuda conference included practice drawing and trigger-fanning of a revolver in imitation of his Western heroes as his plane neared the islands. His defeat at the Geneva conference was heralded as a victory, and even yet many people remain duped and believe he really carried through on his atoms for peace program. The catalogue could be continued but need be closed only with the reminder of how many hound’s teeth have falken in decayed state from the Republican mouth. To name a few, there was C. Wesley Roberts, national Republican committeeman in 1953, who took a commission for selling the state a hospital it already owned ; Adolph H. Wenzel, who in 1954 undertook to advise on Dixon-Yates while financial agent for the power combine ; Air Force Secretary Talbott, who in 1955 used Air Force, letters to promote a company in which he was a partner ; Sherman Adams in 1958, and seven others whose names and deeds will be furnished on request. In the Army it is said a private should pick up anything on the ground, paint any immovable object, and salute everything that moves. Well, Ike’s Administration formulated the plan of classifying everything ‘possible as a secret of state, sweeping under the carpet as much of the remainder as would fit, and equating criticism of the rest with a lack of patriotism and a desire to destroy national unity: A S FOR DICKIE BIRD, let us imagine him in the role of George Washington, on being caught as a part of the Administration that cut down the farmers, not a cherry tree. Would he say, “Father, I cannot tell a lie, I did it”? He laid it on Ezra, whom he somehow does not recognize in public. At this point it is time to broadcast the good tidings that there are car stickers which boost Kennedy for president, and leave Lyndon unmentioned. Those loyalists cast out in 1958 and 1960 may return without lovin’ that Lyndon. Even in time Messrs. Rayburn and Johnson will not shun the liberal-loyal Democrats. How they must wish they had not kept the Shivers machine intact for their own use! FRANKLIN JONES THE TEXAS OBSERVER