ustxtxb_obs_1960_12_02_50_00004-00000_000.pdf

AUSTIN William Blakley, that downtown Dallas ranchhand who answers to the nicknames “Cowboy Bill,” “Braniff Bill,” andmore aptly”Dollar Bill,” is back in the saddle again. He says he will not only accept Gov. Price Daniel’s interim Senate appointment, but will run in the special election as well. It is one of the disturbing commentaries on the tired cynicism of American one-party politics that a man who was first appointed to the United States Senate by Allan Shivers has been so unhesitatingly re-appointed by Shivers’ political foe. It is an even sadder commentary that this very man who is now being given his second appointment to the United States Senate was roundly defeated just 2 1/2 years ago in his only popular bid for that Senate seatlosing by almost 60% of over 1,200,000 votes cast, and running behind in 11 of the 12 largest urban counties and in 230 of Texas’ 254 counties. Let those flatter who fear. it is not an American art.—-Jefferson Back In The Saddle Again Texas Showings Blakley’s Candidacy Pe The House Un-American Activities Committee’s film, Operation Abolition, is making the rounds in Texas. Martin Dies brought it to the University a few days ago. The Daughters of the American Revolution are sponsoring it in Victoria and Guadalupe counties, where schools, PTA’s, and civic groups are being urged to subscribe. National guardsmen are having their look at it. We can anticipate that vast and illustrious array of conservative organizations in the home stateFIA, Christian Anti-Communist Crusade, and the rest will capitalize on this unexpected bonus in the next several weeks. It will only be natural to expect that Operation Abolition will inspire the customary repercussions against all Boy Scout troops, barber shops, and economics departments who favor federal aid to education, old-age medical tare under social security, controlled disarmament, recognition of Red China, and nineteenth century Russian literature. It has happened before. The film itself is a generally shoddy and unprofessional attempt to show that the student demonstrations against HUAC’s hearings_ on alleged communist activities in San Francisco last May were Red-inspired. An article in the current Reporter tells how the HUAC, typically disregarding any standards of ethics and fair play, subpoenaed the films taken by cameramen from two San Francisco television stations and edited the shots with a fine contempt for accuracy. Although the final version was produced by a commercial film company and the market price is a flat $100 each, 5hooe You never can tell about these East Texas populists. Write ’em off, they come up sounding like a cross between Eugene Debs and Orval Faubus. In fact, Orval Faubus is a cross between Eugene Debs and Orval Faubus. Or consider, closer to home, our own Jerry Sadler of Palestine, Percilla, Hickory Grove, and Wonderland. While ,a state representative the snuff-dipping Sadler staunchly upheld separate and unequal spittoons for Texas snuff-dippers. Now, however, as the new state land commissioner, he suddenly raises two extremely strong-flapping flags : lower The legislative committee on problems of the aging met last week and endorsed key proposals which emerged from the Governor’s Conference on Aging last September. Among them was the recommendation that a constitutional amendment be approved and passed on to the voters raising the ceiling on state welfare spending by $10 million annually. The present welfare ceiling of $46 million is an outmoded and unwarranted restriction in an increasingly industrialized and urbanized state. The old agrarian-oriented society is long dead, our society grows more and more complex and impersonal, e ncouragement The Southern Conference Educational Fund has suggested that “all persons of good will” write letters of encouragement to the four Negro children and their parents who have been the objects of the New Orleans agitation. For their protection their identity has not been announced, but letters may be addressed in care of Attorney A. P. Tureaud, 1821 Orleans Avenue, New Orleans. and those token measures designed to meet decaying myths must be re-examined and re-appraised. The more progressive American states, sensitive to the humanitarian needs of their people, spend far more each year in caring for their dependent young, their old, and their disabled. States rights must not exist in a meaningless vacuum, responsibilities must accompany those rights. Our legislators should work vigorously for the proposed change. ea Read President Eisenhower wound up his Georgia vacation today . . . on W. Alton Jones’ Blue Springs plantation. ting with newsmen at the picnic site, Jones fired a .410 gauge pistol into the air directly behind the President. ” ‘Who the hell is shooting around here?’ the President blurted. “When he saw it was his host he laughed and fired the long-barrelled handgun himself, hitting a tree trunk 10 yards away.” \(After checking to see there were In appointing Blakley, Gov. Daniel must know he is participating in an indefensible perversion of the democratic process. Even with every majoi newspaper and most of the state’s big money behind The Cowboy against Ralph Yarborough, the people decisively and convincingly rejected him. Now he is being foisted upon them again, and from an entrenched position as interim appointee he will have an unmistakable advantage over his rivals in the special election. HERE HAS BEEN considerable talk by Texas conservatives about the absence of a mandate for Sen. Kennedy and his proposed programs. We can be reasonably certain, however, that those same conserva tives who welcome Blakley’s selection will choose to forget that their favorite did not receive a particularly impressive mandate in 1958 for his most recent appointment. We all know that Daniel feels he owes Blakley a debt of gratitude. After all, The Cowboy did support Daniel against that eminent Victorian conservative, Jack Cox, in the gubernatorial race. Now Daniel sees fit to repay that debt with one of the highest offices of public trust in the land. It would be considerably more just and honorable that such interim appointments be dispensed on a strictly temporary basis, under the understanding that the appointee should quietly step down when the time comes for the electorate to make its 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. DECEMBER 2, 1960 Ronnie Dugger Editor and General Manager Willie Morris, Associate Editor Sarith 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. permanent choice. Texas is a great and broad state; it has a number of distinguished scholars and devoted public servants, any one of whom would be a notable, even if temporary, contribution to the Senate in the early weeks of the forthcoming Congress. Here, however, we have one more illustration of the reason why intelligent people all over the country and the world are discouraged by the short-term, self-interest character of so much in American politics. An appointment to the Senate of the United States is no _shoddy prize in a game of musical chairs. These are crucial times for the country, and a Senate seat is not to be taken lightly. Other than his proven talent for making immense amounts of money quietly and efficiently, what,capabilities as a responsible public servant has William Blakley ever shown ? He had ample opportunity in the campaign of 1958; he failed to voice one solid or constructive proposal for the future of Texas and of America. He seemed little more than the provincial conservative of the old school, dispensing his dark symbolisms, warning us about “outsiders,” belaboring the unions as anti-Texan and un-American. He seemed utterly mired in the old negative shibboleths, repeating the Shivers script but without the Shivers color and imagination. To Blakley’s credit, in the narrower Texas context, was his recent endorsement of the Kennedy-Johnson ticket. But we have yet to descend to that demoralizing level at which a self-styled Democratic politician participating in party primaries deserves a moratorium on criticism for supporting a national Democratic ticket. There is far too much to remember : During his first interim term Blakley, receiving over $25,000 a year from his own insurance companies, had such a tawdry conception of public interest to -ask unabashedly 56 questions of FTC officials about FTC insurance advertising regulations, this at the very time FTC was prosecuting a false advertising charge against a Blakley insurance company. Blakley then endorsed state regulation of insurance advertising. His insurance companies had paid handsome “fees” amounting to thousands of dollars to three state senators who were members of the state insurance committee. He emphatically went on the record against federal aid to farmers and to schools, although Braniff had received millions in federal subsidies for carrying the mails. Remember the full-page newspaper advertisements calling Yarborough “the first Texas senator to be purchased by out-of-state labor racketeers”? Blakley’s endless repititions on “outside” money and power? No doubt a large majority of the Texas press will support their man again. Last time this guardian of a vast empire of banks, insurance, and realty chose to run as an average, simple cowhand. What will be the new image? Perhaps this time his public relations corps plan to run him as a red Indian, a railroad engineer, or a cigar salesman. But if he is going to be Cowboy Bill again, we can at least suggest he drops the cufflinks. W.M. 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. ration the TV stations and their working photographers have not been paid a cent. Sequences are run together to create the impression that the students were constantly mobbing the police. There is a frenzied shot of the fire hoses being turned on the barbarous young traitors; the narration, of course, neglects to mention that the students were sitting quietly in the corridors of San Francisco city hall when they were doused. The sheriff of Sari Francisco County said after the demonstrations that the student demonstrators had not been physically aggressive. A member of the HUAC staff admitted in a Los Angeles TV interview that the film was, indeed, distorted. Thus has the ‘HUAC again tried hard to satisfy the frenetic needs of our small-time professional patriots. The Daily Texan has suggested a qualified speaker be invited to the University to present a realistic opposing view to Mr. Dies’ rousing accusations. Responsible people in other Texas cities should not hesitate to criticize local showings of the film for its calculated inaccuracies and distortions. We all know that the Communist threat in many parts of the western hemisphere is as real as it is grave. But these careless aspersions on the loyalty ‘of American students are pernicious, inflammatory, and dishonorable. Chairman Walter touched down at Dallas last summer and warned us that Texas is seething with communistsour young people are giving in fast. He has yet to document his charges. We challenge him to do so. Poputiob interest rates for the veterans’ land program, and a searching inquiry into whether the state is getting as much as it should from its sale of mineral rights to state lands. The trouble with East Texas politicians, from the vantage view of the Republic National Bank above Dallas, is that they draw their strength from poor whites not sufficiently respectful of the foundations of the Republic in bank stocks. Perhaps we should have voted for Sadler, after all. But just about the time one gets happy with him, he will probably propose to deny revenues from the state’s school lands to integrated schools. 54e Wegare Ceding THE TEXAS OBSERVER 7c 4D= RS ‘