ustxtxb_obs_1961_10_27_50_00004-00000_000.pdf

‘The Regents Didn’t Waste Any Time in Getting a Stonemason Up There.’ , f ir vrifgh 7.7.7.7i.%ri4 -2′ W E RESERV E. THE R IGHT TO REFUSE SERViCE TO ANYONE r Irr r Challenge Eo the Senate Another Rally Long Hot Winter THE ANNOUNCEMENT of Rep. Bob Eckhardt of Houston for the state Senate this week is one more indication that the traditional status of that institution as a kind of undercover joint-stock company is about to undergo the most serious and concerted threat in its history. A number of outstanding liberals And moderates plan to run for vacancies or against long-entrenched incumbents whose general political views have. run the gamut from fossilized to petrifiedprompting one veteran capitol newsman to predict that there will be a change in at least seven seats in 1962. A close analysis of crucial voting in the last session suggests that a change of five, or possibly as few as four, seats would mean a major overhaul in the tried and tested ways of the upper house. In addition, with Ben Ramsey out of the picture, one Autin wag says the lobby could import Franco’s brother-in-law or Tito’s favorite general to be lieutenant governor and Senateprocedures would still be considerably. more open and democratic than they have since the Grey Eagle’s star first rose. The chances for a reforming newcomer in that position, i, ‘,possibly the most important in state `government, are excellent. Don Yarborough of Houston, who gave Ramsey the scare of his life in the ’60 elections, already has the inside track. It couldn’t happen to a nicer institution, or to a more vulnerable one. The Texas Senate has killed enough good legislation to make a grassroots revolution. On taxes, the controlling majority in recent years has gone against Texas interests often enough to reveal a close historical kinship with the carpetbag legislatures of another post-war peiiod. On appropriations, that majority has persistently postponed desperately needect social programs. It is only symbolic that Wardlow Lane, Senate archdeacon, felt himself too “compromised” on key issues in the past decade to make a bid for lieutenant governor, despite the fact he has been first choice of the conservative business community. These conservative interests, let there be no misunderstanding, fully understand the nature of the challenge. For them the Senate has been thoroughly safe, even with the gradual nibblings at its crumbling facade in the past several years. They have given every indication that most of the election money will go into the campaigns for lieutenant governor and contested seats. Only determined work by all Texans concerned with the reform of a cynical and anachronistic institution will counteract their efforts. Crirrte AUSTIN Retired General Phidias Weed, onetime director of the American military mission to the lower Sudan and an old chess-playing associate of Chinese Gordon in the palace at Khardoum, keynoted the Austin Americanism rally at Municipal Auditorium this week with an appeal for a State Department in every state to counteract extraneous influences in America’s centralized conduct of foreign affairs. Weed, wearing pince-nez and hipboots, said American NATO forces in Europe should be dismantled and dispatched to McComb, Mississippi,. to defend the God-given rights of states to choose their own voters. He drew cheers by lauding the efforts of the John Z. Birch Chowder and Marching Society to abolish federal mail’ boxes. After the Yankees beat the Reds, he said, every leftie in the Red bullpen should have been deported to Yugoslavia. Weed’s appearance, his fifth in four days, was sponsored by the Austin Anti-Communism League, the Pflugerville High Tories, the Bastrop Brown Shirts, and the Dripping Springs Jaycees. R. J. “Whitie” Peterson, a retired brigadier general who fought under Weed in the Crimean War, said the National Council of Churches “represents a graver internal danger than communism itself.” Hitherto undiscovered statements by St. Matthew against the National Council, he said, were published this month in the John Z. Birch Society journal. Rev. T. Christopher Ingersol, pastor of a non-denominational church somewhere in Idaho, said: “This neo-orthodoxy, or social gospel, is essentially agnostic in essence.” Dismissing the National Council of Churches’ brotherhood-of-man idea as “essentially hogwash,” Ingersol said when Christ expressed the sentiment, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do,” it was a private remark to the Roman carpenters, was off-the-record, and was not meant to be publicized generally. “This is typical of how the dreamers and misty-eyed reformers take’ statements out of context,” he said. M. A. “Whitie” Laard, private citizen, warned that communists had infiltrated Ti-avis County libraries by placing books by the Marquis de Sade, Henry Miller, and D. H. Lawrence on the shelves. CenTex subversives, he warned, are trying to induce youngsters to read filthy literature which tends to discredit marriage. “Better Wed than Red,” he admonished. F. L. “Whitie” Leon, chairman of the league’s committee on state government, said his panel had reliable information that the Kremlin sent out key agents to the state capitol earlier this year to oppose the two percent general retail sales tax. They succeeded “in one of the most cunning plots since the murder of Czar Nicholas II,” he said, in enacting the exemptions on outer work garments and on all sales under 25 cents, and they worked “with all the talents at their command” for passage of an industrial safety bill and for putting banks under the escheat law. The Austin High Maroon Band played patriotic songs at intermission, but was interrupted during a stirring rendition of “Battle Hymn of the Republic” by city councilman Louis Yanks, who said the song was not only unrealistic but had once been used against Texas and was extremely revolutionary in its early utilitarian context. The crowd heard a report from S. V. “Whitie” Finnletter. Subversives, he said, have infiltrated bookmobiles in Hays County with books upholding lasciviousness and other unAmerican doctrines. “Better Dead than Bed,” he admonished the Youth for McKinley-Goldwater who crowded the balconies. Jake Gringo, a communist for 45 years before he renounced his former associates day before yesterday, said American colors should be merely white and blue. He said the Articles of Confederation were “destroyed from the inside” and blamed traitors in the State Department for bringing on the War of 1812. He slapped an artificial leg and said the Reds pushed him under the 10:10 train to San Antonio. 7. Javits Zaley, in a special taperecorded report, said his textbook committee had succeeded in purging the writings of Upton Sinclair, Ernest Hemingway, Boris Pasternak, Red Barber, Red Grange, and DeWitt Reddick, as well as the works of several beatnik Negro poets. Maps in new sixth-grade geographies, he said, would change the label on the Red Sea to the Dead Sea. “Better Dead than Red,” he added. He recommended that youngsters be encouraged to read such classics as Frank Merriwell at Yale and John Birch at Texas Tech. F. R. “Whitie” Jefferson listed the following as the work of communlsts: the United Nations, federal aid to education, the French and Indian War, compulsory vaccination for smallpox; the pure food and drug act, the Emancipation Proclamation, abolition of entail and primogeniture, the bank holiday of 1933, the assassination of Chester A. Arthur, the British Reform Acts of 1832, 1871, and 1883, Red Cross blood banks, immunization against diphtheria by public health agencies, relief food for international refugee children, the election of Grover Cleveland, and public venereal clinics. After the speeches, the crowd remained to hear a tape-recording of the full proceedings. The tapes are available at the Liberty Bell Bookshop, located deep in the Balcones Fault: W.M. ortirouJ The Feds in Texas “That fellow’s nuts,” said a coffeedrinker in our favorite cafe this week. “A monstrous crime against humanity,” said the World Congress of Socialists. “We feel deep disgust and cold anger,” said. Hugh Gaitskell. rea Cong. Wright Patman of Texarkana had some realistic things to say this week about the area redevelopment program in East Texas, which has been attacked by most chambers of commerce east of the Navasota River: “The facts, in a nutshell, are these : A few large citiesparticularly Dallas and Houstonhave indeed been growing very rapidly. People have been moving into the cities from the small towns and rural areas. They have had to in order to obtain jobs. “In contrast, however, the overwhelming percentage of the smaller towns and rural areas of East Texas are going downhill. In most of these “A mockery of . . . world. attempts to achieve peaceful co-operation in the atomic field,” said Adlai Stevenson. The Russian people don’t know about this particular bomb yet. It was a mere 30-megatons. The next will be 50. counties, employment in the first quarter of the present year was less than it was a year ago two years ago, and even five years ago. What is happening . . . is that the populations of most of these counties are actually declining, because families are being forced to move away in search of employment opportunities. “In many of the 71 counties of East Texas, purchasing power has actually gone down within the past year . . . “Something must be done to help create new kinds of economic activity and expanding job opportunities in the rural and small town communities.” WASHINGTON “Democrat,” the publication of the party’s national committee, contains ,a table in its latest issue which, it says, “shows how legislation passed by Congress at this session and signed by Pres. Kennedy is working to help people, to get rid of slums, to wipe out pockets of idleness and suffering, to cleanse our streams, to raise the income of farmers.” The table says: * $5.68 million in federal grants for urban renewal in Texas have been approved. 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. OCTOBER 27, 1961 Willie Morris Editor and General Manager Bob Sherrill, Associate Editor Sarah Payne, Office Manager Ronnie Dugger, Contributing Editor *one urban area and 47 rural areas are eligible for urban redevelopment assistance in Texas. *Texas farmers will get $80 million more under new price-support levels ,administered by the Dept. of Agriculture this year. *just over one million Texas workers will receive benefits from an increased minimum wage. *about $2.8 million in federal grants for building sewage facilities to prevent water pollution will be made in Texas this year. FUTURA PRESS..c Published once a week from Austin, Texas. Delivered postage prepaid $5.10 per annum. Advertising rates available on request. Extra copies 15c each. Quantity prices available on order. EDITORIAL and BUSINESS FFICE: 504 West 24th St., Austin, Texas. Phone GReenwood 7-0746. HOUSTON OFFICE: Mrs. R. D. Randolph, :2131 Welch. Houston 19, Texas. Redevelopment THE TEXAS OBSERVER