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“I Understand You Plan To Sit Out This Dilemma” THE TEXAS OBSERVER o kftek 0FUTURA PRESS.. THE ISSUES JOINED NEWS FLASHES Observer Notebook IIexce en The debate issue has clearly taken the momentum out of John Connally’s campaign, and Don Yarborough’s chances for the Democratic nomination are nothing short of superb. Connally’s refusal to fulfill the debating engagement at Denton was the crowning irony in a fruitful first week for the Yarborough forces. They are plainly in a fighting mood. The liberal and loyalist element within the party, many of whom went for Daniel because they took Belden at face value and misjudged Yarborough’s chances for the run-off, has now become firmer than it has been in years. Yarborough’s spectacular finish in the last week of the first primary, the freshness of his plat form, his confidence in challenging the frontrunner to face-to-face showdowns on the pressing social issues before Texas, are reminiscent of the Daniel-Ralph Yarborough governor’s run-off in 1956. In that year, you will recall, Daniel led the first primary with 629,000 votes. Ralph had 463,000. The third and fourth candidates, Pappy O’Daniel and J. Evetts Haley, finished with 347,000 and 88,000. The daily press of six years ago delighted, as now, in giving the frontrunner the O’Daniel and Haley vote and declaring Daniel’s battle just about won. And Daniel did, indeed, win : by a margin of 3,171 votes out of almost 1.4 million. Similarly, in 1948 Lyndon Johnson badly trailed Coke Stevenson into a second primary. We know what happened. There are striking similarities, also, with a certain national campaign a year and a half or so ago : Kennedy, the vigorous young reformer, moving from strength . to strength against a more well-known favorite. Kennedy’s \(lanced words of 1960 have now returned, in Don Yarborough’s eloquent plea for New Frontier reform on a provincial scale, to haunt an administration saddled with the Johnson-Connally connection. It is now common knowledge that Connally’s first primary campaign was the most well-financed this state has ever seen. His frontline supporters aptly realized that his right-wing strength was being challenged by the Republicans, as well as by the curious incongruity of Walker’s presence in the Democratic primary. The only remedy, they well knew, was to make inroads in the liberal wing where inroads could most conveniently be made. The resultthe biggest topic of conversation among political in siders this week was the wildest spending campaign in Latin and Negro areas in Texas history. And Yarborough still finished only eight percent points back. The ideological issue has plainly been joined. This will be, in the year 1962, a conservative-liberal showdown only several shades removed from the Yarborough-Shivers and YarboroughDaniel donnybrooks of the early ‘fifties. At stake is the course our state government will take in the ‘sixties. Will state government move increasingly toward reform, toward solutions to social ills backlogged by decades of sluggishness and neglect, or will it continue to move in the same grooves which have made it one of the most backward and unimaginative among the 50 states? The daily newspapers, practically without exception, will go for Connally. The whole strength of the financial establishment is already with him. Set against this monolith are the people who have fought before, and are fighting again now. al;Z33irz? /9 Lca r*th4ertf 6.16 -rat4 iel is leading L. Baines Jonnelly in the run-off for governor, the Belden Poll disclosed this week. Sen. Bob Baker has taken a slight lead over Jimmy Turman for lieutenant governor, Belden further announced, and W. T. McDonald is giving Wag Carr a surprisingly strong battle for attorney general. In an impromtu conference in the Adolphus, Belden told reporters that Cowboy Bill Blakley, presently serving as senior senator from Texas, would throw the full weight of that office behind Jonnelly. American-Demagogue, local daily, has been awarded the 1962 Pull Its Ear newspaper prize for “devotion above and beyond the call of duty” to gubernatorial candidate L. Baines Jonnelly. The Pull Its Ear Foundation is a subsidiary of the Sid Richardson Estate. The paper devoted 35,685 column inches to Jonnelly between February 1 and May 5, tempered by 16.4 inches to all other candidates combined, enough to give the American-Demagogue a clear first-place margin for the Pull Its Ear over La Prensa, San Antonio weekly. correspondent Sarah McKlenog, winner of Pull Its Ear Prizes six years running, reported reliable sources in the Vice President’s office this week that Billie Sol Estes used Sen. Ralph Yarborough’s W.C. in the Senate Office Bldg. a total of 16 times in 196061 for a combined 23 minutes, while using Vice President Johnson’s only three times for a coined five minutes. Estes, Mrs. McKlenog disclosed, donated 50 anhydrous ammonia tanks to the DOT. close to the administration said over martinis in the National Press Club today that Old Frontiersman L. Baines Jonnelly’s run-off race against New Frontiersman Yarborough is only 30 percent embarrassing to the administration and that Yarborough’s bid for power is only 22 percent encouraging. The sources admitted that the Texas election has crucial ramifications on 1972, when the constitutional monarchy takes effect. IN OUR OPINION, the defeat of Rep. Charlie Hughes for state senator is the year’s greatest loss for the people of Texas. We hope he will run again. There is a sad footnote to the lieutenant governor’s race too. CrawfOrd Martin was cast in the role of “team man,” and indeed, that he is; he perhaps had little right to a run-off place. But in different times and circumstancescoming up as senator for the first time now, say, or under AllredMartin would have become something of a statesman. His fineness and depth had no relevance to the Shivers era and were obscured and atrophied. He should be remembered as a good man in the wrong place at the wrong time. As for congressman-at-large, we can be grateful, anyway, that the job will be abolished in two years. THE OBSERVER last week had the proper information, and it was common knowledge both in informed Austin circles as well as around Liberty that Zeke Zbranek was backing William Devine of Diasetta for state representative, but we read our notes 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. MAY 12, 1962 Willie Morris Editor and General Manager Jay Milner, Associate Editor Sarah Payne, Office Manager Ronnie Dugger, Contributing Editor wrong and somehow reported that Zbranek was supporting John Archer. We regret the error. Archer, who announced on a liberal platform, made the run-off against Bill Walker, one of the most conservative members in the House. * BILLIE SOL ESTES got three write-in votes for land commissioner at one polling place Saturday. Other write-ins against Jerry Sadler went to David Shapiro, William Roth, John Silber, and Tbm Cranfill. John Sullivan got a write-in for governor, but was disqualified for his alien background. THE SEARCH for ways to “legally” prevent Negroes from voting continues in Mississippi, according to a recent wire service news story from Jackson. Last week the Mississippi House of Representatives approved a constitutional amendment which would deny voting rights to vagrants or persons convicted of adultery, gambling, abandonment of a child, desertion, or perjury. A proposal to include habitual drunkards in the bill was shouted down after an opposition speech by former governor J. P. Coleman, who is now a member of the House. “Some mighty fine people, including some former sheriffs have gone to the state hospital for brief periods as habitual drunkards,” Coleman reminded his fellow lawmakers. Although such bills are carefully worded to exclude any mention of race, they are included in a group presented each session known by all members of the legislature as “The Segregation Package.” The circuit clerk in each county passes judgement on those who come to him to register to vote. Southern police seldom arrest whites for adultery or gambling but spend considerable time and energy breaking up the fun and games of the poverty stricken residents of “Negro quarters,” most often without search warrants. Even so, we wonder how loud Misgissippi whites would howl if a circuit clerk decided to enforce such bills indiscriminately., VICTORY headquarters for Don Kennard -in the Blackstone hotel in Ft. Worth election night was a happy place. As early as 11 p.m. boosters of Rep. Kennard’s bid for promotion to state senator were toasting his victory with stubby, brown bottles of Carling beer. It. was an appropriate toast. The key issue in Kennard’s campaign against incumbent Sen. Doyle Willis was a bill to permit the construction of a $20 million Carling brewery in a dry precinct in Tarrant county. The bill pas’sed, but Willis voted against it and Kennard supported it. The Ft. Worth business community, nervous over the shaky future of the huge Convair bomber plant, was angered by Willis’ opposition to the industrial payroll. Kennard’s support, therefore, was a unique and solid coalition of labor, management, and most all civic organizations with the exception of an unofficial group of prohibitionminded preachers who mailed out a plea to all Tarrant county ministers to support Willis from the pulpit. 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 OFFICE: 504 West 24th St., Austin, Texas. Phone GReenwood 7-0746. HOUSTON OFFICE: Mrs. R. D. Randolph, 2131 Welch, Houston 19, Texas.