ustxtxb_obs_1962_11_09_50_00001-00000_000.pdf

7 Intruders in House AROUND TEXAS An amazing GOP legislative sweep in Dallas County this week assured Texas Republicans of their largest bloc in the Texas House in 90 years. Republican candidates there defeated conservative Democratic nominees for six places. In Midland a seventh Republican was elected, and in two other constituencies the GOP came close. Only conservative Democrats Ben Atwell, Bob Hughes, and Bob Johnson survived the Dallas sweep. The GOP winners were Richard Morgan, 0. H. Harris, Henry Stollenwerck, George M a c a t e e, Maurice Ball, and Horace Houston. Houston once served in the House as a Democrat. Republican Reps. George Korkmas of Texas City and Kenneth Kohler of Amarillo, the “phone booth-coalition” of the last legislature, were defeated by Democrats Don Brown of Hitchcock and Walter Knapp of Amarillo, respectively. Kohler lost by a mere handful of votes. William S. Davis, Republican from Midland, defeated Democratic nominee Harry Lawson. In Odessa, conservative Democratic incumbent George Cook narrowly defeated Republican Elwood Weylandt, Democratic nominees f o r the state Senate were victorious over Republican challengers in all 13 contested races. The winners were Criss Cole of Houston, Roy Harrington of Port Arthur, Don Kennard of Fort Worth, Babe Schwartz of Galveston, Jack Strong of Longview, Walter Richter of Gonzales, Abraham Kazen of Laredo, George Moffett of Chilicothe, Jim Bates of Edinburg, H. J. Blanchard of Lubbock, Frank Owen of El Paso. Andy Rogers of Childress, and Grady Hazlewood of Amarillo. The House, under Speaker Byron Tunnel I, will be staunchly conservative in 1963. The Democratic victories in the contested Senate races mean that the upper chamber will retain the delicate conservative-liberal balance produced by liberal gains In the Democratic primaries this summer. The Texas Observer An I ndependen A W 1-1 1.71.24 Volume 54 TEXA 1962 15c Per Copy Number 31 HOUSTON cision about the deficits. She told As of December first, after them that she preferred the liquieight years of sustaining the dation of the Observer to its sale operating deficits of the Ob to any other group, because she server, Mrs. R. D. Randolph of did not want the integrity of the Observer Changes To A Fortnightly SELF-SUSTAINING STATUS GOP Shows Gain Despite Cox’ Loss RECORD TURNOUT BOOSTED CONNALLY AUSTIN By a fortunate fall of circumstances, Mrs. Randolph’s decision to cease subsidizing the Observer and mine to propose its conversion to a self-sustaining fortnightly have composed our mutual resolution to go on with the fortnightly. We are setting out to become a self-sustaining enterprise in a field in which most or all like publications are subsidized by wealthy individuals, I want to tell our readers what this means in a practical way. After this month there will he no further extensions of credit to the Observer from Mrs. Randolph. She and I are firmly agreed on this. She and I will be partners in the Observer. as she and Morris are now and as she and I were for the first six years of the paper’s life. Reflecting this summer on the continuing operating deficits, I could see no way to make the paper self-sustaining, as a realistic matter, but its conversion to a fortnightly, halving the printing, mailing, and editorial staff costs while seeking to maintain its crusading and creative thrusts. Beginning next month. the Observer will appear every fourteen days on a magazine format. I will make it as good as I can, _relying heavily on the active writing of the many contributors who have been part of the Observer community. I have always disliked the extremities to which some of the national liberal journals are peri Observer tradition alloyed by unforeseeable subsequent events in its name. It became apparent, in the context of Mrs. Randolph’s decision, that the Observer could not continue as a weekly. At this point, also for the first time, Dugger and Morris told her Dugger’s proposal. After a thorough discussion. she decided that she wanted to go on with the fortnightly. “In my mind,” Mrs. Randolph says in a statement to Observer subscribers, “this change does not mean that I have in any way lost interest in the Observer. I feel that the Observer, through its t \\\\* 0 very able editors, Ronnie Morris, has contribution odically driven. importuning their subscribers for emergency transfers of currency. The Observer will not do that. Therefore, it is vital that I state to you plainly the impliCations of your subscription to the paper. Since August we have studied the financial situation carefully. All that is necessary for the Observer to continue publication is that subscriptions continue at their present level and rate. If they fail to do so, and income falls below a certain point, we quit. Otherwise, we go on. All I want to be sure of, therefore, is that when you decide whether or not to renew to the Observer as a fortnightly, you know that you are making your decision, to the extent one subscriber can, as to whether it should continue to exist. Each new subscription will improve our chance of persisting. I intend to launch, before the end of the year, serious, continuing programs for subscribers and advertising. Help from people in cities and on campuses will be welcomed. We shall continue the program of patron subscriptions, whereby a person may subscribe at a rate higher than the regular $5.10 a year; in this way the Observer will still be able to benefit from the maldistribution of wealth among its readers. I shall ask that those who wish to make an unusual contribution to the Observer’s impact do so by purchasing subscriptions for those who may enjoy \(or be profitably infuriated Texas GOP Elects Foreman AROUND TEXAS There will be two Republicans in Texas’ 23-man delegation to the 88th Congress, an increase of precisely 100 percent. Goldwater Republican Ed Foreman of Odessa, victorious over conservative-to-moderate Democratic incumbent J. T. Rutherford by 43,000 to 37,000, will join GOP incumbent Bruce Alger of Dallas, who trounced conservative Democrat Bill Jones, 90,000 to 70,000. The next session of Congress will be the first time Texas has ever had two Republican congressmen in the same delegation since Reconstruction. Foreman’s victory was one of fiveand possibly more GOP congressional gains in Southern states. Awasilliaumftw The congressman-at-large race to fill Texas’ new 23rd seat was keenly disappointing to the state GOP, however. Trucker Desmond Barry of Houston, the voluble enemy of Jimmy Hoffa. and a Goldwater Republican, was an odds-on favorite to defeat rotund Joe Pool, the conservative Democrat. But Pool,. whose politics vary only slightly if at all from his Republican opponent, defeated Barry handily. Pool was leading 690,000 to 548,000 at the latest count. Foreman, touted as the GOP’s most formidable congressional challenger next to Barry, stressed Rutherford’s $1500 campaign contribution from Billie Sol Estes. The Congressional Quarterly reported Rutherford voted 60 percent of the time with the “conservative coalition” in the 87th Congress. The AFL-CIO judged his record in the 87th on 15 key issues as eight “right” and seven “wrong.” Alger, one of the most extremely conservative members of Congress, was judged 100 percent in the recent session by Americans for Constitutional Action, the conservative political action group. In East Texas District 3, conservative Democratic incumbent Lindley Beckworth of Gladewater barely squeaked past Republican William Steger of Tyler, who was the GOP nominee for governor two years ago against Price Daniel. State Republican leaders had been saying for weeks that Steger might engineer an upset, and he led throughout a good part of the evening. At last count, Beckworth’s margin was 27.316 to 25,028. Incumbent Democratic conservative Walter Rogers of Pampa, who voted consistently with the Eisenhower administration, cashed in on support from all wings of the Democratic Party and defecting Republicans to trounce Amarillo Mayor Jack Seale, a John Bircher. In this I AUSTIN Jack Cox, who polled more than 660,000 votes against Democrat John Connally this week in the most impressive Republican showing for governor since 1869, was, quite simply, crushed by the magnitude of the total statewide turnout. When the counting is done, Connally will finish with a margin well over 100,000 out of a record 1.5 million. In the larger perspective, however. it is clear that overall GOP strength in Texas has increased considerably in the last year and a half. Republican Sen. John Tower got 445,000 votes in defeating William Blakley in the 1961 special election. Cox got more than 660,000 votes this time and lost. In 1961, political observers were aware that Tower did not stand a chance if the total vote surpassed 900,000. Cox could have won this week if the vote had been 1.2 million or under. One political pundit in Austin had devised an elaborate chart forecasting victory margins for Cox based on statewide turnouts from 800,000the previous general election highto 1.2 million. After 1.2 million, on a progressive scale, Connally took over. Precisely that happened. Connally ran behind the rest of the Democratic ticket. Waggoner Carr enjoyed the largest majority, defeating Republican T. Everton Kennerly for attorney general by almost two-to-one. Carr got more than 730,000 votes. Preston Smith had no trouble whatever in defeating the GOP’s Bill Hayes for lieutenant governor by nearly 250,000 votes. Joe Pool, the third hyper-conserva Live in the lower echelon state races, had a surprisingly easy victory over Republican Desmond Barry for congressman-at-large Everything else went true to form. Land Commissioner Jerry Sadler, with a phalanx of dailies against him for his negative stand on the Padre Island seashore bill, trounced Republican Albert Fay. Agriculture Commissioner John White went into his seventh term with a top-heavy win over the GOP’s Harry Hubbard. All other Democratic nominees for statewide office won handily. Elements of Victory It became quite clear that Cox needed a fairly substantial portion of the liberal wing of the Democrats to win. But as it happened Tuesday, the sweeping defections by right-wing Democrats to Cox were more than offset by the adhesion of liberal, labor, Negro, and Latin precincts to the Connally banner. These were the principal ingredients of Connally’s victory: He ran strongly in traditional Democratic areas. He carried Nueces County 3-2, Wichita 2-1, Galveston by nearly 2-1, Travis by almost 7,000 votes. In Bexar County, where the general election turnout exceeded by some 6,000 votes-103,000 to 97,000the turnout in the Gonzalez-Goode special congressional election last yearConnally piled up an impressive majority. He even got more votes in Bexar County this time than Henry Gonzalez got against Goode, a reliable indication of the sturdy organization work in liberal areas. that he would want to return to the Observer only if it could be made self-sustaining. He was prepared to return as editor of a _self-sustaining fortnightly, though he did not advocate this alternative, leaving the decision to others concerned. At the meeting in August, Morris and Dugger learned for the first time of Mrs. Randolph’s de Houston, its principal owner and special partner, will cease doing so. She will continue as principal owner and special partner, Ronnie Dugger will return to the editorship, and the Observer itself will become a fortnightly, sustained out of its earned revenues. As announced previously, Editor Willie Morris has decided to resign and move to California. The shift to the fortnightly is the only alternative to discontinuing the Observer. When Morris informed Mrs. Randolph of his decision, a meeting was arranged between them and Dugger. Before the meeting. Mrs. Randolph reached her decision that Dugger and Willie she would not be willing to con made the greatest tinue sustaining the Observer’s that any publication has in enlightening the people as to our deficits. Meanwhile, Dugger had decided state politics and what goes on in the legislature. My hope is that all the subscribers not only will continue their subscriptions, but will also assist us in obtaining new subscriptions.” The Observer will be published weekly through November; the first issue on the biweekly basis will appear in mid-December. A statement from Dugger appears elsewhere on this page. Dugger’s Statement