ustxtxb_obs_1963_05_16_50_00008-00000_000.pdf

Another Comment A lot of people are making a lot of noise because five people with Spanish names, mexicanos, if you wish to use the term, won control of the city government in Crystal City. The people who are making the noise consider this a heroic victory for the mexicano. There are more mexicanos than gringos in Crystal City, then why not make it an exclusive mexicano government and shut out the gringo? Why not? For some quite sound reasons which some people are going to be discovering in a very short time. And I am not talking theory hereI am talking as an old hand in this race discrimination business. Hart Stilwell The basic fact is this: When mexicanos win a majority of the positions on a governing body in a town where they constitute a population majority, then nothing but justice is being served. When they decide, because they can, to shut out the racial minority completely, then they are doing exactly what the segregationists have done for so many years in dealing with mexicanos and Negroes. I would like to present here an illustration of how these altering situations in such towns as Crystal City might be handled if we have intelligent and reasonable leadership on both sides. In 1943 I was editor, on a parttime basis but with full control, of the Brownsville Herald. The mexicanos outnumbered the gringos by about 17 to 3. Up until that time a few shrewd gringo politicians had “handled” the situation by electing one mexicano to the city commission a token yes-man. By 1943, with the war going on, it became obvious that the Mexicans were not going to submit to such a situation any longer. So what do you do? One of two thingseither work out a compromise ticket on which both groups have what they might consider fair representation or watch Mexicans take over the show. 8 The Texas Observer Well, I decided it was my duty as editor to try to work out something. I managed to bring together on one ticket two Anglos and three Latinos \(let’s use all the terms, just for purcanos a majorityBUT, it did not eliminate Anglos from participating in government. The ticket won. It whipped a ticket made up almost entirely of gringos, then in a run-off it whipped one made up entirely of mexicanos. To this day, Brownsville has been electing men with Englsih names and men with Spanish names with a fair amount of indifference about the racial ancestry. A lot of the other towns in the Lower Rio Grande Valley have done the same. Some, such as McAllen, have elected mexicanos as mayorand who cared? So I think the bit of trickeryand that’s what it was to a large extent pulled off by P.A.S.O. and the teamsters union in Crystal City is going to backfire until both organizations wish they had never heard of Crystal City. It . is possible to keep a racial majority in a repressed state if that racial majority owns little of the town’s wealth. But never in history has a group that is economically dominant been shut out permanently from the operation of a city or state or nation. There is going to be a brutal tightening down on the Mexican in every town of South Texas because Of what P.A.S.O. and the teamsters union so arrogantly pulled off at Crystal City. Race hatred and discrimination builds back up. Whereas if P.A.S.O. and the teamsters had been content with a mere majority of three and had not completely shut out Anglos, the situation would have been entirely different. And if you start pouring it on me for being against the unionsslow down, friend. I helped C.I.O. way back in the days when it first started trying to organize the cannery workers in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. I exposed a reported murder plot against the C.I.O. organizer -and probably was responsible for blocking it. This is nothing new to me. But it makes me sad to see a lot of bright people wildly celebrating a victory that isn’t going to turn out that way in the long haul. Political Intelligence Wayne Poucher, chief narrator and spokesman for H. L. Hunt’s “Life Lines,” has had his contract terminated and is now promoting his own radio program. James Dobbs and Gene Scudder have been added to the Life Lines commentator staff to replace Poucher. No reason is given for Poucher’s exit. Dobbs assisted George Roberts in corporation-paid patriotism lectures in Houston in 1960; in 1962 he ran as a Republican against _Cong. Homer Thornberry, Austin, and was drubbed. I/ The unofficial announcement that Thornberry will be appointed a federal judge throws his seat open to a special election, with a runoff if necessary. State Sen. Charles Herring, Austin, is a certain contender for Thornberry’s seat. Marion Findley, Travis county G.O.P. chairman, telephoned Dobbs, who is now in Washington, and all but announced that Dobbs will run again. Presumably Dobbs would have to quit Life Lines in this eventuality. Thornberry is the choice of Vice President Johnson for the judgeship vacated by the retirement of R. E. Thomason June 1. Sen. Yarborough supports Thornberry’s nomination. Thornberry has had the most liberal voting. record of any member of the U.S. House from Texas in the last few years. fro The Observer was surprised in Tyler by opinions among some Democrats there that Speaker Byron Tunnell is vulnerable to defeat for renomination as a state representa