ustxtxb_obs_1963_10_04_50_00012-00000_000.pdf

Kennedy’s Standing in Texas v The Belden Poll said Kennedy has dropped from 71% approval in Texas after the Cuban crisis to 50% now, \(and nally has risen from 54% approval last May to 61% now. Lyndon Johnson’s approval percentage has dropped, Belden said, from 68% in Feb., 1962, \(when Kennedy’s nedy’s. Only 32% approve Bobby Kennedy, Belden said. On racial lines, the President gets 35% approval in Texas from AngloAmericans, 80% or so from MexicanAmericans, and 90% or so from Negroes, the poll of 1,000 voters indicated. goo Well before this poll appeared, Gov. Connally said Kennedy’s popularity in Texas had declined because of the civil rights matter, but added that Eisenhower also suffered a decline after he sent troops to Little Rock. frov It is significant that the poll above omitted Ralph Yarborough. It is the Observer’s information that, as of the latest poll on Texas being discussed by Johnson in Washington, Yarborough is now enjoying 57% approval in Texas. fror Stories in Look, the Washington Star, and other national periodicals have given rise to the idea nationally that Texas is likely to go Republican in 1964. Attempts to guess how Texas will go 13 months before the election have little or no value, and seem to have failed to distinguish between Goldwater’s unchallenged domination of the Texas Republicans, on the one hand, and the assertion that the Republicans, whoever they nominate, and however Goldwater might continue to move toward integration if he was nominated, will beat Kennedy in Texas. The Fall Calendar vg Major events so far in the fall political calendar in Texas: Oct. 12, Senator Goldwater visits San Antonio. 12 The Texas Observer SUBSCRIBE OR RENEW THE TEXAS OBSERVER 504 West 24th Street Austin 5, Texas Enclosed is $5.00 for a oneyear subscription to the Observer for : Name Address City, State 0 This is a renewal. 0 This is a new subscription. Oct. 18, Republicans’ “installation rally” in Dallas, starring ex-Democrat Tom James, a possible candidate for attorney general as a Republican in 1964. Oct. 19, Texas salute to Ralph Yarborough, mass rally, Austin, tickets $12.50 to $1,000. Several U.S. senators are expected. The large steering committee reads like an honor roll from Yarborough’s past campaigns; it conspicuously includes leaders of all four groups in the Democratic Coalition, as well as many Democrats who do not work with the Coalition. Oct. 19 also, Cong. Dick Bolling, liberal Democrat from Kansas City, addresses evening rally in San Antonio sponsored by the Bexar County Democratic Women. \(“Long before they knew of Ralph’s dinner,” Maury Maverick, Jr., advises, “these women contracted for Bolling, and they can’t turn back although it is the night of Oct. Nov. 9, statewide voting on abolition of the Texas poll tax, raising the state welfare ceiling, and authorizing more veterans’ bonds and a public employees’ retirement system for Jefferson County; in the tenth congressional district, an election to replace Cong. Homer Thornberry, Austin; in Dallas, an election to replace two Democratic state representatives who quit while the quitting was good. Nov. 21-22, visit of President Kennedy to Texas. He’s expected to drop in on a testimonial for Cong. Albert Thomas in Houston; will stop briefly in a few other Texas cities. Officeholders and the Poll Tax vo Connally swung back at those who have doubted the zeal of his commitment to abolition of the Texas poll tax. At a press conference, he called on all Texans to help him repeal it. He said he will go on radio and TV on the subject and has written members of the State Democratic Executive Committee, urging them, he said, to campaign locally for repeal. He said he believes it is desirable that every citizen vote, and he predicted “chaos” if the federal poll tax is repealed, and the Texas one is not. He took another cut at Cty. Cmsr. Albert Pena and bloc voting in a speech. 1, Vice President Johnson has been re ported offering to speak vigorously for poll tax repeal. The first public sign of this was a speech he made last Sunday in Beau mont : departing from his script, he ap pealed for the repeal of “this shame of Texas, this poll tax,” and said a man “shouldn’t have to pay to cast his ballot for the man who can order him to die.” poo Lt. Gov. Preston Smith, whose non committal letter to the League of Women Voters on repeal was noted here last issue, said in Corpus Christi Texans may refuse to repeal. “Everywhere I have gone, people who have talked to me have expressed opposition to repealing the poll tax. Crystal City did it,” the Caller quoted him. “I think the issue is in serious jeopardy. I have not taken a position for or against it, though,” he added. Rep. George Hinson, Mineola moder ate, whose district voted against repeal about 2-1, said “politics must take a back seat on this issue” and announced he would join a “statewide movement” to fight repeal of the poll tax. r o of Don Yarborough spoke to a rally in Sinton on behalf of repeal, the most important challenge for Texas in 100 years, he said. Sen. Yarborough issued a press statement that he will step up his speechmaking for repeal. Poll Tax Foes Organizing v Harris County Democrats held their quarterly meeting, -700 attending, and heard Mrs. R. D. Randolph, former national committeewoman, warn that repeal is not in the bag, “the people who gave us the poll tax will do everything in their power to keep it.” Chris Dixie, chairman of the H.C.D., said that while silk-stocking precincts are paid up 80% on the poll tax, and adult Negroes, 50%, whites in working and middle-class areas are paid up just 39%, so that the issue is “an economic issue, not a racial one.” Don Yarborough declared that “we can’t afford to lose.” Dr. Clifton McCleskey, writer and professor, said that the poll tax provides only one fifth of 1% of the state’s revenue but has kept 50% of the people from the polls. fro A coalition of 18organizations has formed in Dallas for repeal, lined up behind the League of Women Voters and the AFL-CIO. vg A dispatch from Washington quoted Hank Brown, Texas AFL-CIO president, .that labor has a dozen people working for repeal and to register more voters. In Texas, labor leaders have been taciturn on the details of their effort, but is is a prodigious one. The Connally-Coalition Feud v The appointment of Hamah King, Ne gro United Political Organization ployment Cmsn. can be taken as an act of Connally’s. Coy Turlington of Marshall, chief counsel for the T.E.C., resigned in protest, hinting it was not race but protocol that upset him, but the T.E.C. released a letter they got from Turlington in which he’d said his office was “stunned and shocked” by “such an addition” to the staff. vf Connally said, before Kennedy’s visit to Texas was announced, that, when visiting Washington this week, he had no plans to invite Kennedy to Texas, but would tell him “we’d be delighted to have him here.” Connally said he “is going to support the Democratic ticket.” PASO Still a Steaming Subject per Albert Fuentes, executive secretary of PASO, is saying emphatically that he has no intention of running against Cong. Henry Gonzalez, San Antonio. Gonzalez has suspected that he was. Fuentes says that personal feelings aside, Gonzalez is voting for the principles Fuentes believes in, and he will support him because of Political Intelligence