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College Subscribers Bookstores and newstands on the University of Texas Drag in Austin stock the Observer; it sells well. We do not have the Observer so placed around other Texas colleges and universities. Will readers who will undertake to establish such relationships with bookstores and newsstands around their own campuses please write the Observer editor for information they will need to know to do work that Johnson is doing. For one thing, they help persuade moderates to back Kennedy. The rationale in Johnson’s being placed on the ticket in 1960 was that he could, being a proven compromiser on civil rights, help hold the South in line. And Texas. Kennedy lost part of the South, and almost Texas; but in the slippery dynamics of politics no one should contend that Johnson being on the ticket did not contribute to the Democrats’ victory. Now, however; Johnson has alienated Southern racists, too; for he is backing Kennedy on civil rights. The case for Johnson on the ticket devolves to a question of his popularity in Texas. His value in the South is attenuated. Kennedy may feel he has an obligation to put Johnson on the ticket. The Irish Mafia have always been cautious about committing their Irish honor to deals; but be that as it may, Kennedy will have the say on his vice presidency. It is not naive to assume that any events in Texas tending to cast doubt on Johnson’s popularity in Texas will be studied by the Kennedys. They are very sensitive politicians. Such things have now begun to happen. The first was Yarborough’s Freeport speech. This speech has not been widely quoted, except for a key phrase or two. I wish to quote just these paragraphs from it; for they illustrate something about Yarborough’s attitude toward Johnsonthat it is a very intense, very personal attitude, and that it contains a lot of memories: “A number of people have asked me how I was kept off the appropriations committee when I was the senior senator applying for it. This happened last year also. It happened in each instance after the lackeys and henchmen of a powerful Texas politician had lobbied with other senators against me. . . .” Yarborough said, continuing: “I did not go to the United States Senate with a ring in my nose, and nobody has one in it now. None will be placed there. I went to the Senate by the will of the people of Texas to represent this state and nation on my own independent judgment, and so long as I remain in the Senate, I will maintain that legislative integrity. “If the people want a ring-in-the-nose politician, to be somebody else’s flunky, they cannot find him in me. I believe that the people of Texas want a senator in the tradition of Sam Houston, Thomas J. Rusk, and John H. Reagan, who will follow the course of his judgment and convictions. I do not believe that the people of Texas want a sniveling satrap of a power-mad politician as their senator. I don’t and won’t fill that bill.” Now when Ralph got through saying that, mighty were the alarums and caterwaulings from Washington, and hereabouts, also. Lyndon said he did no such of a thing, and would have voted the way Ralph has been voting on most issues, and wants no fight with him. Thisas Ralph and as Lyndon both knowremains to be seen, say about next March, April, and May. THERE IS ANOTHER KIND of disaffection from Johnson. He had great power as majority leader and wielded it for the benefit of his friends, including his rich financial backers who were Republican in everything but name and their friendship with Johnson. Some of these friends thought, when they gave huge gobs of money to the Johnson for president campaign in 1960, that they had assurances from Johnson that he would not take the vice presidency, because of his Senate power. Whether they did or not, he took it, and they had had it. Johnson’s lines into the homes and offices of the big rich were damaged. His liberalism now damages them more. It is to be presumed that he has repaired them some with NASA, but they still leak the pressures he pours into them. And now a third thing has happened. I did not understand it until the other night; nobody has understood it who has published what’s going on. Tom Griffin has formed the “Old Frontier Democrats.” They are against Kennedy. Tom Griffin? Isn’t he the liberal who ran against old John White? Isn’t he that fellow who risked Johnson’s ire to testify in the State Senate against the law that let Johnson run for senator and vice president at the same time? Couldn’t be! He is one and the same. But old Tomhe was with the Democrats of Texas; as county judge over in Bastrop, he is the one who reminded Johnson of Herman Brown at a state convention and after that couldn’t even get to be a delegate, though he was county judge, except that one year Johnson joined the line-up to beat Shivers! Surely, that’s not old Tom? The same. And the truth of the matter is, the Old Frontier Democrats are not anti-Kennedy in their genesis, they are anti-Johnson. It can be said with some assurance that if Johnson is not on the ticket next year, they will disband, and most of them will go with Kennedy; specifically, Griffin will. October 4, 1963 AMERICAN INCOME LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY OF INDIANA Underwriters of the American Income Labor Disability Policy Executive Offices: P. 0. Box 208 Waco, Texas Bernard Rapoport, President 15