ustxtxb_obs_1964_04_17_50_00010-00000_000.pdf

.ampaign Cards Sr Placards Bumper strips Brochures gr Flyers & Letterheads Fr Env lope k Vertical Post ers & Buttons & Ribb tns 8. Badges & Process Color Work 8r. Art erk ikr Forms ar Newspapers 8r. Political P inting 8 Books 8z Silk Screen Work & Mag Ines & Car Signs & Novelties 8, Pictures I t .a .t kit is 8. Silk Screen Work & Political Printing & ovelti es & Mimeograph Supplies & Conventi .0 Badges & Ads ertising Campaigns & Stati c nery & Cards & Announcements & invitatio t is S for Connally when he was running two years ago. A strategy meeting of about 30 of Connally’s key supporters was reported in the San Antonio Express, but not much was let out about the proceedings. One sees Connally billboards around the state, but not much other evidence of his candidacy for renomination. In an interview with the San Antonio Express, Connally gave out some themes he may be expected to pursue on his threea-week breakfast talks on a statewide TV network up to voting time. He pointed to new industries in Texas, more tourists, the establishment of the Texas Development Agency. He said he knows of no responsible person who advocates a higher sales tax, which Don Yarborough says Connally will. He emphasized the creation of five new schools for children of migrant workers last November and said five more are planned. The governor will testify before the Warren Commission on April 21, it has been announced in Washington. That will be eleven days before the May 2 primary. Don Yarborough on `The Big Lobby’ Fort Worth Don Yarborough is making half a dozen or so speeches every day, campaigning hither and yon, and the question arises, how to present the gist and tone of it. The Observer monitored one of his numerous 30-minute local TV shows in Fort Worth, listened in as he addressed a large house-ful of supporters in the Negro section of this city, and covered a speech he made to Dallas Democrats. His emphasis is all-out criticism of Connally as “the worst governor in the history of this state.” He says lobbyists run the government under Connally and that if the governor is re-elected, he will lay a fourpercent-sales tax onto the backs of the poor. His method is to simplify, his manner is at once both informal and evangelical. On TV he stressed that “the big lobby” is telling Connally to relax, that he can’t lose, and the challenger admits that he can’t beat Connally himself, but that “you,” the voter, can; “I want you to be one of the generals in this campaign. . . . I want you to help shape policy.” He urges individuals to get into the swim by going down to his campaign headquarters and pitch in. It is a personal, you-to-me approach. What has Connally done about education? he asks. He bets the listener can’t think of a thing. One thing he did do, Yarborough says, is line-item veto $12 million out of the higher education appropriation bill and then fail to call the special session to reappropriate it. \(Capitol reporters retorted that only $800,000 of this came from 10 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 El This is a renewal. This is a new subscription. He explains that the governor appointed the parks and wildlife board that made the ruling that lets shell dredgers destroy oysters so they can get more shell. This hurts fishing, and that hurts people who like to go to the coast weekends to fish, he says. He tells about the publication of ads “slandering the oyster industry” in the Houston area and says “the big dredgers” paid for them and Ben Kaplan, “the governor’s PR man” in Houston, placed them. “I charge him with doing nothing for education. I charge him with destroying conservation. This man knows that he can’t answer If I ever saw an admission of guilt!” Yarborough says. But, he says, “His lobbyist cronies are saying to him, `Keep quiet, this guy can’t beat you, even though you’ve been the worst governor in the history of this state.’ ” Don Yarborough leans heavily against the secret sessions of the governor’s commission held on higher education. In apparent, inexplicit rejoinder, the commission held an open session last week with the chief of the California system of colleges. Connally attended and asked a question. YARBOROUGH ASSAILS Connally for the loan regulatory bill, which replaced the 10% constitutional interest ceiling with a scale of charges reported by the Observer at the time. The legislature rejected a 36% limit bill, which almost passed in 1961, and instead passed a bill acceptable to broad segments of the loan industry that set rates ranging from high percentages on small loans to smaller percentages on larger loans. Yarborough charges that this law legalizes interest charges of 320%. “Imagine the great gall, thinking he could get by with this!” Yarborough says. He recalls that it was Gov. Jim Hogg who established the 10% limit and contends that “You go back to Babylon, back to Greece, back to the Dark Ages, back to the French Revolution, to Neroany of themno dictator ever had the gall to put such an interest rate on the backs of the people. I’m sure that even the loan sharks were shocked.” Connally and the lobbyists, Don Yarborough charges, “are gonna level an increase in the general sales tax of at least three and probably four percent, across the board, on food and medicine. They intend to pick your feathers.” Connally admitted in the 1962 campaign, Yarborough charges, that he was a lobbyist for “the big gas interest.” Is he likely to increase the gas tax or the oil allowable? he asks. Yarborough charges Connally has done “everything he possibly could to fight the Kennedy administration”; he has fought “medical care down the line” and “has done everything he could to fight aid to education.” Lobbyist Tom Sealy of Midland is “the closest friend the governor’s got, except Allan Shivers,” and this is one reason why the last legislature cut taxes on corporations $20 million “and made up most of it with a general sales tax on work clothes of less than $10.” BEFORE an integrated gathering at Dr. Marion Brooks’ home in Fort Worth, Yarborough spoke mockingly of Connally’s support of poll tax repeal as devastatingly harmful to that cause. After Connally attacked “Boss Pena” and “bloc voting” at the League of Women Voters’ rally for repeal, Yarborough said, “There were some wilted flowers on the [ladies’] Hard-nosed Mortgage Loans, no romance added . . . . J. W. “TOMMY” TUCKER Correspondent P. 0. Box 66103 Houston, Texas 77006 JAckson 4-2211