ustxtxb_obs_1964_05_01_50_00002-00000_000.pdf

Don Yarborough’s campaign has taken, in the course of his closing statewide TV appearances, a swing of focus toward the middle class. His emphasis on a school for tourists, a commission to expand trade with Mexico and countries south, and the recreational values of Texas is undoubtedly designed to address the interests of people without firm views on public issues, people who are inclined to vote on name identification and, in this race, on sympathy. Such emphasis, however, can dull the interest of issues-concerned people. For this reason we remind our readers where Don stands on issues that matter. He supports the entire pending civil rights bill, including the public accommodations section. Last Thursday night in Austin, addressing about 75 campaign workers, he renewed his call for “total and complete equality,” and he said again that his victory in Texas could be the first step in the emancipation of the South. He has nowhere indicated any flinching from his committed position, and his prospect for election rests in substantial part on the fact that Negro and Latin-American voters in the cities and in South and Southwest Texas are more for him this time than they were in 1962. Texas stands 41st in old age pensions. It is hardly believable that the average old age monthly pension is $59 a month. If you doubt it, telephone the Texas Department of Welfare. In Marchthat is a month ago we generous Texans paid each of 230,000 old Texans receiving Texas old age assistance an average of $58.10 each to live on for the entire month! This is\\disgraceful treatment for old people, and Don Yarborough has recently committed himself to a program of paying these -old people perhaps $100 a month, ranging up to $176 a month after California’s example. This line of thought is a proven vote-getter; it is not for that reason invalid or unimportant. To the emphatic contrary: let anyone who wants to defend old age pensions of $13 or $14 a week walk up to the old people and do so to their faces. IN NOTHING SO CLEARLY as in his advocacy of a public utilities commission for Texas does Don Yarborough convey his dedication to the public interest and his willingness to take on the special interests in the good fight. The fact that in the year 1964 Texas does not regulate telephone rates for long distance calls within its borders is one of our long-standing political scandals. Don has successfully dramatized this situation on statewide TV with courage and clarity. He has come up with some other pretty good ideas. He wants a new state conservation commission. , Gov. Connally’s threemember Parks and Wildlife Commission has discredited itself in the eyes of sportsmen and conservativaists through its unabashed “good offices” for the shell dredg 2 The Texas Observer ing interests that are backing Connally. These companies’ raids on the live oyster reefs in Texas bays are akin to timber interests’ raids on the great natural forests, and just as serious. The Connally commissioners’ dismissal of the state’s leading professional conservationist, Howard Dodgen, from the job of running the state conservation program which he held for 18 years, seven years short of his normal retirement age, ought be remedied; as we assume it would be under Governor Yarborough. Candidate Don’s idea to hold week-long conservation meetings among young people in the state parks is also a viable and pleasing idea, and he is well disposed toward the Kennedy-originated plan of buying farm land around the major cities and building new state parks for the cities’ harried, crowded millions. He has urged the creation of vocational training camps where juvenile delinquents can learn trades. Also, he has thrust to the heart of the problem of the waste of talented youth because of lack of funds: he proposes a $10,000,000 state scholarship program for students in the top quarter of high school graduating classes who want to go to college but do not have the money to. The vitality and the political integrity of the state government under a liberal governor would depend on taxation. Don Yarborough opposes any increase in the sales tax; he can surely be counted on to impede the expected attempt in 1965 to authorize cities to levy sales taxes of their own. He Incorporating the State Observer and the East Texas Democrat, which in turn incorporated the State Week and Austin ForumAdvocate. We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are dedicated to the whole truth, to human values above all interests, to the rights of man as the foundation of democracy; we will take orders from none but our own conscience, and never will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the powerful or cater to the ignoble in the human spirit. Editor and General Manager, Ronnie Dugger. Partner; Mrs. R. D. Randolph. Business Manager, Sarah Payne. Contributing Editors, J. Frank Dobie, Larry Goodwyn, Franklin Jones, Lyman Jones, Willie Morris, James Presley, Charles Ramsdell, Roger Shattuck, Dan Strawn, Tom Sutherland, Charles Alan Wright. Staff Artist, Charles Erickson. Contributing Photographer, Russell Lee. Subscription Representatives: Austin, Mrs. Helen C. Spear, 2615 Pecos, HO 5 -1805; Dallas, Mrs. Cordye Hall, 5835 Ellsworth, TA 1-1205; Fort Worth, Mrs. Jesse Baker, 3212 Greene St.. WA 7-2959; Houston, Mrs. Shirley Jay, 10306 Cliffwood Dr., PA 3-8682; Lubbock, Doris Blaisdell, 2515 24th St.; Midland, Eva Dennis, 4306 Douglas, OX 4 -2825; Odessa, Enid Turner, 1706 Glenwood, EM 6-2269; Rio Grande Valley, Mrs. Jack Butler, 601 Houston, McAllen, MU 6-5675; favors a tax on the natural gas pipelines; but one must doubt whether the legislature will soon pass one of these that has not been jimmied into unconstitutionality. He was quoted in one paper that he favors repeal of the progressive state property tax so cities and counties can get its revenues; but he has also’ said he would not favor this if it meant a higher sales tax. He is not opposed to a corporate profits tax ; he, like every other statewide candidate, is opposed to a personal income tax, but other reports to the contrary, he undoubtedly is realistic about the need for business to bear more of its fair share of the burdens of state government. WITHAL, let our readers remember, if they please, these few other facts. Gov. Connally has been lukewarm or hostile toward the Kennedy legislative program which has now been taken over by President Johnson. Connally has made it plain to all that he opposes Sen. Ralph Yarborough’s re-election. Connally has told his workers for the state Democratic conventions in effect that he does not want the state platform to support the liberal programs of the national Democratic Party. Don Yarborough is a committed, unqualified national Democrat. He understands the national significance of a conservative “Democratic Party of Texas” and as governor would help upend the Texas tradition of Democrats for YesterdayDemocrats for Special PrivilegeTexas Democrats against National Democrats. It is high time Texas Democrats rejoin in full heart the progressive traditions of the national party. . Don Yarborough’s election would accomplish precisely that. San Antonio, Mrs. Mae B. Tuggle, 531 Elmhurst, TA 2-7154; Tyler, Mrs. Erik Thomsen, 1209 So. Broadway, LY 4-4862. The editor has exclusive control over the editorial policies and contents of the Observer. None of the other people who are associated with the enterprise shares this responsibility with him. Writers are responsible for their own work, but not for anything they have not themselves written, and in publishing them the editor does not necessarily imply that he agrees with them, because this is a. journal of free voices. The Observer publishes articles, essays, and creative work of the shorter forms having to do in various ways with this area. The pay depends; at present it is token. Unsolicited manuscripts must be accompanied by return postage. Unsigned articles are the editor’s. The Observer is published by Texas Observer Co., Ltd., biweekly from Austin, Texas. Entered as second-class matter April 26. 1937, at the Post Office at Austin, Texas, under the Act of March 3, 1879. Second class postage paid at Austin, Texas. Delivered postage prepaid $5.00 a year; two rears, $9.50; three years, $13.00. Foreign rates on request. Single copies 25c; prices for ten or more for students. or bulk orders, on request. Editorial and -Business Offices: The Texas Observer, 504 West 24th St.. Austin 5. Texas. Telephone GR 7-0746. Change of Address: Please “give old and new addresses t%nd allow three weeks. riorou 94 for qovernor THE TEXAS OBSERVER A Journal of Free Voices A Window to the South 58th YEAR ESTABLISHED 1906 Vol. 56, No. 9 7430 May 1, 1964