ustxtxb_obs_1964_05_01_50_00014-00000_000.pdf

most printable comment came from the conservative: “Whimsical,” he said. They are, as you see, an informed group. I decided to confine my poll to the Ruby trial since something remotely resembling Texas justice had been approximated there. What did they think of it? The conservative thought TV could be held responsible for a lot of the confusion. “Keep the damn stuff out,” he said. “It shouldn’t have been at the police station, either, when Oswald was shot.” I agreed but I thought the Dallas cops would have made a big show strutting their stuffand their prisonereven if one reporter had been present. “They looked like a lot of camera hogs,” said Pennsylvania. Massachusetts was even more assertive about Judge Brown. “He turned the courtroom into a bloody circus! That other judge[J. Frank] Wilsonshowed how to conduct a trial. He let Belli have his say. Then he made him shut up and sit down.” Were there any comments on Melvin Belli? Pennsylvania said, “Thought he was acting pretty much like a Texan there, wearing boots and making wild assertions. Didn’t he call Dallas ‘the murder capital of the world’?” I admitted that this did, at first glance, seem like a typical local boast. Did anyone agree with it? No one did. In fact, they thought Belli had lost more than just a case in this trial. Wasn’t he justified in charging Dallas was back in “the dark ages” when Judge Brown refused to admit expert testimony on Ruby’s mental state? “That’s the weakest evidence there is,” said the conservative. Massachusetts explained, “You can always contradict it with more expert testimony.” I asked for legal opinions on Henry Wade but no one had much of one to express so I quit when I was ahead. Back at my deskon company timeI was mulling over my notes when Pennsylvania strolled over and asked if I had good news or bad for you homefolks. It was generally favorable, I told him, but lacking was that sense of grandeur so necessary to the Texas soul. Nothing to brag about, I said. He thought a moment and said, “You tell them homefolks that Texas is still the big gest” “The biggest?!? Let me get this down!” “The biggest statein population, of coursewithout any laws protecting consumers on retail installment sales.” I’m sorry but that’s the best I can do. HARRIS GREEN MARTIN ELFANT Sun Life of Canada 1001 Century Building Houston, Texas CA 4-0686 Observations This issue’s Observations are reports from correspondents in Dallas and Dawson and guest editorials from two Texas weeklies. Dallas The weather outside was frightful, but inside the cavernous State Fair Music Hall a warm and sunny Dallas welcome met Sen. Ralph Yarborough from upwards of 1,000 loyal supporters who sloshed through one of the stormiest night of the season to greet him tumultously. They cheered with boundless exuberance as he banged away at his two chief antagonists, Gordon McLendon and the Dallas News. The televised rally could have, save the bad break of weather, demonstrated more clearly the degree of resurgence of Democratic activity here. The impressive list of sponsoring Democratic clubs-18 of them, several of which were nonexistent prior to last Nov. 22demonstrates this rebirth as well as anything else. Sen. Yarborough quickly reminded his fervent band of followers that, despite its well-advertised acres of Republicanism, Dallas County gave him an outright majority in 1958. He voiced the belief, lustily seconded by the crowd, that it will do this again in 1964 despite, hesaid, the spate of five Republican opponentsfour in one primary and one in the other. “Many people would like to knock me out,” he said, “for this would leave a Republican the senior senator and assure election of another Republicanand leave Texas virtually unrepresented in the Democratic administration we are sure to have. I think one Republican is all Texans would desire at one time.” THE SENATOR brought a thunderous response from his audience when he ripped into what he called the past personal “fiscal irresponsibility” of his radiotycoon opponent. He waved a copy of the bankruptcy petition of the defunct Liberty J. W. “TOMMY” TUCKER Appraisal of Real Estate 3317 Montrose Boulevard Houston, Texas 77006 JAckson 4-2211 Broadcasting System, “signed by the Old Scotchman himself,” to a chorus of cheers. The senator . advanced documented denial of a quotation attributed to him in a Dallas News story on the recent Young Democrats’ convention in Brownwood. He showed an affidavit by Dist. Judge Joe Dibrell of Coleman, who was with the senator at the time and introduced him at the gathering, affirming that Yarborough never said “You ought to take Dallas off the map,” as the News reported April 30. “At no time was I more than three feet from the senator …” the judge’s statement read. “. . At no time did the senator, inside or outside the coliseum, in private conversation or public, make the foregoing statement.” When McLendon accused him of making the statement, “the dear old Dallas Morning News was happy to print it,” Yarborough said. Mention of the News drew a cacophony of boos from the liberal Dallas crowd. “It is amazing to me that this paper would impose on the credulity of people by expecting them to believe that mon-_ strous falsehood,” he said. Yarborough lit into the News again on the matter of Billie Sol Estes. “On Wednesday, March 28, 1962, the Dallas Morning News carried a story headlined, ‘Estes Building Empire Worthy of Any Texan.’ This was the day before Billie Sol was arrested. “They already had a team of investigators in the field working on the Estes story then,” he said. “How did they expect me to know, with no investigators to find out these things?” He pointed out that he and the News weren’t the only ones misled by Billie Sol. He reminded that Estes was honored by the Junior Chamber of Commerce, “as was my opponent,” as one of Texas’ outstanding young men. “That was before their companies went bankrupt,” the senator said. He also asserted: “Over a million dollars is being spent against me in this campaign, and if my opponent would take $750,000 of it and pay his creditors what he still owes them he’d have a better fiscal image and be better able to run on the issue of fiscal responsibility.” Yarborough said Liberty Broadcasting’s 206 creditors ranged from AT&T Yarborough charged that McLendon’s attacks mark the beginning of the “first hate campaign since the fateful days of last November.” He called McLendon a “Republican stalking horse in the Democratic primary.” He warned party workers that a light vote May 2 can spell trouble. Moving the prithary up to “tornado season” increases weather hazards and will Ralph in Dallas