ustxtxb_obs_1964_08_21_50_00005-00000_000.pdf

Ma.,11 0.110041=100001.NMIll 0.11=414 01111041041MNI011/1 It Don’t Mean a Thing 1 If You Ain’t of That Ib dem Keith Elliott Yarborough’s “wrestling match” with Sen. Strom Thurmond got banner headline play in a San Francisco newspaper during the convention. When he saw this, Sen. Tower burst out laughing. George Bush of Houston, Yarborough’s opponent in November, told the Texas caucus he has been “doing pushups because I’m running against a wrestlef.” He jokingly proposed a tag team matchBush and Odessa Rep. Ed Foreman against Yarborough and San Antonio Rep. Henry Gonzalez, who has had some heated arguments with Foreman. Bush spent several days visiting other delegations. He was -trying to prove, one delegate said, “that Texans don’t wear white sheets.” Grenier said nine of the eleven Southern states exceeded their 1963 GOP financial quotas, with an average of 125 per cent. Texas, he said, kicked in 160 per Cent of its quota. * Alabama Gov. George Wallace, who later abandoned his presidential campaign, got almost as much attention from the press here as the actual candidates. Grenier called Wallace “a very astute politician. I think he does have the best interest of the nation in mind and I think he will act accordingly.” A possible tip-off to Wallace’s eventual withdrawal came before the convention opened, at a rally of “Independent Americans for Goldwater” at a motel here. The rally was sponsored by Kent and Phoebe Courtney of New Orleans, who publish the right wing “Independent American” newspaper. Their featured speaker, John Birch Society founder Tom Anderson, said Wallace has done more than anyone else in recent years “to project a good image for the South, but two conservatives running against each other don’t help each other. If Sen. Goldwater gets the nomination, I’m with him all the way.” Anderson said “even an honest, hipshooting, red-blooded American like Barry Goldwater can’t stop this treason, but he’s a starter.” Courtney bragged about distributing 77,000 pamphlets during the California primary on “The Socialist Views of Nelson Rockefeller.” He said it was so effective “Rockefeller had to specifically attack the pamphlet. We went into Oregon to tell the truth about Lodge. We were the dirty squad.” He said -his .wife, “The Tigress of the Right,” put out a pamphlet on Scranton within 36 hours after his announcement, and that 108,000 of them, “A documented expose of the leftwing views of the Eastern Kingmakers’ candidate,” had been distributed before the convention. Nelson Rockefeller’s speech against extremists met heavy and prolonged booing, but not from the delegates. It was the gallery, a highly-partisan pro-Goldwater group, that interrupted him time after time, and extended his speech from five minutes to more than ten. Throughout his speech, and keynoter Oregon Gov. Mark Hatfield’s criticism of the Birch Society, the Texas delegation sat still and quiet. A sheet of Do’s and Don’t from O’Donnell had told them not to boo. They did not. The convention left no doubt that Goldwater is the personification of a rising phenomenon in America. A high-placed Texas Republican later discussed it: “The feeling was there before Goldwater. These are people who worked for . Taft in 1952, and who feel that convention was stolen by Eisenhower. They’ve been tired of big government since the New Deal. They’re tired of the DeMocrats fumbling in foreign affairs and worried about the civil rights situation at home. These are young people for whom politics has a great deal of appeal. The Democrats have not made a place for them. There aren’t any young people in the Texas Democratic Party machinery of Johnson and Rayburn. They were looking for a place to go. The Republican Party made one for them.” Austin I am,blessed with an eidetic memory and ears sufficiently keen to have been likened to those of a bat. Accordingly, the fidelity 1 of the following dialogue, which I recorded not long ago at the faculty dining room of the University of Texas as two professors at the table adjacent to my own supped on wheat germ 2 and yogurt 3, is irrefutable: “I saw your latest book, Doctor.” “Tell me honestly,: what did you think?” “Loved the bibliography!” 4 “You’re too kind. Albeit I have been told that I have a way with the op. cit.” “You turn a vivid ibid, as well.” “Pshaw. Did my acknowledgements suit you?” “Copious, Doctor; copious. I do believe their volume exceeded that of the text.” “Text?” “The body of your book, Doctor.” “Oh, that part with the footnotes. To be sure. Ah, what’s your reaction to the footnotes, by the way?” “I’ll have to hand it to you, Doctor. It would never have occurred to me to write a footnote to a footnote.” Only November will tell whetherin Texasthe pieces will fall into place: The religious fervor of Goldwater’s organization ; Resentment against the national communications media. Distrust of Lyndon Johnson as a person with a questionable political history and as a politician trying to be all things to all people. The appeal by Goldwater that the nation stands “in grave danger of losing what we have achieved if we continue to undermine our basic institutions,” and that “I look forward to the tomorrow in which high purpose and high morals will be restored to our high offices.” A poster dreamed up by a San Francisco artist and on sale at The Old Spaghetti Factory may have summed up the two themes to be used this campaign by the two parties. For the Republicans big bold red letters proclaim “Go with Goldwater.” For the Democrats the same words are printed over a big black,mushroom-shaped cloud. J.H. “That was rather daring, I’ll admit. But that’s the business of the writer, to be creative. Pass the wheat germ, please.” 1.La Rochefoucauld: Maxims, 1665. “The fidelity of most men is merely an invention of self-love to win confidence; a method to place us above others and to render us depositories of the most important matters.” 2.Not to be confused with the wheat midge, a small two-winged fly \(Thecodiphosis moselwhich is -very destructive to growing wheat, both Europe and America. \(Webster, 3.Also, yoghurt, yoghourt, youhourt. Ibid.* 4.The author is indebted to Luke Patrenella, a witty acquaintance, for this line. *Not to be confused with the “ibid,” a large monitor \(perhaps of the Philippine Islands. which becomes over five feet long. Both it and its eggs are highly esteemed for food. Webster, op. cit. KEITH ELLIOTT** **Not to be confused with the wheat midge. Ibid. August 21, 1964 5