ustxtxb_obs_1965_06_11_50_00032-00000_000.pdf

#~##*~~~4~########M#M###~~et f~.~~~~ ~#~~~ Dialogue 114#####M#41N######.1## Labor Was Too Late I know that all Texas liberals join in saluting the Texas AFL-CIO’s president, Hank Brown, for his recent hard-hitting and comprehensive attack on Governor Connally [see Obs. May 28]. Without being in the least an ingrate, let me point out that this attack came toward the very end of the legislative session and that the Texas AFL-CIO is not without complicity in whatever wrongs ‘Connally perpetrates. Despite pious pronouncements about its support for a competitive two-party system, the Texas AFL-CIO did endorse Connally in the 1962 general election, and in 1964 it endorsed the entire Democratic ticket, including Connally, Pool, Carr, Smith, ad nauseum. As Connally pointed out in his telegram on right to work to the Texas congressional delegation, the 1962 Texas Democratic platform endorsed right to work. Therefore, in all justice, Connally can not now be faulted by labor for supporting right to work when he was on record in favor of it when labor helped him get elected. The important fact to be drawn from all of this is that even the decent labor leaders like Hank Brown are trapped by the institutional forces which are making the labor movement a quasi-partner of the Establishment. In that 1962 general election and in every subsequent election, liberals watch in dismay as labor endorses candidates who are the allies of the most powerful corporate law firms which fight labor. Hank Brown’s mention of the four-year term proposal in his attack on Connally 32 The Texas Observer is the first word I’ve seen in print on that subject by a labor leader since I read in the Observer that Brown’s second in command, Roy Evans, praised four-year terms in a recent speech to an Austin .liberal group. Whatever the reason for the AFLCIO’s apparent switch in signals, I guess we should all be grateful for it. However, it comes too late, for without the votes of several House members, with very close ties to the AFL-CIO, Connally would never have been able to muster the small committee majority which finally voted out his anti-Ralph Yarborough four-year term amendment. Staunch liberal friends of mine who are also members of organized labor are as appalled as I am at the large number of representatives backed by labor who voted with Connally on four-year terms when it finally did reach the floor of the House. Liberals applaud Senator Fulbright when he calls for an awarenes of “Old Myths and New Realities” in foreign policy. But we ourselves continue to accept the old myths and to dismiss the new realities in Texas politics. It is long past due that we apply our critical intelligence to the vital task of determining “where we are and whither we are tending.” This unsentimental appraisal should ask penetrating questions about our relationship to the Democratic Party, the priority of creating a working two-party system, and how far we are willing to continue to go in ‘disseminating the very myths, such as party loyalty, which hold us captive and render liberalism in Texas as ineffectual as it now is. Everett Huffman, 6903 Grapevine Hwy., Fort Worth, Tex. Four Years for the Clique The argument of Meyer Nathan in Dialogue [Obs. May 28] in support of fouryear terms for governor wholly ignored the realities of Texas politics. This measure is aimed right at Sen. Ralph Yarborough, who is up for re-election in 1970. If this amendment passes in November, and if Connally is re-elected in 1966, he won’t have to run for a fourth term in 1968; he will be in office as an incumbent governor, in control of the state Democratic machinery, and thus in an ideal position from which to launch a campaign for the Senate. . . . Texas has a low percentage of voters among adults. We have a $1.75 poll tax and a vicious one-party system. Our newspapers all line up for one slate of candidates. The Republican state chairman said one thing’ rightin Texas we have a “Closed Society.” In California or New Jersey the four-year term may be reform, but in Texas it would only be an additional instrument for political domination by the same powerful clique. The time to establish four-year terms is after the poll tax is repealed and a two-party system is firmly established, and not before. H. E. Perry, Honey Grove. Still and All, Hubert Ruthe Winegarten, one of the three authors of North Dallas Democratic Women’s Political Paranoia III \(about which more Humphrey this letter : Dear Hubert, We Democrats here in Dallas was awful glad you visited our city the other day and you got away safe being protected by them secret servicers and police officers lookin real mean like they meant business and I was terrible grateful that I got to wave at you when your auto rushed by after waitin for on 2 hours and 10 minutes on Field Street. Sure we were proud to know that them business leaders and bankers and insurance salesmen and real estaters took time out of their busy days to stand in a long line and then sit quiet like for an hour whilst you gave them the word. Course waitin out in the lobby for you to come thru which you never did I saw a whole lot of Johnson-Bush bumper sticker types pass by, even noticed some Johnson-Cabell bumper sticker folk, but couldn’t find more than two or three of my Johnson-HumphreyRalph bumper sticker friends and then they was looking around kind of sheepy-eyed. Still and all I kept tellin myself we need them money folk in our party to pay for them TV commercials about Barry pushin a button and blowin up little girls pickin daisies and to pay for them full page 4387 Dallas Businessmen for Johnson ads and in all honesty I’ll have to fess up it did warm the cockles of my old liberal heart to see all them fine upstandin gentlemen conservatives almost to the mancome to pay tribute to my old Hubert from the ADA-NAACP-CIOPAC that’s always tryin to take over our Dallas schools and things. They could tell Hubert that you really wasn’t so bad as they thought what with not even havin two heads and Muriel makin her own clothes like she does. But hearkenin back to why I begun this letter which is that that theres whole bunches of us Democrats here in Dallas that phoned and licked and stamped and stuffed during the last campaign and course we don’t hardly ever get no notice and we’re used to that but we sure is hopin that someday you will come back to old Big D and meet some of the precinct chairmen and some of the Mexicans and coloreds and them ladies that plurhb near wore off their ears callin all those poll lists and them people that waded knee deep in the West Dallas mud last winter sellin poll taxes so folkses could vote 95% for you and Lyndon which they did. Yes sir Hubert we’ll be lookin for you back another day cause those folks you talked to up in the Adolphus well come on now they wasn’t your kind. Ruthe Winegarten, Dallas.