ustxtxb_obs_1965_07_09_50_00008-00000_000.pdf

Photograph by Russell Lee From Stumping at the Store in 1954, Sen. Yarborough Has Advanced to an Establishment Turnout in 1965. thus provided five of the 25 Democrats and one of the 104 Republicans so recognized. V Cong. Gonzalez, San Antonio, proposed a $1.25 an hour minimum wage$200 a monthfor servicemen. Cong. Patman, Texarkana, said the head of the Federal Reserve ought to resign because of a New York speech Patman said caused a sudden decline in the stock market. Yarborough ‘Arrives’ w r The appreciation dinner for Sen. Yar borough in San Antonio last month, the senator said he hoped, will retire his final campaign debts. The most imposing if also the most tiresome characteristic of the long evening was the introduction of every city and county official in Bexar County, for they surely were all there. These introductions must have taken 45 minutes. Yarborough was being courted because San Antonio wants a federal appropriation for HemisFair and because Yarborough is in a position, during the next five and a half years, to be additional service to the area through the acquisition of federal funds and services. Even the Republican Mayor of San Antonio, W. W. MacAllister, joined in showering Yarborough with campaign money and flowery talk. The nature of the event was illuminated by a series of stories run in the San Antonio Express in advance of it, quoting various dignitaries urging citizens to come. Here they are, in sequence: John A. Daniels, county Democratic chairman: “San Antonio . . . is dependent on federal installations. . . . We are interested in preserving and expanding that function, and it behooves us, as a community, to honor Sen. Ralph Yarborough” by attending the dinner. Bill Sinkin, vice-chairman of HemisFair: “This is not a partisan matter. The senator is not up for election this year. He was elected last year to a six-year term. We should all work together in a non-partisan, community effort. . . .” Sinkin, Daniels, and County Judge Charles W. Grace: “We must have a full house. . . . As the senior senator from the President’s home stateand as a member of the all-important Senate appropriations committeeYarborough is in a position to help us when we go to Washington to ask appropriations for the HemisFair, the medical foundation, flood control, and other important projects.” A resolution of the county commissioners court designating the day of the dinner Yarborough day: Yarborough has helped San Antonio and “is in a position to provide additional help during the remaining five and one-half years of his current term.” The substantial number of citizens who paid $100 for admission to a pre-dinner cocktail party did not include many liberals. Tickets to the dinner were $10. The net was $10,940. Yarborough said at a press conference the federal participation in HemisFair would not be less than the $4.5 million voted by the state legislature and probably 8 The Texas Observer would be more. In his speech he reviewed federal funds for projects for Bexar County. The only time he varied from this subject was when he said, with respect to HemisFair’s values for hemispheric understanding, “If we follow the peaceful pursuits that we should pursue,” trade with LatinAmerica will increase, “and then we will be building the Great Society not merely in this country but in this hemisphere.” V Similarly, Dallas is getting its $22 million federal center. The House bill did not include the funds, but Yarborough and Tower spoke out for them in the Senate, and they were put in. Cong. Cabell, Dallas, thanked both senators, “especially Sen. Yarborough, who really went to bat for Dallas after I enlisted his support.” The 1965 agriculture appropriations bill includes, for Texas projects, almost $55 million more for Texas than the House bill, and a Dallas Times-Herald story said “much of the work was attributable to the work of” Yarborough, a member of the appropriations committee. V Yarborough has been named chairman of the postal affairs subcommittee that handles all postal affairs for the Senate. A hearing on his proposed bill for Guadalupe Mountain national park is set July 21. He has been given an honorary degree of doctor of humane letters by Lincoln College in Illinois. V Yarborough endorSed the bill to pro vide staff for mental health and retardation centers being built under a 1963 act. The Texas senator fought a losing battle led by Sen. Russell Long, D.-La., to get medical discoveries that are made possible by federal research money declared in the public domain. During this debate, Sen. Dirksen, R.411., attacked Yarborough for remarks Dirksen said suggested senators opposed did not have the public interest at heart. Yarborough said Dirksen was protesing too much. V The Johnson administration decided that while five of the VA hospitals announced for closing would stay open, six others, including the one at McKinney, would not. The hospital at McKinney may be used for some other federal program. Meanwhile, Sen. Yarborough joined Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D.-Mass., in a drive to prevent the Johnson Administration’s proposed closing of 12 Public Health Service hospitals, including one at Galveston. . . . Forced to choose between Perle Mesta’s party for Sen. Majority Leader Mike Mansfield and a dance honoring Sen. Robert Kennedy, Yarborough chose the Kennedy affair. V He advocated birth control to control world population in a statement late last month. He introduced a bill to create a program of bidding for oil import quotas. He proposed more staff and communications allowances for big-state senators, closed-circuit TV for senators to help them follow Senate events, and daily indexing of the Congressional Record. V The Houston Tribune said “sources close to the White House” say Johnson wants to appoint Yarborough to the next vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court. The Spectrum v r Reform-oriented editor James Mathis of the Daily Review in Edinburg appears to be making progress. He was honored at a banquet attended by 260 civic, political, and business leaders in South Texas, including Lon Hill of Central Power and Light and J. M. Dellinger, Corpus Christi contractor. The paper has supported a Latin-American for mayor, who was elected. A recent editorial suported removal of the loyalty oath from the federal education program. V The moral authority of the American Civil Liberties Union, in San Antonio, at any rate, was illustrated when a committee study of the San Antonio ACLU chapter conducted under the chairmanship of Mrs. Gil Phillips charged that a psychological testing program was infringing the constitutional rights of federal employees at Kelly Air Force Base. Officials at Kelly denied it, the chairman of a U.S. House committee investigating the invasion of privacy of federal employees through such testing asked the chairman of the U.S. Civil Service Cmsn. to investigate, and Sen: Yarborough commented when he went to San Antonio. Mrs. Phillips says that Kelly workers were being given extremely superficial examinations on the basis of noncooperation with supervisors. The test questions concern religion, sex life, fantasies, and such. V Don Horn, liberal Democrat and an electrician, is the new Harris County labor secretary-treasurer, replacing the late N. E. Coward. . . . Cmsr. Albert Pena is