ustxtxb_obs_1965_07_23_50_00002-00000_000.pdf

Yariorough The group of liberals who convened in Austin this month to discuss a future statewide liberal organization resolved about three-to-one that Senator Yarborough should run for governor against John Connally in 1966, and the state PASO convention in San Antonio adopted a similar resolution. The Observer regards this idea as much more dubious than its advocates do. It is true that if Yarborough defeated Connally, the two-party system, a cause of primary importance in Texas, would be much enhanced. Corporate government would then have to cope with the first people’s governor since Jimmy Allred in the 1930’s. This would be fine and healthy; it is a glimmering possibilityso glimmering that it tends to blind. The first consideration it tends to obscure is Yarborough’s value in the Senate. We wish to liberalize Texas, but the national Congress is the arena where the country is really being liberalized. Yarborough’s liberalism there has become even more profound than it was in his earlier years there, his seniority has increased, he has attained important committee positions. He has exhibited a valuable and necessary independence of the President when the President seeks conservative objectives under the cover of a consensus. In fact, Yarborough has more and more often joined with the Kennedy brothers and other senators in consolidating .a vital force in national politics, the group of independent liberals who are not afraid of crossing President Johnson when they differ with him, and who do so with telling effect. A second consideration is that Yarborough might lose a race against Connally. The spasms and outcries from the protectors of pelf and power would be terrible to behold; mortally challenged, they would expend millions, and stoop as low as they could manage without breaking their own backs, to deny Yarborough the governorship. In this endeavor could they not count on an impression being permitted that Johnson was for Connally? It is fashionable, in the arguments we have heard on this speculation, to argue that if Yarborough lost, there would be no harm donehe would have four more years in the Senate and the people would forget. The people might forget, but there would be harm done anyway. The senator has steadily advanced in national prestige; his running and losing for governor would at once communicate to his Senate colleagues and the press a disregard on his part for his service in the Senate and his inability to win a statewide contest in his own state. There is yet a thirdand perhaps the most seriousconsideration. If Yarborough won over Connally, not only would the nation be deprived of his service in the Senate with its nationally valuable corollary of congressional independence of Johnson when Johnson is too conservative; there would also be the question, Who nd Connally would succeed Yarborough in the Senate? The chances are miniscule that it would be anyone as independent a liberal as he. His own race for governor would exhaust the limited campaign funds available for such a statewide effort, whereupon Connally would be in a position to appoint his successor, and then any liberal candidate in The death of Adlai Stevenson struck into many of us a shock of grief as deep as the death of any public man of our time. For many of us in our college and postcollege days he was the one who gave us hope. “Millions of people, especially young people, and tens of thousands of government servants are involved in the political life of their community and their country because Adlai Stevenson called them there,” said Senator Robert Kennedy. “He was both a teacher and a prophet for my generation,” said Senator McGovern. “Twice,” said Senator Proxmire, “Adlai Stevenson lost the presidency, both times by big margins. But how proud Americans can be of those campaigns. He appealed to the very best in Americans the willingness to reach out beyond self and even beyond country for a freer, more peaceful world.” 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, Elroy Bode, Bill Grammer, Larry Goodwyn, Franklin Jones, Lyman Jones, Larry L. King, Georgia Earnest Klipple, Willie Morris, James Presley, Charles Ramsdell, Roger Shattuck, Dan Strawn, Torn 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; El Paso, Mrs. Jeanette Harris, 5158 Garry Owen Rd., LO 5-3448; Fort Worth, Dolores Jacobsen, 3025 Greene Ave., WA 4-9655; 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, the ensuing special election would be confronted with the difficulty of raising a lot of money for a short, expensive election from a political, constituency recently drained dry by the race for governor. This speculation about Yarborough also requires that Texans decide whether they think it is more important to contribute to the welfare of the nation and the world, or to the welfare of Texas, and only thus incidentally to the welfare of the nation and the world. This is no shallow question. 1:1 He asked us to help the peoples of other lands, just for the sake of their being. He called on us, even at the cost of his election, to stop fouling our common air with nuclear tests. His eloquence was the eloquence of his interior self ; in language he spread beauty of mind. When he fell, he fell unrealized. He who should been President died instead a defender of policies his wisdom might have spared us. His patriotism, his determination to serve his country honorably and well, drew him further and further away, in his work, from himself. One cannot remember his role in the Cuban invasion except sadly. In a BBC interview an hour before his death, he repeated his defense of U.S. policies in Viet Nam; David Schoenbrun, the respected CBS correspondent in Paris, reported that the Friday be McAllen, MU 6-5675; San Antonio, Mrs. Mae B. Tuggle, 531 Elmhurst, TA 6-3583; Tyler, Mrs. Erik Thomsen, 3332 Lynwood, LY 4-4862; Cambridge, Mass., Victor Emanuel, 33 Aberdeen Ave., Apt. 3A. 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 them-: selves 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 is is token. Unsolicited manuscripts must be accompanied by r ,e turn 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 years, $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 address and allow three weeks. _Altai Steven THE TEXAS OBSERVER Texas Observer Co., Ltd. 1965 A Journal of Free Voices A Window to the South 59th YEAR ESTABLISHED 1906 VoL 57, No. 14 74W July 23, 1965