ustxtxb_obs_1965_10_15_50_00002-00000_000.pdf

vole no on Rut The Observer opposes constitutional amendments four and ten in the Nov. 2 election. Four-year terms for governor may be all right in two-party states, but this is a one-party state, and amendment four would confirm one-party, big-business control of Texas. We have almost reached the point where the conservative Democrats and the state government are the same thing. We must turn back from this dangerous way of political life. Four-year terms for members of the Texas House would give them longer terms than congressmen! The people have a right to rule on their. state representatives every two years. There is already too little democratic pressure on these men in a one-party state; now they want even less. Governor Jahn B. Connally pushed amendment four through the legislature for his own benefit. Then the state representatives pushed through amendment ten for theirs. The Senate has already tried to flummox the voters into saving the hides of seven rural senators by increasing the number of senators to 39, and the Senate was refused. We hope the people have had enough of politicians jimmying the very structure of state government for their own personal interests and will vote no on four and ten, too. Connally has announced for the first four-year term. This would give him eight years in officelonger than any Texas governor in history. His appointees would totally dominate every state agency, contrary to the purpose of the state’s six-year staggered terms policy. As the October railroad workers’ newsletter argues, amendment four would “have the governor running in the off-presidential years and consequently diminish rather than stimulate voter participation.” If amendment ten was adopted, too, half the legislators would run when the governor wasn’t running, and he’d be able to campaign to defeat anybody in the House who had not taken his orders. “A powerful, popular governor would be able to virtually determine the makeup of the legislature in a one-party state,” the railroadmen’s newsletter warned. If Connally gets the four-year term, he’ll in effect be seeking his third and fourth terms in the one election next year. No wonder the lobbyists are so devoted to the four-year term. They can spend a quarter million dollars on passing it and still come out ahead. It’ll serve them right if they lose again as they did on the 39-member Senate. VVE EMPHATICALLY endorse amendment three, to correct the state welfare program so it can go on getting federal funds. The effect of this amend 4 and 10, on 3 ment will be to start Texas aid to the blind aid to needy children until they are 21 to provide old age assistance to U.S. \(not who have lived in the U.S. for at least 25 years. Without these changes Texas loses federal welfare funds for these programs in 1967. Adoption of this amendment is a must. The Observer opposes amendment six, which would authorize $85 million in bonds for a college student loan program. The federal government is providing various scholarships and will go further. The Texas program would he based on bonds, not taxation, and this would raise the loan interest rates. The loans could be given to students in private colleges, and thisthe use of the state’s credit for students in church schoolsviolates the separation of church and state. In the Texas context, such a loan program would be used as justification for higher college tuition. We have doubts about amendment eight, which provides for compulsory retirement of judges for old age \(an idea to which duct.” Who would be given the power to recommend to the Texas Supreme Court what should be done about removing judges 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 Brammer, Larry Goodwyn, Harris Green, Franklin .Tones, Lyman Jones, Larry L. King, Georgia Earnest Klipple, Robert L. Montgomery, Willie Morris, James Presley, Charles Ramsdell, Roger Shattuck, Dan Strawn, Tom 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 accused of “misconduct”? A state board chosen by the State Bar, the Texas Supreme Court, and the governor. Although it is true they have not been within living memory, judges can be impeached now. We do not like the idea of giving a nine-member state board whose composition will be politically conservative the power to throw out judges on charges of misconduct. The proposal would authorize tossing out a judge whose conduct is inconsistent with his duties “or casts public discredit upon the judiciary or administration of justice.” That language is too broad. On the other side of this issue, the amendment has been endorsed by the judiciary and the Bar. It appears to the Observer that amendments one, to double the five-cent state ad valorem tax for college building; two, to extend and enlarge the veterans’ land program; five, to give the teacher retirement system wider latitude in investing retirement funds; seven, to exempt Hermann charity “hospital in Houston from certain taxes; and nine, to give the Speaker and lieutenant governor more money than the $4800 a year they now get and to increase legislators’ expense allowance from $12 to $20 a day during legislative sessions, are acceptable proposals. IN BRIEF, we urge that citizens vote no on four and ten. We suggest a no vote on amendment six, although the proposal has a good purpose. The editor is going to vote no on amendment eight, but realizes his reasons in this may be eccentric. We emphatically endorse an aye vote on three: the state welfare program is at stake. The other proposals are OK. Grande Valley, Mrs. Jack Butler, 601 Houston, McAllen, MU 6-5675; San Antonio, Mrs. Mae B. Tuggle, 531 Elmhurst, TA 6-3583; 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 themselves 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 return 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. 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. 20 7cigek’ October 15, 1965