ustxtxb_obs_1965_10_15_50_00010-00000_000.pdf

H. L. Hunt Patman, Purcell, Rogers, Thomas, ThompOn House approval of the final conference report on the Administration’s immigration bill, a report that was approved by a vote of 320 to 69, the Texas House delegation voted no, two to one: the noes being Beckworth, Burleson, de la Garza, Dowdy, Fisher, Gonzalez, Mahon, Poage, Purcell, Roberts, Rogers, Teague, White, and Young; Thomas and Thompson not voting; the others voting aye. On House approval of foreign aid appropriations, passed 204-101: Aye, Beckworth, Brooks, Cabell, Gonzalez, Mahon, Pickle, Wright, Young; not voting, Purcell, Thomas, and Thompson; the rest no. V Larry L. King, Observer contributing editor, has a piece, “Where Are the `Ayes’ of Texas?” in the October Progressive, asking why the President is not getting more of the Texans in the House to vote with him. V Americans for Constitutional Action accuses 17 congressmen of “attempting to fool their constituents by voting on both sides of the fence,” including Patman and Pickle of Texas. Cabell, Teague, and White of Texas are criticized by A.C.A. for not voting on certain issues. . . . Gonzalez says there is a real threat of a communist takeover in the Dominican Republic, analogous to the Cuban takeover. . . . Patman is fighting hard to block a Senate-approved bill to make bank mergers easier. . . . Pickle writes the Observer that charges in the Progressive that a bill he is sponsoring would cripple public regulation of private utilities are in error. “My bill would simply confirm the exemption from Federal Power Cmsn. regulation of rural electric cooperatives and investor owned facilities which operate strictly within a single state,” Pickle said. V Sen. Yarborough voted for the foreign aid bill and against transferring farm labor jurisdiction to the Secretary of Agriculture, Sen. Tower voting oppositely in each case; both senators voted for the final farm bill. V Sen. Yarborough’s radio broadcasts are now heard weekly on 126 radio stations. Charles Johnston of his staff has gone to work in the general counsel’s office of the VA. Yarborough has been making a large number of appearances in Texas larger than one might ordinarily expect. In a recent speech to the ,Kentucky Medical Assn. he said American medicine has progressed because of contributions by the doctors and by the government, and it’s going to go on being that way. The senator is ready now to zero in on making the Big Thicket a national park. He took a jeep and helicopter tour of the thicket last weekend. V Five Texas firms were among 12 in dicted by a Los Angeles federal grand jury on charges of fixing oil pump sales and service pricesDresser Industries, Inc.’s pump division in California \(Dresser Youngstown Sheet & Tube of Garland, U.S. Industries at Longview, and HarbisonFisher Mfg. Co. of Fort Worth. 10 The Texas Observer V TIPRO the Texas Independents seem bent on forcing a congressional re-study of foreign oil depletion. A panel so decided, in effect, this month in Abilene. Johnny Mitchell, Houston independent, has slammed defenders of foreign depletion in Texas as men who have connections with the majors. Cong. Patman is backing TIPRO on this subject. TIPRO hailed the new oil imports official in Washington as a good man but evidently was not mollified. In Connally’s Camp The $85,000 the governor authorized spent for his office’s used twin-engine aircraft will be supplemented by another handy sum for renovating it, but the total cost will still be well below the $275,000 the legislature appropriate for the plane. V Connally’s office has released a num ber of appointments, among them Robert S. Strauss, his Dallas County campaign manager, to the three-member state banking board, which regulates Texas banks; John V. Singleton, Jr., a leading Houston supporter of his, to the threemember state depository board, which supervises the depositing of several hundred million dollars of state funds in Texas banks and decides which banks get how much interest-free deposits; and Mrs. Allan ‘Shivers of Sharyland, one of the nine regents for Pan-American State College of Edinburg. To the new state board of mental health and mental retardation Connally appointed three new members and six of the members of the old state hospitals board. To the polygraph examiners board he appointed four law enforcement polygraph examiners and two who give lie tests as a business. V Charles Murphy, ex-lobbyist for the Texas Manufacturers’ Assn. and other interests, has landed a cushy job as executive director of the Texas Aeronautics Cmsn., the six-member agency which some legislators have been trying to abolish and which made the Murphy appointment. V Conservative Democrat parents are backing the organization of a new Democratic youth organization to compete with the Young Democrats. It’s to be called the Texas Student Democratic Campaign Executive Cmte. The current effort is to set up nucleus-liaison on various Texas campuses, with Robert Brooks of the University of Texas a leader in the activity. Pre-organizational work has been done among active Connally people at TCU, Austin College, Southwestern, North Texas, Baylor, Pan. American, Rice, and some of the West Texas schools. V Mrs. Eugene Locke, Democratic national committeewoman from Texas, announced that Mrs. John Connally is honorary state chairman of Democratic Woman’s Day in Texas Oct. 16. Hunt’s New Project por H. L. Hunt, Dallas oil billionaire and conservative propagandist, has formed “District Speakers, Inc.,” with Hunt its president and Robert H. Stewart, III, board chairman of First National Bank in Dallas, its secretary-treasurer. The executive com mittee also includes the singer Pat Boone, TV actor Clint Walker, football player Jack Kemp, and Sears, Roebuck executive Gen. Robert Wood. T h e purpose is to find and reward good speakers “in the cause of preserving the freedom and sovereignty of our nation,” Hunt says in a pamphlet. Speaking contests will be held every other year when there’s not a general congressional electionand district winners go to five regional meets, with winners there going to “a national championship.” Apparently this is Hunt’s plan, about which he hinted a year or two back, to locate good speakers to run for Congress. wanis Club invited the spokesman for the Houston Birchers to address them, and he did. . . . A Birchers’ “Impeach Earl Warren” sign has gone up in El Paso, the first such sign in that city. . . . Robert Welch has opened a Birch regional office in Dallas. V Speaker Ben Barnes told Jon Ford he “might” try to be the first three-term House Speaker if the four-year term amendment passes. Barnes said in Midland he doubts the legislature would approve the Missouri Plan to appoint judges now elected. . . . Dan Blocker said in Hollywood he won’t quit acting for five years. That would leave him free for Texas-politics in 1970. . . . Rep. Honore Ligarde of Laredo has been elected President of a proposed state bank for Laredo. . . . Corpus Christi teachers have formed a political organization which central staff administrators are boycotting. The name is the Texas EducaLeo J. Leo of La Joya, one of the stalwarts of PASO, the Political Assn. of SpanishSpeaking Organizations, has resigned as president of the Hidalgo Cty. chapter, and attorney Bab Sanchez of McAllen, offered the vacated position, refused it. Only 20 persons attended the meeting in McAllen at which this happened. The new state president, Albert Fuentes, is going down there to find a chairman. . . . Nate Slough says in his Texas Industrial Union Council \(the all of his political debts. . . . except to labor!” . . . Sherman Miles, Texas AFLCIO legislative director, has been on a 27day tour of Japan under the auspices of the U.S. Dept. of Labor. . . . The state labor paper printed excerpts from Otto Mullinax’s speech to the recent state labor convention. Mullinax tough-talked labor about its declining role in social change. . . . Dudley Dougherty, the Beeville oil millionaire, who once ran against Lyndon Johnson for the Senate, is active now in a group opposed to the war in Viet Nam because they are opposed to a land war in Asia. . . . The Robstown Record reprinted our recent guest essay by Louis Galambos.