ustxtxb_obs_1965_11_12_50_00012-00000_000.pdf

elect permanent oficers we elect people everybody has had time to think about.” He said they could add a couple more temporary officers if they wished. Little more was said and nothing more done about the election of officers; Dixie therefore continues as temporary chairman. Late in the convention some members present caucused by senatorial districts and chose their steering committee members; others are to be sent in from local meetings. Since the continuing study panels on issues which Dixie suggested were not created by last Saturday’s meeting, presumably they will be by the steering committee. When Art Yarborough of Austin, a young supporter of S.D.S. approaches to foreign policy, first rose to advance “the blue sheet”. resolution, Dixie opposed . it from the chair, saying T.L.D. would evolve positions on foreign policy “in the due course of time.” Yarborough reminded Dixie of his call for uninhibited discussion. When, late in the day, Yarborough got the floor, he asked that an hour’s time be given to the subject of Vietnam; Dixie suggested five minutes for him. 12 The Texas Observer A ten-minutes-per-side limitation was narrowly voted down. David Richards, a Dallas lawyer, told Dixie from the floor then that he and I had a substitute resolution we wanted to offer in place of the blue sheet. \(The substitute suggested that our government challenge Hanoi publicly to accept a cease-fire in Vietnam and that the UN be used in subsequent peace negotiout time limit, made his case for his resolution in about ten minutes. Someone made a motion to table the blue sheet, and it was tabled by a decisive voice vote. Dixie said the subject of foreign policy should be referred to a “fully informed panel of experts,” that foreign policy is “a treacherous and dangerous business,” and that T.L.D. was already “the first that has sallied forth to get into this area at all, and I’m in favor of doing it,” and then he went on to civil rights. Thus only the S.D.S.-backed resolution in foreign policy was considered by the meeting; neither the minority report on the resolution advanced by Richards, both significantly different from the blue sheet, was heard. A young man had a resolution calling for a T.L.D. march on the Huntsville court house the next day, demanding the release of the ten Negro civil rights demonstrators in reform school. Dixie told the young man that demonstrators don’t march on a courthouse demanding immediate release, that he, Dixie, had filed with other counsel a motion designed to get them out the preceding day, and that the high court would provide relief. Moses LeRoy of Houston angrily disagreed, saying that of course demonstrators could ask that the children be freed. Ben Levy of Houston protested as “disastrous” the cut-off of the Vietnam discussion and called for “free discussion.” B. T. Bonner of Austin, a leader of the Huntsville demonstrations and staffer of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, asked if the attorneys were so smart why hadn’t they done some good. Bonner said those present probably were skipping by a demonstration because they weren’t brave enough to demonstrate. Saying none of the ten kids in reform school have any kind of police record, he said, of their commitment ; “This is the dirtiest deal that’s ever been done to the civil rights movement.” The upshot of the matter was that a substitute resolution passed calling for the ten youths to be released from reform school. The dean of the Texas Southern University law school, Kenneth Tollett, objected before adjournment that there had been no Negro speakers. Dixie responded that Rev. Oliver’s speech had been “traumatic and inspiring” in this area, and that Clarence Laws of the N.A.A.C.P. in the Southwest had been scheduled to speak but had not been able to come. Still, Tollett said, the Negro continues to be “the invisible man,” even among Texas liberals. There were two ways of viewing the day’s proceedings among the liberals who came. What seemed to be a majority, including the bulk of the older hands in Texas liberal politics, believed the day a success, the attendance good, a good work started. The approval of a constitution, the formation of the organization, meant to them that liberals had organized on their own in a new sense and had been begun work , again, and this was a thing to be glad of. A minority, but, a substantial minority, and the bulk of the younger, new people there were dissatisfied, or disappointed; some more than others. Some of them felt that they had been led to believe that there would be much debate and a free and open meeting, but that to the contrary there had been almost no debate, and the chairman had conducted the meeting too heavily and MARTIN ELFANT Sun Life of Canada 1001 Century Building Houston, Texas CA 4-0686 AMERICAN INCOME LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY OF INDIANA Underwriters of the American Income Labor Disability Policy Executive Offices: P.O. Box 208 Waco, Texas Bernard Rapoport, President ,4s