ustxtxb_obs_1965_11_12_50_00013-00000_000.pdf

Bumperstrips Brochures Campaign Cards Posters Flyers Specialties FUTURA PRESS INC Hickory 2-8682 Hickory 2-2426 1714 SOUTH CONGRESS AVENUE P. 0. BOX 3485 AUSTIN, TEXAS not impartially. Some present held both these views. NOW I wish to give my opinion. Although good things were done, the day was disappointing. As Latane Temple of Houston said, a place was cleared where Texas liberals can meet and discuss things. After five years of broken communications, the liberals are organized again. Beyond that, foreign policy and civil rights tentatively became integral parts of the program of concern in Texas liberalism, as indicated by the speakers chosen for last Saturday and the response to their speeches, about which more anon. By their reactions Saturday the Texas liberals in attendance showed they are free of mind and not intimidated into agreement with all the President is doing by the fact he is a Texan and a Democrat. These were all good things and a start. Chris Dixie deserves a lot of the credit for these good things and for this start. But this was supposed to have been a democratic meeting, run by the people who came to it. It was not ; it Was run by Chris Dixie. He knew what he thought best and spoke it out far too often, being the chairman. He was a directive chairman. The question is not whether he was right or wrong in what he wanted but whether he should have used his chairmanship of the meeting to dominate it. He shotild not have. The result was a sense of tlyWarted opportunity. There was not enough time, but more time should have been taken. It is not right to bring 700 people together for a democratic meeting and then tell them that what with speeches and necessary house, keeping business, there’s no time for them to talk and to do what they may want to do. As an exercise in democracy the meeting was a failure. T.L.D. will go into the spring and become an important source of new ideas, political action, and real change in Texas society, or it will become another timorous candidate-endorsing organization, ratifying the Democratic consensus on issues and avoiding the hard new questions that require public discussion and understanding. I don’t know which. I guess it depends on what happens next. The Third Party Idea On Friday, Nov. 5, Bill Malone, professor of Southern history at Southwest Texas State College in San Marcos, and Mrs. Helen Simons of Houston filed with the Texas Secretary of State, on behalf of the Texas Liberal Party, a notification of that party’s intention to nominate candidates by convention for the general election next November, 1966. Discussions about this idea of a liberal party in Texas have been proceeding, mainly in Houston, Austin, and San Antonio, for several months. There is acute disagreement among liberals about whether it’s a good idea. Arguments for it include those that the way to a two-party state in Texas is through a three-party state; that having liberal party candidates on the ballot in November would at least defeat much-opposed conservatives \(of whom Waggoner Republicans and at most might result in the liberal’s election ; and that local liberal party candidates in the fall have analogous value. Some of the arguments against it: that the vote support would be utterly miniscule; that reform can be accomplished as well by seeking to inject new ideas into the Democratic Party from within as from without ; and that the Democratic Party historically has been the liberal’s best instrument for reform and should be loyally adhered to. To get on the ballot, the law requires that parties nominating by convention hold conventions in a certain number of counties with a certain percentage of the state’s population. Nominating conventions occur after the nominating primaries. Whether the Texas Liberal Party carries through with these additional steps remains to be seen. A UPI story speculating on a liberal party appeared last week before the statewide \\liberal meeting in Houston and included a statement that the Houston meeting would consider the third party idea. This led to much speculation in the dailies along this line. The third party idea was not part of the Houston meeting’s program. The Ulterior I believe Students for a Democratic Society made a grave mistake when, this summer in their national convention, they removed a membership prohibition against persons committed to totalitarianism. They had this ban written clearly into their constitution ; by formal vote they removed it. The argument that is advanced in defense is that they did not wish to exclude anyone. In other words, S.D.S. does not wish to exclude communists from its membership. The issue, therefore, is should committed communists be excluded from a democratic reform movement? Yes. Communists are dedicated to violent revolution and accept or welcome the prospect of dictatorship after the revolution. These are their doctrinal characteristics; otherwise they would merely be democratic socialists. As revolutionary totalitarians, communists are so deeply alienated from the democratic tradition of the United States, they must proceed here by ulterior methods. That is, in a reform movement they are hypocrites. They can’t be trusted to say what they mean or to mean what they say; their motives can’t be trusted in or by any reform movement that really wants reform within democracy. This need of a communist to be ulterior is the irrefutable reason why he should be excluded from a democratic reform movement. In radical American movements, most of the activists really want fundamental reform; they still have hope for this country. There are also those who, having no hope for this country, do not want reform; their purpose is to prove their belief that real reform is impossible. At the emotional level the question is, do you love the country, or do you hate the country? Do you really want it to become better, or do you want it to be given up on-‘and defeated? Mostthe substantial majorityof militant American radicals love the country. The pacifist who burned himself to death outside McNamara’s window last week must have had hope that McNamara would understand his statement, at least partly understand it, or that if he did not, the people would. But there are the few who hate the country. They may be Trotskyites, November 12, 1965 13 SPLIT RAIL INN 217 South Lamar Austin Where Union Men Meet FUN TO READ! The -IDLER is a lively, individualistic liberal monthly that entertains as it informs. Warm humor and cold facts mixed into a pleasant, personal and personable journalistic pot. Send $3.00 today for a year’s subscription. Money back if not satisfied. Discover THE IDLER and you will have made a new friend. THE IDLER 125 Fifth St., N.E. Washington 2, D. C. Please send me a one year’s subscrip tion to THE IDLER. Enclosed is $3.00. Name Address Zip