ustxtxb_obs_1965_12_10_50_00008-00000_000.pdf

:Raspberries for Belden “Bandwagon,” the official publication of the Texas Republicans, said one of the biggest losers in the defeat of the four-year term propositions Nov. 2 in Texas was Joe Belden’s Texas Poll. “In a poll published in late October, Belden said the four-year term for governor was favored by a 54-38 margin, remaining no opinion, andget thisthe four-year term for state representatives was favored by 51-41, remaining no opinion,” said the Republicans’ paper. “‘According to results of a statewide survey of public opinion completed last month, a representative cross section of Texas adults favored a change from twoyear to four-year terms,’ the poll said. ‘This reaffirms similar findings of a study last February which first revealed that a shift in public opinion had taken place since 1962.’ “The near-final tabulation showed the Connally amendment rejected by a margin of 225,215 to 273,586 and the four-year state representative proposal soundly thumped by 139,539 to 340,307. “The state legislator vote must surely represent the fastest and greatest switch in voter sentiment in the world’s history of free elections,” the “Bandwagon” commented. make an outstanding United States senator.” The governor said Wright is “a very effective congressman.” \(Connally also lauded his Secretary of State, Crawford Martin, candidate for attorney general, and said Martin “would make an outstanding attorney general,” causing William Gardner, political affairs editor of the Houston Post, to say, “One wonders what more the governor would have said if he had really V Item to the contrary: Texas labor’s COPE advisers and executive board have agreed that labor should emphasize the U.S. Senate and attorney general’s races in Texas in 1966. Labor hopes Wright will run and would produce what funds it could. In short, Wright is opposed by the Texas establishment, apparently does not as of now have the President’s commitment to raise money for him, and has worries on civil rights. Carr, Banks & Gas 1, The Observer’s reportage to U.S. Comptroller Saxon’s ruling that national banks in Texas can charge whatever interest finance companies can has led to some public debate about this ruling, and State Banking Cmsr. J. M. Falkner has now asked Carr to rule on whether state banks in Texas can, too, and whether the State Banking Dept. should let them. In effect this puts it to Carr to say publicly whether he agrees with Saxon’s ruling for the national banks and furthermore will extend it to the state banks. Falker has said he understands no Texas national banks have raised interest rates under Saxon’s ruling and that “some banks believe it is unconstitutional.” V Pursuing the state’s and the oil and gas companies’ fight against the Fed eral Power Cmsn.’s Permian Basin gas price ceiling of 16.5 cents per 1,000 cubic feet for new well gas and 14.5 cents per MCF for 8 The Texas Observer oil well and residual gas, Carr has asked , a federal court in Denver to overrule the ruling. Carr contends Texas would lose tax revenue because of the lower gas prices, and Texas producers would have to refund $34 million to out-of-state-consumers, and “This money could be used for exploration drilling for new reserves so badly needed for the nation’s continued growth as well as national defense.” V Carr told Jon Ford of the San Antonio Express, as to his Senate campaign, “Financial commitments are coming along very satisfactorily. We will be financially able to conduct a first-class campaign.” V Carr, as well as Tower, spoke to the Texas Farm Bureau convention. Still dodging commitments on national issues on grounds that the redistricting and poll tax suits are pending in federal courts, Carr did apparently disapprove the fact that farm prices were reported last February as being lower than in 1950. V San Antonio Express, in a political column, said, “That wouldn’t be Albert Fuentes, Jr., state chairman of PASO, Carr was closeted with, would it?” V In contrast to the reports about Wright’s financing, those on Sen. Franklin Spears, in his announced race for attorney general are optimistic. He has asked 300 San AntonianS to go on his finance committee. Jim Barlow, reporter, has joined his campaign staff, and county campaign managers should be fairly well set by Jan. 1. . . . Reports have indicated that bankers will help finance Sen. Galloway Calhoun’s candidacy for this same office because they suspect Crawford Martin of swaying Connally into vetoing their_ higherrate bill passed by the legislature. Connally’s Interim Gov. Connally, who has grounds for hoping he’ll have no opposition with labor resolving to concentrate on other races, has been discussing the need for annual sessions of the legislature, his intention of opening a Texas lobbying office in Washington by Jan. 1, the need for Texas constitutional revision, and the state’s intention of setting its own water pollution standards and plan of enforcement under the new federal law. He is counting on Terrell Blodgett to make heads and tails out of the plethora of state and federal programs that are now going on. Connally means to have another go at four-year terms for governors. He wants the gubernatorial elections in years in which presidents are not being elected, so it looks like 1970. / San Antonio Express says that Con nally is meeting “stubborn resistance” in his efforts to purchase a strip of land separating some of his ranchland from the highway near Floresville and that the owner, brother of Cty. Cmsr. A. J. Ploch inSan Antonio, says the governor “already owns enough land without that 45 acres or so.” V’ Archer Fullingim, editor of the Kountze News, needled the governor : “Why doesn’t Connally back out of run ning for governor in 1966? He doesn’t like being governor. He hates the job, his wife hates it. Why doesn’t he just pursue his favorite hobby of buying up land with all that money he’s got. Golly, how that John Connally loves to grab up choice bits of land here and there. It’s not going to do him or Texas any good for him to be governor four more years. He’s going to wind up more of a grouch than he already is. So why not back out of the race? He can say that he figures that the defeat of amendment four was a repudiation of him, and that is exactly what it was. Connally can go back to work for [the Sid Richardson estate] any time he wants to, or maybe old John has already stashed away enough loot to do him. Come on, John, back out of the raceyou will have a lot more fun building up your land holdings.” `If I Ran’ Yarborough v Connally and Sen. Ralph Yarbor ough appeared on the same platform recently in behalf of the new federal higher education law, but be not misled: AP from El Paso quotes Yarborough that he will divulge hiS political plans in December, and saying, “If I ran, it would be for the governor of the state, and not against someone just because he doesn’t make much of his record as governor. I’ll admit a lot of people have been telling me we need a governor.” If he doesn’t run, Yarborough is braced for an all-out fight for his Cold War GI bill in Washington in the spring. Passed by the Senate many times, now backed by the Kennedys, but axed by the Johnson administration last year, it’s expected to pass, in one form or another, in 1966. V The Observer, however, advises read ers not to take lightly the possibility that Yarborough might run for governor in 1966. The Christmas season may be a time of reflection on this subject for him. tog The senior senator has been making speeches all over the country; he is booked solid into Dec. 17. Since Congress adjourned he has spoken on college campuses in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois,’ and at Texas Western in El Paso; this week he is speaking at North Texas State, Arlington State, and the University of Houston. Last week he ad libbed a full-length speech to the 10,000 delegates to the National Farmers Organization convention in St. Louis. V Allen Duckworth, political editor of the Dallas News, wrote in his “personal report” that Sen. Yarborough’s “liberal, but legal mind, brought forth the theory that Texas, not the federal government, had the right to lease the submerged off-shore lands for private oil exploration,” despite the fact that conservative Texans are generally credited in Texas politics with winning the tidelands fight. Duckworth authenticated his own recollection that_ “Yarborough wrote the first legal opinion claiming Texas’ ownership rights” with a letter from Yarborough in which the senator recounted that in 1933 or ’34, while he was in the attorney general’s office, “I had advised the land commissioner, J. H. Walker, to lease lands out in the Gulf and thereby establish Texas’ claim