ustxtxb_obs_1965_12_31_50_00008-00000_000.pdf

Page 12

by

chairman O’Donnell has been made chairman of a group in charge of spending it for Republican nominees for Congress in 1964. O’Donnell says he doesn’t know if any of it will go to Texansbut one might safely bet Senator Tower has a few ideas how it might best be deployed. V Visiting in Dallas, Republican Senate Leader Everett Dirksen called Tower “a splendid intellectual.” The Candidates 1,0 Gov. Connally removed any practical doubt that he is grooming Secretary of State Crawford Martin for future power when the governor went to a dinner in Martin’s honor in Waco and said, “He has my complete trust and confidence, and I do not have a more loyal friend and associate.” This kind of all-out Connally-Martin lovefest may cause Sen. Franklin Spears, San Antonio, to re-evaluate his own attempt to run as Connally”s admirer. Meanwhile, there’s a report that John Hill, Houston atorney, to be Martin’s statewide manager, is to succeed Martin as secretary of state in the event of his election. V Rep. Paul Haring, Goliad, scored big, for a young and almost statusless darkhorse, by condemning his opponent, Railroad Cmsr. Byron Tunnell, for accepting a new Cadillac in Tylerfrom “oilmen and lawyers who were asked to contribute money,” Haring said. “The gift was made .at a time when the new Oldsmobile which he also accepted as a gift as Speaker of the House in Tyler was less than two years old. The new Cadillac is not registered in either Austin or Tyler,” Haring said. “I ask my opponent to immediately resign from the Railroad Cmsn.,” he said. “When high public officials in Washington accept deep freezes and mink coats as gifts, they are forced to resign. . . . He should come forward now and give the names of those who contributed the money and the amount for these gifts and explain why he accepted them, inform the public why he does not transfer the registration of the new Cadillac to the place of his residence. . . . Acceptance of valuable gifts by a railroad commissioner will make it extremely difficult or impossible [for him] to be objective.” The Houston Post reached Tunnell in Edinburg by phone; he said he did not feel Haring’s charge deserved or needed an answer. . . . Connally and Tunnell are to be speakers in Longview Jan. 27 at a celebration marking the 35th anniversary of Gregg County’s first oil discovery. Filing deadline is Feb. 7. wor Miss Barbara Jordan, Negro who got 59,000 votes for state representative in Houston before, announced for the State Senate, making a clash with Rep. Charles Whitfield, white, for that Senate place a certainty. Miss Jordan stressed the need to make every citizen a producing member of society in her announcement. 8 The Texas Observer frof Getting ready for his Senate race with Pete Snelson, El Paso, Sen. Dorsey Hardeman, San Angelo, told his local paper that he is already opposed by Hank Brown, the state labor president. “I’m for getting anything for West Texas and keeping East Texas from getting it,” Hardeman also interestingly said. poor Six private planes ferried state offici als to Corpus Christi for an appreciation dinner for Sen. Bruce Reagan of that community. t o of David Carter, millionaire builder H. B. Zachry’s son-in-law, announced for the Senate from San Antonio, and is likely to get much of the tory, Good Government League money Rep. Joe Bernal was counting on. Rep. Bob Vale is hoping for the Democratic Coalition’s backing in this race. Vale has unearthed an advertisement listing Carter as supporting Republican John Goode against Cong. Henry Gonzalez in 1961. fro Rep. Jim Wade, Dallas, has announced for the Senate in Dallas’ new district 16. Rep. John Wright, another conservative, is understood to be not running. Dallas Republicans are eyeing Sen. George Parkhouse’s district because it has consistently voted Republican. Parkhouse is a tory Democrat. V Similarly, the GOP is looking over Cong. Fisher’s revised district. Fisher is a John Tower-type Democrat. He says he won’t give up being a “Texas Democrat.” On that count the GOP might take him on, but the Odessa Republican leader, Rudy Juedeman, obviously doesn’t want to bother. V John Wildenthal, Yarborough support er, is resigning as Houston city attorney to run for the Democratic nomination for Congress against, presumably, Frank Briscoe in the western district in Houston, in which George Bush may be the Republican candidate. . . . The Dallas News says Sen. Martin Dies, Lufkin, is definitely running against Cong. John Dowdy, Athens, if the new district holds up. . . . Greer Garson, the actress and a Republican, has been approached to run against Cong. Earle Cabell in Dallas. A Dallas businessman, George Zimmermann, says he’ll run for a GOP congressional nomination in Dallas. “00 Rep. Maud Isaacks, El Paso, one of the few remaining independent liberals in the Texas House, will not run again. . . . Rep. Bill Parsley, Lubbock conservative, is resigning to become Texas Tech vice president for development. . . . A justice of the peace, W. L. Bill Davis Sr., says he’ll run against House Speaker Ben Barnes. . . . Evidently the Dallas tories have settled on Negro football star Frank Clarke of the Dallas Cowboys as the Negro for their ticket for the Texas House in ’66. . . . Rep. Glenn Kothmann is in court trying to get OKd to run for district clerk despite the fact that he sponsored a bill in 1965 to raise district clerks’ pay. V PASO’s state president, Albert Fuentes, has formed, with other members of PASO, the Honorable American Responsi bility Teaching Organization, or HARTO. In Spanish “harto” means “fed up” \(or, HARTO will seek federal funds for projects to help the poor, Fuentes said. Meanwhile, as PASO president, Fuentes reportedly conferred at length with Atty. Gen. Carr about Mexican-Americans’ problems and attended the announcement party of David Carter, Zachry’s son-in-law, for the State Senate. V Rep. George Hinson, Mineola, is angry to find his pet baby, the voter-ap proved state college loan program, evident ly shunted aside by Connally and the col lege coordinating board in favor of the more liberal federal college loan program. Various Matters fr . The Harris C o u n t y commissioners court has appointed a committee to study its own redistricting. . . . Texas Farmers Union president Jay Naman has condemned new U.S. rules in the feed grains program as reducing grower income at almost every level of compliance. . . . Texas AFL-CIO is mapping, with about ten international unions, an intensive membership drive for the lower Valley, seeking 100,000 members. . . . A 110-member plumbers local in Brownsville has withdrawn from the state organization. . . . Houston school board member Asberry Butler has been indicted a second time in a case having to do with insurance claims. A committee for his legal defense includes Chris Dixie, liberal-labor attorney, and Francis Williams, head of the Harris County Council of Organizations. . . . Jefferson Cty. Democratic chairman Gaston Wilder has resigned. . .. Students for a Democratic Society at U.T. has an offset press and will start a monthly magazine. V The Northwest Houston Lions Club has asked that Lions International drop its UN committee. . .. N. B. Hunt of Dallas, who helped finance the right-wing ad in the Dallas News the day Kennedy was assassinated, is one of the owners of the John Birch magazine American Opinion.. . . Two Fort Worth physicians, E. E. Anthony and Mal Rumph, are directors of the Association of American Physicians and surgeons that is campaigning for physicians’ nonparticipation in medicare. . . . The Houston Tribune headlined a column, “Robert Kennedy stabs American GI’s in back.” . . . The Dallas Birchers have asked Midlothian Mirror editor Penn Jones to apologize, now that a non-Bircher youth has been apprehended in the fire-bombing of Jones’ plant, but Jones said they didn’t deserve an apology. Jones is currently running a copyrighted series arguing that the Warren Cmsn. should reopen its deliberations. . . . Maurice Carlson, for years spokesman of the more moderate Republicans in Dallas, is quitting politics. . . . The Houston Birchers took an ad filling most of a page in the Houston Chronicle. V Dale Douglas, deputy superintendent of Dallas schools, who may take over as superintendent when W. T. White retires in 1968, told the Dallas News on federal aid : “I guess I grew up at the wrong time. I always believed in people trying to help themselves.”