ustxtxb_obs_1966_02_04_50_00016-00000_000.pdf

of highly public hearings; he faces Sen. Bill Patman of Ganado in the Democratic primary. . .. The Texas Water Development . Board sent newspapers a handout to say that Brown and Root, the superbig engineering firm in Houston, “is complying with Gov..John Connally’s request that the firm participate in the formulation of the statewide water plan.” A Flankerback Sidelines Himself V “Humble and appreciative,” he said, Dallas Cowboy flankerback Frank Clarke, a Negro, declined the Connally Democrats’ offer to have him run for the legislature. Negro lawyer Joe Lockridge, 38, will run ; Negro precinct chairmen, angered because whites decided onClarke without consulting them, approve Lockridge’s race. . . . James Holbrook, president of the Dallas local of Communications Workers of America, was pondering running for the legislature as the first countywide labor candidate in recent years. . . . Clyde Miller and Wiley Bell, both locomotive engineers, have announced for the legislature from Houston’s district 23. V The Dallas Times Herald says that city’s Republican leadership may back a Negro for a statehouse race. GOP chairman John Leedom wouldn’t talk about it, pointing out that anyone could run in the open primary. LBJ’s Letter wo Cong. Clark Thompson of Galveston, who had said before that he might re tire at 70, announced. that he would. This left Cong. Jack Brooks of Beaumont as the only incumbent in the new ninth district which the legislature drew the-two of them into last year. Thompson attacked the plan’s “gerrymandering” and the federal judges in Houston for upholding it. Thomp son said the cartography foolishly threw rival ports Beaumont and Galveston to gether and pointed out that the sole bene 16 The Texas Observer fit of this to him was to create generous pledges of campaign money. Brooks announced for reelection and said he would rely on Thompson’s counsel in years to come. Thompson’s departure will leave a spot open on the House ways and means committee, and Cong. Walter Rogers of Pampa is interested. Robert Baskin of the Dallas News says Texas might lose the seat if Rogers is nominated for it, as he is so conservative. g/ Abilene lawyer Eldon Mahon, a Demo crat and Cong. George Mahon’s nephew, announced against Cong. Omar Burleson. V James Collins, calling himself a “pro gressive” Republican, announced for Congress from the pew third -district at Dallas. He says he will oppose foreign aid \(“The friends you buy are not worth those of the Kansas City Athletics against the Yankees \(“Come to think of it, the V Anthony Atwell, Dallas lawyer, emer ges as the GOP’s probable choice against Cong. Earle Cabell in Dallas’ eastern district, the race that actress Greer Garson declined to make. Cabell’s Washington staff went to work on a detailed notebook showing how the dairyman voted on major issues and exactly where he was on the occasions he didn’t vote. V It has been called to the Observer’s attention that at page 377 of Wright Patman’s 1964 hearings on foundations, a listing of the directors of H. L. Hunt’s Life Line Foundation, Inc., includes the name, “Earle Cabell, businessman.” V Albert Thomas, gravely ill, announced for reelection, explaining that the President “wrote me . . . one of the nicest letters I have ever read, stating that he needs my advice and counsel.” V Sen. Ralph Yarborough and John Birch Society president Robert Welchhave the University of Illinois. . . .. Yarborough was one of 50 co-sponsors of a Senate resolution commending the President’s efforts to stall spread of nuclear weapons. Cong. Albert Thomas sponsored the matching resolution in the House. por Cong. Henry Gonzalez introduced his own “right-to-work” legislation to give the government power to create private or public jobs to keep unemployment at less than 3%. “Everybody is talking about the right to work, but nobody ever does anything,” he complained. “Questionable,” said the Dallas News. V The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said Tower and Congressmen Omar Burleson, Bob Casey, John Dowdy, and Walter Rogers earned scores of 100 in its analysis of votes last year. Cong. 0. C. Fisher of San Angelo missed a perfect score by failing to vote on the excise tax cut. Yarborough and Congressman Brooks, Gonzalez, Thomas, and Thompson came out with 10% on the big business rating. V Most of the Texans in Congress are against the President’s proposal for four-year House terms. Against: Sen. Tower, Wright Patman, Mahon, Bob Casey, Gonzalez, Bob Poage, Jim Wright, and Walter Rogers. Sen. Yarborough said it would take thought, Jake Pickle suggested three-year terms, but Jack Brooks said he liked the four-year idea. v o As expected, the House banking com mittee ignored its chairman, Cong. Patman, and paved way for passage of a bank merger bill limiting the Justice Department role in such transactions. The 1814 vote confirmed the committee’s approval of the measure last October in a meeting Patman charged was illegal \(Obs. Nov. 12, V The ACLU has demanded immediate release of Army Reserve Lt. Henry Howe Jr., convicted by court martial and now appealing his two-year prison sentence for picketing against U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Howe was in civvies for the Nov. 6 demonstration in El Paso. . . . Jehovah’s Witness Gilbert Albert Balch got two years in prison for failing to report for mental hospital duty in Austin in lieu of Army service; Democratic national committeeman Frank Erwin, Jr., was his court-appointed attorney. . . .. Cong. Graham Purcell of Wichita Falls has sent his constituents questionnaires asking where the U.S. should draw the line in the war. Sample question: “Do you think it is vital to the United States to save South Vietnam from a communist takeover?’ V Bill Moyers says the President didn’t know that Lady Bird’s brother, Antonio Taylor, was drawing $75 per day from the government for a mission to Lebanon and Jordan to open up markets for native crafts. \(Taylor runs a Santa Fe the opening of American markets for native crafts apparently is important to the people in the countries affected. . .. In a one-hour chat with Los Angeles Times reporters on White House decision-making, Moyers revealed: “Decision-making is an inscrutable process.” Pressure on the Sales Tax Gov. Connally will go to South America this month to tout HemisFair. The gov ernor, the hemispheric fair’s commissioner general, expressed disappointment over the lack of reaction to his proposal for a per manent $10 million “Texas Institute of Living Culture” at the fair site; he wants another $5.5 million added to the $4.5 mil lion appropriated for the fair last year. HemisFair is paying for the junket south. V San Antonio’s council 2 of LULAC, the Latin action group, has gone on record as opposed to HemisFair “until all of the prevailing practices of social and economic discrimination against Mexican-Americans [are] ended in San Antonio.” V Rep. Jumbo Atwell, head of the interim House committee on taxation, says he prefers an increased sales tax rate next year instead of a state income tax or removal of sales tax exemptions. He says his panel will ask the Texas Research League what to do about equalizing state property taxes among counties. Atwell’s staff is preparing estimates on a revenue from a corporate income tax. 0