ustxtxb_obs_1966_03_18_50_00007-00000_000.pdf

answer specific questions on the provisional registration period ; the assessor-collector there, Carl Smith, said he would be pleased to accept applications written on forms printed in newspapers and that Sen. Yarborough was wrong when he said in Washington that state officials had told the assessor-collectors to reject the newspaper forms. At least in the urban counties, where the dailies gave registration thorough coverage, the assessor-collectors seemed to be operating openly and fairly, despite the fact that the counties, under a provision of the new registration act which was little noticed at the time, must pay for the 15 day period themselves; the state payment of 25c per voter will not begin until next year’s registration opens in October. In South Texas, and Hidalgo County especially, labor was distributing the English-language application forms with instructions in Spanish at the top. Hidalgo County PASO asked again for federal voting examiners although, as Carr cor rectly responded, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 does not provide for their use in Texas; if it did, the counties where they operated would be open, as well, to federally supervised elections. From the Senate floor, Yarborough said that it was the FBI which meant the possibility of a reasonably open voter registration period. “It is shocking that so-called Democratic officeholders in Texas, namely Gov. John Connally, Atty. Gen. Waggoner Carr, and others should denounce the national Democratic administration for its efforts to secure voting rights for the people of Texas,” Yarborough said. “The national administration is to be commended instead of denounced for its diligent efforts to assure constitutional voting rights for the people of Texas.” Yarborough then entered in the record his speech the week before to labor’s COPE convention in Houston, in which he had said that the free vote had ‘brought the state to the threshold of political revolution. Straying from his text, Yarborough said, as he said again to Young Democrats meeting in Arlington, that the voting decision had produced “identical political tripletsConnally, Carr, and Tower.” Indeed, U.S. Sen. John Tower and the State Republican Executive Committee Chairman, Peter O’Donnell Jr. of Dallas, sounded like echoes of Connally and Carr in their denunciation of the FBI monitoring. Connally, addressing cattlemen in Fort Worth, said that Yarborough owed his reelection to the popularity of his, Connally’s, administration, and that the senior senator’s remark in support of Katzenbach’s “police state” amounted to “sabotage” of that administration’s effectiveness. And Connally, Tower and O’Donnell were similarly in agreement that Robert F. Kennedy was mistaken in suggesting that communists be recognized as part of a coalition government for South Vietnam. L.L. The Candidates and Texas Labor The Contenders for the Statehouse Houston Labor’s Committee on Political Education endorsed, for major statehouse offices, Stanley Woods of Houston for governor and Sen. Franklin Spears of San Antonio for attorney general. Labor is considering backing Albert Fay, the Houston Republican and his party’s Texas national committeeman, for state land commissioner, but put off the decision about that until a COPE committee decides about it. COPE did not endorse Rep. Bill Hollowell, Grand Saline, Lt. Gov. Preston Smith’s opponent. Hollowell identifies himself as a moderateto-conservative and has voted segregationist in the past; introducing Smith, Texas labor president Hank Brown commended Smith as “a fair presiding officer,” with whom it was, Brown allowed, true, labor did not always agree. With Woods and Hollowell associated together in the public mind, Hollowell can hope for most of the votes that follow the COPE endorsement, but Smith was given little grounds for complaint at the Houston convention. The rhetoric at the convention naturally had an anti-“ins” tone. Gov . John Connally did not come; Secretary of State Crawford Martin and Sen. Galloway Calhoun of Tyler, Spears’ opponents, did not, either. Lt. Gov. Smith is a thorough conservative,. but his speech here was composed mainly of friendly anecdotes and pleasantries about politics and politicians, along with assurances of fair treatment for everyone, whatever the politics of the matter. This left the podium to the challengers of the statehouse “ins,” including the Republicans who came to join in the arguments on behalf of a two-party system in Texas. Calhoun said he was opposed to labor’s legislative goals, so there wasn’t much sense in his going to talk to labor. Martin’s decision not to come proceeded from labor’s resolution declaring labor’s independence of the Democratic Party this year. Martin condemned this resolution as anti-Johnson, said he would be glad to come talk to labor just as he would to “other independent groups after the primaries. This provoked angry retort from Brown, who called it demagoguery and said labor has backed Johnson and will again, but only after some political bargaining. The speeches of Woods and Hollowell provided a second-stage insight into their strategies. \(Both have been more or less out of public view since their opening TV oratorical styles reminiscent of the rural stumping traditions of Texas politics. They both use catchy phrases and lines designed to make the short summaries of political speeches in the media’s political reports. Woods followed his earlier lines of campaigning against “one-man boss rule,” against Connally’s promise to oppose third terms, and against the governor’ support of the 39-member Senate and four-year terms that the voters rejected last fall, which rejection Woods takes as evidence that Connally can be beaten. He held Connally responsible for a 13.4% increase in the auto insurance rates established by the state insurance board. On voter registration, he asked why those in power are “yellin’ about the FBI comin’ down here” if there is nothing wrong. Over a million Texans, he said, earn less than $1 an hour, which is less than $2,000 a year. He hated to think what the 7,000,000 people who will be going to HemisFair in 1968 will think of the fact that San Antonio, the host city, has “the second worst per capita income of any city in the United States.” He promised “action” on this issue, but was not specific what this meant. Woods said that as governor he would “keep the heat on” until Texas gets a job safety bill. He charged that Connally has been “sitting on” $13 million in available war on poverty funds, which he, Woods, would get released; he promised to increase old age pensions. He said new taxes would not be necessary, because higher oil allowables under his administration “will give us this additional money we need.” He touched again on his charges of conflict of interest, referring to the governor’s 16,000 acres \(Connally has said he has would not reveal how he was able to buy so much land. Woods proposed that Connally and Railroad Cmsr. Byron Tunnell be retired, “him with a Lincoln and Byron Tunnell with a Cadillac, and they can have their own airport limousine service.” \(The governor’s office acquired a $10,000 LinT. E. Kennerly, the GOP candidate for governor, who received 677,000 votes on the Republican ticket in 1964, told the labor delegates he admired the longshoremen’s refusals to load boats going to Cuba or Vietnam. He said if elected he would be fair to labor and management. He condemned the Democrats’ game of “musical chairs” and said the best thing for Texas would be a two-party system. “My old daddy says, ‘Son, don’t put all your eggs in one basket,’ ” Kennerly said. Kennerly also wants cross-filing legalized and “the master lever” by which voters can vote a straight ticket abolished. March 18, 1966