ustxtxb_obs_1966_09_16_50_00002-00000_000.pdf

Vote /or Carr 2 1oeJ not Mahe Sende; 5tvo-Party -7exao Can Re Attained hy 1968 Dispassionately, for we do not propose to expend passion on such a melancholy choice, the Observer expresses its conclusion that as between John Tower and Waggoner Carr as the junior senator from Texas, the public good will probably be less damaged by Tower. We do not endorse Tower. In this race the two candidates are both such minuses, such negatives, that to endorse either would be, for a liberal newspaper, ludicrous. We are called upon in this situation to choose, and that is what we do. There are five areas of consideration that influence us: the men, the issues, the political parties; consequences in Texas, and consequences beyond Texas. Tower entered politics as a radical conservative. His first public image was that of the purist right-winger. Now he is more opportunist, suggesting that perhaps he was always so, and purism was the early form his opportunism took. His education included the study of economics in college in England and teaching as a junior faculty member at a minor college. He is intelligent and has a cynical wit. Carr has never even seemed to be a politician of principle. He started out as a West Texas lawyer of little background Incorporating the State Observer and the East Texas Democrat, which in turn incorported the State Week and Austin ForumAdvocate. We will serve no group or party Out will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are dedicated to the whole truth, to human values above all interests, to the rights of man as the foundation of democracy; we will take orders from none but our own conscience, and never will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the powerful or cater to the ignoble in the human spirit. Editor and General Manager, Ronnie Dugger. Partner, Mrs. R. D. Randolph. Associate Editor, Greg Olds. Business Manager, Sarah Payne. Associate Manager, C. R. Olofson. Contributing Editors, Elroy Bode, Bill Brammer, Larry Goodwyn, Harris Green, Dave Hickey, Franklin Jones, Lyman Jones, Larry L. King, Georgia Earnest Klipple, Larry Lee, Al Melinger, Robert L. Montgomery, Willie Morris, Greg Olds, James Presley, Charles Ramsdell, Roger Shattuck, Robert Sherrill, Dan Strawn, Tom Sutherland, Charles Alan Wright. Staff Artist, Charles Erickson. Contributing Photographer, Russell Lee. The editor has exclusive control over the editorial policies and contents of the Observer. None of the other people who are associated with the enterprise shares this responsibility with him. Writers are responsible for their own work, but not for anything’they have not them on the make, and that is what he still is. He was willing to make book with the House liberals long enough to get their votes for Speaker; then he sold them out as he became the lobbyists’ Speaker. As attorney general he showed little distinction. His angle was crime-busting; his myopia was his inability to see crime as an effect of social injustice, as well as an evil. He is not especially intelligent and has a faltering sense of humor. ON THE ISSUES, Tower is ‘a reactionary Republican with moderating tendencies; Carr is a reactionary Democrat with moderating tendencies. Both ride events like jockeys hugging close to the necks of their horses. The readers of this journal know much better than most Texans the details of these men’s stands on public questions. Since the first of the year when we published full-length studies of each man, we have traced the nuances of their stances as though much depended on them. For the most part not much does. Neither has given any substantial evidence that he understands the basic reforms that are required to renovate our crisis-ridden democracy and the radical changes that are selves written, and in publishing them the editor does not necessarily imply that he agrees with them, because this is a journal of free voices. Subscription Representatives: Austin, Mrs. Helen C. Spear, 2615 Pecos, HO 5-1805; Corpus Christi, Penny Dudley, 1224 14 Second St., Tu 41460; Dallas, Mrs. Cordye Hall, 5835 Ellsworth, TA 1-1205; Denton, Fred Lusk, Box 8134 NTS; Fort Worth, Dolores Jacobsen, 3025 Greene Ave., WA 4-9655; Houston, Mrs. Shirley Jay, 10306 Cliffwood Dr., PA 3-8682; Huntsville, Jessie L. Murphree, Box 2284 SHS; Lubbock, Doris Blaisdell, 2515 24th St.; Midland, Eva Dennis, 4306 Douglas, OX 4-2825; Odessa, Enid Turner, 1706 Glenwood, EM 6-2269; San Antonio, Mrs. Mae B. Tuggle, 531 Elmhurst, TA 6-3583; Cambridge, Mass., Victor Emanuel, 33 Aberdeen Ave., Apt. 3A. The Observer is published by Texas Observer Co., Ltd., biweekly from Austin, Texas. Entered as second-class matter April 26, 1937, at the Post Office at Austin, Texas, under the Act of March 3, 1879. Second class postage paid at Austin, Texas. Delivered postage prepaid $6.00 a year; two years, $11.00; three years, $15.00. Foreign rates on request. Single copies 25c; prices for ten or more for students, or bulk orders, on request. Editorial and Business Offices: The Texas Observer, 504 West 24th St., Austin, Texas 78705. Telephone GR 7-0746. Change of Address: Please give old and new address and allow three weeks. required in our foreign policies by realities abroad. Their main general difference in the way they would probably vote proceeds from their different party connections. Tower has swallowed great gobs ‘of humble pie the last year as he has spoken of “our President,” but the fact remains that Tower is a Republican. This has meant that he has been subject to little or no presidential pressure to vote for liberal domestic reforms, even as he has urged the President to greater excesses of violence in Vietnam \(and Johnson has then appeared to follow somewhat subject to Johnsonian pressure for liberal domestic reforms. This is what Carr is telling us when he speaks favorably of the war on poverty \(and against the of the businessmen’s investment tax credit \(if he’s not persuaded to the contrary in the 1966 civil rights bill \(and any further wage for farm workers, against . against. He is a tory Texas Democrat, all right. On foreign policy until recently Carr was merely a me-‘tooer; whatever Johnson says about Vietnam is OK with Carr. But recently Oarr has said that if the Joint Chiefs of Staff want to use atomic bombs in Vietnam, that, too, is all right with him. How a politician could get any worse than this on Vietnam escapes us. Tower is no dove; he is a hawk. In 1961 he spoke longingly of preventive war. He seems to have given that up, but he is still reluctant to discuss the wild idea that the U.S. should bomb China’s nuclear installations with nuclear weapons. In Corpus Christi earlier this year he said he didn’t think it would be wise to resort to nuclear weapons as to Vietnam “currently” and “under present circumstances,” but he added: “I am not saying they couldn’t be used in the future if necessary.” Given Carr’s statement about atomic bombing in Vietnam to play with, Tower says now that he is now against the use of atomic bombs in the conflict, but Tower would favor our initial use of tactical nuclear weapons in certain circumstances, such as \(we may Soviet invasion of Europe. Tower does give a healthy attention to the possibility ‘the likelihood of nuclear retaliation, and he THE COVER The cover, a photograph of two of the South Texas marchers seated at the Capitol steps on Labor Day, was taken by Shel Hershorn of Dallas. THE TEXAS OBSERVER Texas Observer Co., Ltd. 1966 A Journal of Free Voices A Window to the South 60th YEAR ESTABLISHED 1906 Vol. 58, No. 17 7eqtk’ September 16, 1966